Computer terminology in the Arabic language

The subject of this doctoral dissertation is computer terminology in the Arabic language. The terminology is analyzed using several perspectives, which are divided into four thematic sections. The first section includes an introduction on general theory of terminology, an overview of the most important terminology schools and their views, a portrait of institutions dealing with terminology in the Arab world and beyond, a description of the latest terminological activities in the Arab world and the processes of term formation used by Arabic language institutions. Additionally, a brief history of computers is presented, as well as problems related to the adjustment of this technology to the Arabic language and its script. In the second section, a corpus of computer terms in Arabic is examined. A description of their coinage is given, and they are thoroughly discussed from formal, semantic, pragmatic and sociolinguistic standpoints. The systematization of collected material is conducted on the basis of different term adequacy criteria – synonymous terms or doublets, polysemy and stylistic neutrality, economy principle in a language, international terms, term adaptation into the system of Arabic, derivation potential and transparency. When studying computer Anglicisms, special attention was paid to their graphological, phonological, phonotactical and morphological adaptation, as well as determining the status of this vocabulary in Standard Arabic. The third section of the dissertation deals with the terms in text and discourse. An inventory of terms is analyzed in various formal and informal situations. Apart from describing the use of calques and adapted Anglicisms, attention is paid to code-switching. Additionally, an analysis of some regional differences in term usage is presented. The fourth section deals with terminology data storage and its dissemination through terminology data banks, dictionaries and similar publications. The presence and availability of computer-related vocabulary in these sources is analyzed. Moreover, a dictionary of about a thousand frequently used computer terms is made. The comparison is made between this dictionary and the inventory of official dictionaries and term banks. Through the corpus-based analysis of computer terms from different perspectives, it is shown that Arabic computer terminology consists of a large number of calques and some Anglicisms. Also, it is pointed out that a large number of terms has doublets, which is