18 and 19 September 2015 Zagreb, Croatia 212 The Importance of Specialized Knowledge in the Meaning Construction of Noun-Noun Compounds Ivana ŠPIRANEC 1 1 University of Applied Sciences Zagreb, Croatia A b strac t– Sim ila r to g e ne ra l Eng lish la ng ua g e in whic h no un- no un c o m po unds a re c o nside re d the m o st pro duc tive wo rd- fo rm a tio n pro c e ss the y a re a lso use d e xte nsive ly to na m e ne w e ntitie s in Eng lish spe c ia lize d disc o urse . No m ina l c o m po unds a ppe a r m o re o fte n in sc ie ntific te xts whe n c o m pa re d to o the r va rie tie s, a nd thus it m a y b e sa id tha t the y a re a distinc tive fe a ture o f writte n spe c ia lize d disc o urse . This pa pe r will pro vide so m e e xa m ple s o f te rm ino lo g ic a l no un- no un c o m po unds fro m the fie ld o f c ivil e ng ine e ring in o rde r to po int to the im po rta nc e o f spe c ia lize d kno wle dg e in the m e a ning c o nstruc tio n o f te rm ino lo g y. In a dditio n, the e xa m ple s will sho w tha t we c o nc e ptua lise ne w te c hnic a l e ntitie s b y m e a ns o f tho se e xtra ling uistic e ntitie s tha t are of relevance to us. In other words, in order to decode the meaning of a terminological compound one should possess the appropriate specialized and encyclopaedic knowledge. Inde x Te rms– c ivil e ng ine e ring , spe c ia lize d kno wle dg e , te rm ino lo g ic a l no un- no un c o m po unds INTRODUCTION Similar to general English language in which noun-noun compounds are considered the most productive word-formation process [1, 2, 3], they are also used extensively to name new entities in English specialized discourse. In his classification of technical vocabulary, Trimble [4] lists down three major categories: technical vocabulary, sub-technical or academic vocabulary, and nominal compounds. Furthermore, he emphasizes the role of teaching nominal compounds and academic vocabulary in ESP. Quirk [5: 1351] claims that nominal compounds appear more often in scientific texts 1 when compared to other varieties, and thus it may be said that they are a distinctive feature of written specialized discourse. On one hand, there are numerous studies that deal with nominal compounds in general language, whereas on the other there is a lack research on terminological compounds 2 [6, 7, 8, 9]. Due to their limitless semantic potential on one side, and specific structure with no elements of syntactic reference on the other, nominal compounds may be problematic to decode for second language users because of their insufficient language competence, and for ESP practitioners because of their insufficient specialized knowledge. That was proven in research conducted by Williams [10] which revealed that even though second language learners possessed intermediate and advanced level of English language competence, they were not able to decode the meaning of nominal compounds as correctly as native speakers. Research on nominal compounds in technical English also revealed that ambiguity may arise in their interpretation due to different syntactic and semantic relations that may be established between the components which is why extralinguistic knowledge and context play a crucial role in their decoding [8]. This paper will provide some examples 3 of noun-noun compounds from the field of civil engineering in order to point to the importance of specialized knowledge in the meaning 1 Salager [7: 42] claims that the more specialized the text, the more frequent are nominal compounds. 2 In Croatian literature, there are doctoral theses that deal with terminological nominal compounds, for instance Špiranec [13] analyzes interaction of encyclopaedic and specialized knowledge in the meaning construction of English noun-noun compounds in the field of civil engineering, whereas Kereković [14] applies a prescriptive traditional approach in her English-Croatian contrastive analysis of multi-word lexical units in the field of mechanical engineering. 3 Examples that are provided are taken from the doctoral disertation on terminological nominal compounds in English language [13].