The life, development and death of economy-specifc elements

Abstract

Over time, culture-, history- and economy-specific elements and terminology of technical languages change, they are modified, transformed or even become extinct. We would like to look at this phenomenon in the context of the revised textbook "Foreign Trade in Portuguese", published by the College of Foreign Trade, the legal successor of the Budapest University of Economy (BGE). According to Kinga Klaudy, the specific elements of social, industrial and commercial lives (e.g. those of firms, banking institutions, currencies, legal systems) become history-specific elements (e.g. currencies: lira, mark, etc.) as history evolves. If we look at international industry, banking and trade, we can only speak of these specific elements in a broader sense, since globalisation is supranational, and one of the important characteristics of such specific elements in a narrower sense is that they have national identity. Taking into account their international life, Kinga Klaudy calls them terminologised specific elements.

The Portuguese Foreign Trade Linguistic Dictionary has been updated since 2022. The previous edition, a college edition, was produced in 1993, so it is absolutely necessary to update, revise, maintain, modify or discard the (terminologised) specific elements taking into account political and historical changes that have occurred in the meantime. This article will examine how these history- and economy-specific elements have evolved and discuss general issues related to history-specific elements.