The article is focused on the lexical and semantic analysis of electric power engineering professionalisms and professional jargons. The structural and functional features of this layer of vocabulary in the researched system of terms are studied.
While researching the highly specialized terminology system modern terminology separates terminological and professional vocabulary. These layers of special vocabulary have different spheres of usage in professional communication. Terms are mostly used in scientific and popular scientific speeches and professionalism are the substitutes of the particular terms of the industrial and technical level. The most common features of terminology and professional vocabulary are: specialization of value and formation on this basis of specific lexical and semantic systems, limitation of the number of vocabulary users and sphere of usage.
Unlike terms the professionalisms have inexpressive scientific definition and do not create an integral system. The terms are mostly abstract notions and professionalisms are specific notions, as subjects, actions and qualities that are directly related to the sphere of the appropriate profession are differentiated in detail.
Professionalisms belong to the special vocabulary. They are not included into terminological dictionaries, because they are used mainly in the oral and spoken language of specialists in the certain sphere. If the terms may be known to people who are not closely related to a particular professional field, then the value of professionalisms is clear only to the experts as professionalisms have a specific sphere of usage and they appear in professional communication as a secondary form of expression.
The first source of formation of electric power engineering professionalisms and jargons is a semantic duplication of existing lexical units that are not transformed: компресорна, море and etc. It is detected, that certain electric power engineering professional jargons of semantic origin from Russian language is calked. For example, the variety of connecting components such as “папка / мамка” is nominated, where the lexeme “папка” is borrowed from the Russian language.
The creation and usage of different types of abbreviated lexemes is the second source of electric power engineering professionalisms and jargons enlargement. Their appearance is closely related to the productivity of the syntactic method of term formation in the electric power engineering term system. Abbreviate terms in professional areas of communication are very convenient, so they are actively used by specialists in the electric power engineering industry. They often are changed into professionalisms and professional jargons. For example, instead of inconvenient for pronouncing initial indeclinable abbreviations more convenient analogs are used e.i. abbreviation АП (automatic selector) sounds like “апешка”; the phrase “піти на врушку / зрушку” combines professionalisms and professional jargons and it is used to denote the process of visiting the opened or closed distribution installation (ВРУ or ЗРУ); КБФ (capacitor filter battery) in language of electric power engineering specialists sounds like – “кабефешка”; РП (capacity controller) accordingly means “ерпешка” etc.
The second variety of abbreviation is one-component professional term that includes the combinations of words instead of terms. Thus, “опорники” in expert language means resisting insulators, and “оливник” means oily insulator etc.
Investigating the use of electric power engineering professionalisms and professional jargons in the professional speech of electric power engineering specialists, we found out that the general principles of the structure of literary language influence the studied terminology as a subsystem of scientific and technical terminology. Professionalisms and professional jargons in electric power engineering appear as conversational informal substitutes of existing terms in this field for simplification of professional communication. They differ in structure from the basic terms, structurally compact and have their own grammatical attributes. Lexical variation of professionalisms and professional jargons does not complicate the scientific terminology because it oversteps its limits. Lexical variation is becoming a natural linguistic process that connects functioning of the various genres of scientific communication. Meanings of professionalisms and professional jargons are based on the context, and if they don’t change the standards of the literary Ukrainian language, it can be included into the common language explanatory dictionaries.