Technical Terminology in Standard Terms and Conditions of Sale: A Corpus-Based Study of High Frequency Nouns and their Collocations

• Main Author: Nataša Gajšt
• Format: Article
• Language: deu
• Published: Slovensko društvo učiteljev tujega strokovnega jezika (SDUTSJ) 2015-11-01
• Series: Scripta Manent
• Online Access: http://scriptamanent.sdutsj.edus.si/ScriptaManent/article/view/100

Technical terminology, which comprises individual words and various kinds of more or less fixed word partnerships, constitutes an important part of professional discourse. A good command of domain specific collocations adds to the proficiency in specialist communication in any domain, including commerce. The aim of this paper is to present the findings of a corpus-based study of the most common collocations of 16 high-frequency nouns in ‘standard terms and conditions of sale’ as authentic, commerce-related documents. Our research shows that the most frequent nouns form a substantial number of significant collocations which can be considered technical terminology in the field of commerce. In turn, these findings can be used as the basis for designing teaching syllabi and teaching materials for courses in English for commerce and trade.