Creating terms in the cybersecurity domain: Proposals by different user groups

Abstract

This paper continues the presentation of findings from the sociolinguistic terminological study, based on a survey on Lithuanian synonymous cybersecurity terms, the first part of which was reported in Rackevičienė and Utka (2024). The survey, involving 593 respondents from various age groups, professional fields and levels of expertise, asked participants to identify the most suitable terms for ten cybersecurity concepts. Respondents could either select terms from the pre-selected synonymous term lists or propose their own terms in open-entry slots, providing justifications for their choices. While the previous article analysed categorical data from pre-selected lists, the current article focuses on the textual data from open-entry slots where participants provided their own proposals. The analysis involves multiple stages: first, a quantitative descriptive analysis of the distribution of proposals across respondent groups and concepts; second, classification of proposals into formation patterns based on linguistic nomination principles, followed by quantitative analysis of their proportions and distributions across respondent groups; and third, a qualitative interpretive analysis of formation tendencies within each pattern. The findings reveal formation patterns and sociolinguistic differences in term-creation processes, highlight the creative potential of Lithuanian language users, and underscore the importance of incorporating their input into the development of Lithuanian terminology, particularly in rapidly evolving domains such as cybersecurity.