LEXICAL-SEMANTIC APPROACHES OF MEDICAL TERMS: POLYSEMY, SYNONYMY

The aim of this paper is to make a projection of the Romanian medical terminological system on the overall plane of language vocabulary and determine the interferences that occur within "interstylistic" projections, namely, within the relations between medical terms belonging to specialized languages and popular medical terms compared to their lexical correlatives from other stylistic registers (pharmaceutical, dentistry language, etc.). A special attention is given to lexical polysemy and synonymy, semasiological categories less analysed within medical terminology. In terms of its context updating, synonymy has some functional features, especially where it concerns speakers who do not have the same degree of perception related to medical terminology. Synonyms and synonym doublets within medical language do not raise any problems regarding the perception of these lexical and semantic categories to specialists in the field or to speakers who are equally competent in medical terminology, synonymy being in this case bilateral at context level.