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The Language of Stock Exchange Transactions. Trends in English and Romanian
Trends (in English and Romanian) – Impossible Synonimy
Asist. univ. drd. Teodora GHIVIRIGĂ
Universitatea „Al. I . Cuza” din Iaşi
The economic and political changes following 1989 involved the effort of tuning in to world
and European institutions and practices; this required a considerable linguistic effort to (re)create
terminologies in fields where the communist regime had prevented or discouraged any development
– such as Psychology or Economics. The terminology of the various branches of the economic
scineces have had uneven developments: while some – such as Economics continued to expand
previous sets of terms, others had to radically restructure their terminology due to mutations in the
field / practice. At the crossroads between scientific and technical terminology, the language of the
stock-exchange is peculiar in English in that it displays a feature that is considered uncharacteristic
of terminologies: synonymy. While the premise of any terminology is, in Wüster’s words, the
univocal relation between the concept and the term, synonymy may accidentally occur (synonymic
pairs, quasi-synonyms). In the language of the stock-exchange transactions, however, large
synonymic series appear, consisting of motion verbs describing trends (according to one study,
more than 60 denoting an ascending movement and more than 40 denoting a descending movement
of prices) in texts describing the evolution of prices or in stock-exchange reports. The present paper
is an attempt to analyse quantitatively and semantically whether the range of such verbs (motion
verbs mainly) in English and Romanian texts is comparable, in an attempt to assess and account
for possible discrepancies.
Preliminaries
The economic and political changes in Romania following 1989 involved the effort of
tuning in to world and European institutions and practices; this required a considerable linguistic
effort to (re)create terminologies in fields where the communist regime had prevented or
discouraged any development – such as Psychology or Economics. The terminology of the various
branches Economics have had uneven developments: while some – such as Political Economics
continued to expand pre-1945 sets of terms, others had to radically restructure their terminology due
to mutations in the field/practice – one such example is the language of stock-exchange
transactions.
The ideal of any terminology is the univocal relation between the concept and its
designation, which ensures the accuracy and unambiguity that are necessary for the communication
of ideas and/or for the achieving the practical ends to which ideas and theories are meant to be
applied. Although personal / subjective attitudes & beliefs and a certain degree of expresiveness
directed at persuasion may have their part in the discourse of science (as discussed with respect to
Economics, for instance, by McCloskey, 1986, 1993 or Henderson and Dudley-Evans, 1993), it is
generally agreed that, in order to be functional, the terminology in the scientific text has to be
accepted by the actors of the academic community and / or by the practitioners in the domain.
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Therefore, the presence of synonymy1 in terminology has been overlooked, regarded as merely
accidental, a flaw to be considered and, if possible, corrected, since their existence is contrary to the
quality of precision and economy characteristic to specialised languages. However, the
phenomenon has to be acknowledged and discussed, since sets of synonyms have been identified in
various sublanguages.
The existence of synonymous terms can be put down to several factors: the various channels
and periods at which a term enters a language (the coexistence in Romanian medical terminology,
for instance of synonymical sets of both Anglo-saxon and French origin: AIDS and SIDA, to quote
only one example); the stylistical orientation of the text (Igl, 1989: 276) – whether the text is aimed
at the community of specialists, therefore it will be highly specialised, or at the general public, a
case in which, for the purpose of increased accessibility and intelligibility that are mandatory in the
process of popularization, lexical units that approximate the meaning of the term may be used; the
subjective factor of an individual’s proficiency in languages and their intimacy with the domain and
its terminology – for instance, a lack of knowledge of the mother tongue of translators advertising
products for infant care (Manea & Manea, 2006) led to pairs such as bebeluş replacing the older
sugar, raşul de scutece (< rash) replacing older terms such as erupţie sau eritem etc. Synonymous
sets (also known as pairs – dublete terminologice, Nistor, 2002:121) can be put down to
geographical varieties or different systems, such as British share-holder and American stock-holder
or to the more recent phenomenon of corporate culture, the process of differentiation – linguistic,
among other things – of similar products and services offered by companies that strive to
individualize their brand on the market. Although such factors discard the hypothesis of perfect
equivalence, perfect synonyms – though in restricted numbers – can still be found in various
sublanguages: that of Economics (and its related sciences) among others: statement-of-account ~
extract of account, buy ~ purchase, nominal value ~ face value etc.
Synonymy has been discussed in relation with various sciences / domains, as shown in the
previous section. The present paper is concerned with a restricted, clearly defined segment of a
sublanguage at the crossroads between scientific and technical terminology - Stock exchange
transactions related to the broader field of Economics – that of describing the behaviour of prices
and stocks or of, as it sometimes is also presented, trends. A remark should be made on the fact that
trends need not necessarily be restricted to the activitiy of the (financial) markets, it can be used to
present the dynamics of other related economic activities: in relation with demography referring to
the evolution of the work-force along a given period, in relation with production and productivity,
sales, market-shares etc. However, as shown by the amount of examples (especially in English), the
bulk is extracted from stock-market reports, commentaries and forecasts. The parallel examples
contains texts extracted from both virtual and hard sources. In Romanian, the selection ranges from
samples of statistics, reports and summaries of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, which are highly
repetitive and limited in lexical choice and variation, to articles from specialised e-journals or sites
(such as The Money Channel, Business Standard or bloombiz), which – due to the nature of their
message and target audience, deploy a larger number of linguistic options and greater freedom in
textual structure. Sources whose main purpose is not to transmit accurate information or specialised
commentaries – such as blogs and texts pertaining to a different register, that of advertising have,
however, been altogether eliminated. In English, where the phenomenon was first identified and
studied, the sources were richer and more various, including selections from the site of NYSE, from
the specialised British journal Financial Times (both hard and electronic versions), other specialised
sites, as well as ESP text books, both English and Romanian, where the topic is taught to a variable
extent, or at least mentioned, considering the importance attributed to the student’s ability to
describe the evolution – or trend – in various activities and to transfer / translate iconic elements
(in)to language. It should be mentioned, however, as a general and predictable feature, that in both
1
For the purpose for of this paper, that which does not intend to define or discuss the concept as such, synonymy is
used in its broader sense, of partial synonymy or “semantic similarity” and it includes periphrases.
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languages the tendency is that the more official the source of the text, the more formal the language
and the more reduced the number of synonyms.
The premise of the discussion is that the type of relation between these units is that of
(partial) synonymy or „semantic similarity” and the analysis will identify elements of structural and
semantic similarity as well differences: semantic classes (verbs of activity vs. state verbs ). Lexical
synonymy of the type presented in the initial section of this paper is not, however, the only one
possible. The economic discourse, as that of most exact sciences, displays synonymy at the level of
the codes used: such mixed syntax is considered as one of the distinguishing features of scientific
discourse. Symbols (mathematical), graphs, charts and other such iconic elements can be
”translated” using the linguistic code – or the codes of the natural languages: this suggests an
equivalence encoded by the author that is decoded accordingly by the receiver of the message,
provided the conventions are known / accepted by both. It should be said at this point that all units
describing an upward trend / movement, and downward, respectively, are iconically represented by
means of either a set of symbols ( arrows pointing upward and downward respectively), or by
mathematical symbols (+ for an ascending trend and – for a descending trend respectively) or by
means of a colour code (green standing for a positive evolution and red for a negative one)2.
Therefore, they can be considered equivalents (synonymical) from a functional point of view.
Discussion
There are two points to make here, which will be discused in turn. One is that the linguistic
units presented above belong to two different semantic classes: the largest group belongs to the
class of motion verbs, a group whose syntactic behaviour can be predicted by its semantic
configuration / meaning (Levin, 1993 English Verb Classes and Alternations). According to
classifications, the event type that is expressed by the change of location / position can be described
in terms of path, source and goal. Motion can be generally characterized as having a starting point
and an ending point, an origin (source) and a destination (goal), and consequently presupposes an
understanding of both time and space (Cehan, 2000:175). The semantic structure of the motion
verb consists basically of two parts: one indicating movement in the most general sense – the
prototype is GO; another subordinate one made up of certain components specifying the distinctive
features of the movement. The subordinate element may be null in some cases (such as GO and
COME), while in other cases it can combine one or several of the following elements: course (turn),
speed (hurry), impetus (dash), distance (travel), manner (glide); some such elements have
prepositional realization: direction (to), passage (cross), across), direction (to), means / propellent
(ride, rocket), space (fly=> air); others duration, accompaniment, purpose, result.
Most of the members of the group quoted (English) fall under one of these categories.
According to Dixon (1991), they are primary A (motion or rest mainly) or B (relating mean,
represent) and share as distinctive features the fact that many do not take an object (are intranzitive)
and that, when used in a literal sense, take concrete nouns as heads of their subjects. When they do
not, the use of the verb can be considered to be metaphorical or viewed as ”an idiosyncratic
extension of meaning” (Dixon, 1991: 89). It is obvious from the examples provided that such verbs
are used metaphorically: as mentioned previously, their arguments are, in most cases, inanimate
abstract nouns: whether we consider such subjects as the price, the value, a certain currency such as
the Euro, the sterling or the dollar, the BET-C index, the silver or gold (not the metal itself as
concrete mass, but its economic value as commodity), or any other example from the corpus, the
The same code is also present in such idiomatic phrases as “The Nasdaq Composite has fallen back into the red in
conjunction with the tech sector” (http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/briefing/StockTicker.aspx) or „All of the major
indices are now trading in the green.” (http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/briefing/StockTicker.aspx)
2
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same holds true. A consequence of selecting abstract nouns as subjects is that the action
(movement) cannot be considered to originate in the subject (which again may be said to affect the
dynamic character); this also adds to the metaphorical interpretation, since abstract / inanimates are
seen as capable of movement.
The synonymical sets which are the material for this discussion consist of a number of
lexical units and phraseological units that can be grouped basically into three semantically related
subsets: units describing an ascending tendency, units describing a descending trend, and units that
refer to stagnation / lack of change. The units can be classified as verbs / verb phrases and nouns /
noun phrases. An extended study of this restricted domain in English has shown that there are more
than 60 denoting an ascending movement and more than 40 denoting a descending movement of
prices (Igl, 1989:278), a surprisingly large number – a total of over 100, if the units referring to
stagnation are to be included – considering the limited nature of the domain. It includes verbs such
as accelerate, bolster (up), bottom out, bounce (back), come down, climb, crash, decline, decrease,
dip, drop, ease back, edge back, escalate, fall /fall off / fall to a low, flatten out, fluctuate, gain, gap,
go down /up, grow, hold, steady, improve, inch (higher), increase, leap, levell off / out, jump, peak,
pick up, plummet, plunge, push (back), rally, reach (a low, a high, a peak, a record), remain
(constant), recover, retreat, rise, rocket, settle down, shrink, shoot up, slide, slip, slump, soar,
stabilize, stair-step, stand, stay (at the same level, steady), stagnate, strengthen, surge, take off, top
out, track, tumble, zigzag, etc. to which the following phrases are added: to hit (record) high, lead
the way down, come to an abrupt halt, see little movement / strong growth, resist a decline, gain
ground, to continue weakness, move into profit, make a good start, be up / down, to return to
positive territory, to record / mean an increase / decrease, to be a drag etc. To these, few nouns /
noun phrases can be added: growth (The largest price growth was seen in food oil), be in a
downward slope (EDX London ... moved into profit for the year with strong growth in activity),
make a very strong start (The London Stock Exchange made a very strong start to 2007), progress
(This reflects good progress on a subsequent commitment) where, however, the idea of motion is
still preserved and rendered semantically (downward, start, progress etc.). The fact that verbs or
phrases expressing an upward trend significantly outnumber those referring to the downward trend
could be accounted for by a phenomenon akin to taboo, linked to the presence of a ”sort of
superstition” that their use might “bring a curse on future economic development” resulting in “a
form of self-imposed censorship, a tacit agreement to ban those ‘dirty words’ from the language”
(Resche, 2000:264). One of the very terms to which this form of taboo applies is the verb sell (also
mentioned as the S- four-lletter word), which over a decade – from the ‘80 to the end of the ’90
moved from a ratio of one to one against buy to a surprising of 1 to 68 (according to a statistic in
The Economist in 1999) in the recommendations (to buy or sell) made by specialists to investors in
the specialised press, since “an official ‘sell’ recommendation” also risks triggering a wave of panic
among shareholders rushing to follow the advice, thus causing prices to drop further (Resche,
2000:265).
The Romanian verbs expressing movement (“verba movendi”) are a subclass of the main
category of verbs expressing action. Except this subclass, most of the others consist of transitive
verbs. The spatial dimensions have an important role: when describing certain processes or actions,
people tend to relate them to the place of the subject, to the position of the object or to any other
element involved in the development of the action expressed by the verb. This role is suggested by
the large number of verbs used to express shifting / mutation of things in space (a merge, a urca, a
zbura, a veni, a pleca, etc.), their position in relation to other objects (a se suprapune, a se înălţa,
etc.) or by the variety of prefixes used with a local meaning (a alătura, a alipi, a desprinde, a
suprapune, etc). (Evseev, 1974: 72 – 73). In the lexical system of a language, the spatial dimensions
are to be found among the main coordinates which group the words in synonyms, antonyms and
other semantic relations. e.g. synonyms: a se urca – a se căţăra – a se sui – a se cocoţa – a se ridica
– a escalada – a se înălţa; antonyms: a ieşi – a intra; a decola – a ateriza; a pleca – a veni; a se
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apropia – a se îndepărta. The exemples from the corpus belonging to this category are few: a urca
(Cel mai mult au urcat titlurile SIF Muntenia; Preţurile la producători din zona euro au urcat în
iunie până la un nivel record), a coborî (Toate cursurile valutare au reuşit să coboare sub nivelul de
la deschidere; Titlurile au coborât pe final sub preţul de referinţă), two exemples of verbs
expressing fluctuation – a oscila (Bursa a oscilat indecis3 în prima jumãtate de oră) şi a varia
(Farmaceuticele variază de asemenea cu amplitudinea unui pas de cotare) and two exemples of
verbs expressing stagnation: a stagna (Leul a stagnat în prima parte a zilei) şi a se menţine
(Valoarea de tranzacţionare s-a menţinut în apropierea rulajelor din ultima perioadă), but in this last
case the subject of the verb (valoarea) is clearly associated to the concept of value at least as
strongly as to that of (absence of) motion resulting in change of position signalled by the complex
preposition (în apropierea). To these, one more motion verb in Romania could be added, referring to
a type of movement away from the subject a se îndepărta (Euro s-a apreciat ... şi s-a îndepărtat faţă
de nivelul minim)
There is another larger subset of (Romanian) verbs, however, that do not include any of the
elements present in the classification above and we can, therefore, consider that they are not related
semantically to this group: a creşte, a (se) aprecia / deprecia, a marca / a înregistra / a indica / a
avea o apreciere / depreciere, a creşte / a scădea, a se constata o creştere / scădere, a deschide / a
închide pe creştere / scăderem, a recupera o pierdere, a pierde, a deschide cu / a păstra / a avea un
avans. We could associate this number of instances to the idea of value and / or quantity, the change
referring not to (change of ) location / position (as with motion verbs), but rather to value and / or
quantity. Romanian grammarians place them in a category different from that of action verbs, to
which motion verbs belong; they are related to state verbs and verbs of becoming (Evseev, 1974:94)
(Irimia, 1887:158). There are some other examples of verbs / verbal collocations referring to value /
quantity are: a recupera (Indicele societăţilor de investiţii a recuperat mai bine de un procent), a-şi
diminua câştigul (SIF Transilvania a fost singura societate de investiţii care şi-a diminuat câştigul
luna trecută). I propose, therefore, that these verbs are not connected with the concept of activity /
motion and their dynamic character indicating movement is absent. A remark could be made that in
the case of the latter: with semantic mutations of the metaphorical / metonymic type, changes may
occur especially at the level of voice, but also with the development of new syntactic relations, wiht
respect to transitivity (Irimia, 1998:159). Instances when a motion verb is used transitively are most
infrequent (the few existing ones may possibly reveal the influence of foreign models – English
mainly): a sălta [cotaţia] (Rezultatele financiare anunţate de bancă au săltat cotaţia... cu peste 2%)
sau a prăbuşi [acţiunile] (Rezultatele dezamăgitoare ...au prăbuşit acţiunile cu peste 9%). In contrast
to English, in the Romanian texts there is also a marked preference for nominal forms (Infinitivul
lung), while in the English the verb is the more frequent by far.
Conclusion
In analysing the two sets of examples (English and Romanian), several differences have
been identified: the preference for intransitive motion verbs belonging to a large synonymic series
favoured over any other type of verb, in cotrast with the Romanian preference for phrases
containing the nominal form of the verb, with very few instances of motion verbs, while state and
process verbs referring to value and quantity are more frequent. The obvious preference for motion
verbs (used metaphorically) in the English texts – could be related to the way an abstract domain
can be mapped through the use of metaphors. Following Lakoff and Johnson’s theory of Cognitive
Semantics, several studies and articles (Boers & Demecheleer, 1997, Resche, 1999, Varó, 2000,
Kermas, 2006, Iulia-Corina Dobrotă, 2006) have identified various metaphors at work in the
language of business and economics. Boers & Demecheleer (1997, A Few Metaphorical Models in
(Western) Economic Discourse), for instance, identify the following conceptual metaphors
3
...and we could also ignore the pleonasm, considering that style is not the topic of this paper...
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„economics is a tool, a path”, ”competition (in business) is a race” (British economy was lagging
behind); ”competition is a fight / war” (the British car industry was not able to fight their Japanese
competitors); Dobrotă (Probleme ale metaforei în discursul economic, 2006) also suggests the
metaphor ”economy is a ship” etc. The various metaphors may not necessarily be related to
universal human experiences. They may be culturally oriented, as different communities may
express the same experience in different schemata. Relating this to the English and Romanian
material presented so far, it appears that while the English conceptual metaphor „economy is a
path” relies heavily on the up-down axis, with referrences mainly to the manner of movement
semantically encoded in the verb, as obviated by a large set of synonymical motion verbs, economic
activity being a continual change implying movement, the Romanian set of lexical units favours the
conceptualization of the economic activity as less dynamic, seen in terms of gain / loss and in terms
of a change in quantity rather than in position, expressed by a more limited set of verbs of relation
and development and comparatively very few verbs of motion, revealing an instance of
interlinguistic asymmetry. The question that arises is to what extent the way economists talk about
the reality, these image schemas bear on the economic activity in Romania vs. the Anglo-Saxon
world and whether economic performance may be estimated or predicted from the choice of
vocabulary specialists decide to use in describing economic activities.
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