Categorising the stylistic features of technical texts within journalism opensup the border between these two functional varieties and contributes to our understanding of the formation of a new technical language, i.e. journalistic technical language. Popular-scientific texts introduce a number of terms into the journalistic functional variety that move from the technical margin into the core lexical system. Whether they remain there is dependent on how closely they are integrated into the current social situation. Often they return to their technical origins as quickly as they appeared. Terms still preserve their semantic hermeticity in spite of the number of collocates. Examples include: PCB, dioxin, chloramphenicol, gaucho. The increasing use of terminology within the language of journalism can thus be seen as the transfer of terms from their primary academic-scientific environment into another functional variety. From the natural sciences are introduced what can be referred to as terminological signs. In terms of word-formation there is a great deal of morphemic heterogeneity (e-pošta, e-naslov, e-knjiga, miniDV, DNK-tehnologija, tehnologija družine xDSL), so that the theoretical base can barely keep up with language practice. Many abbreviated terms appear. As journalistic language is subject to direct foreign influence, especially from the English-speaking world, from where new subject matter appears, there often appear current borrowings, frequently as direct quotations. All of these factors contribute to the formation of journalistic technical language. The distinction between functional varieties thus becomes less clear-cut.
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