The long past and short history of the vocabulary of anglophone psychology

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12461542
AutoresJohn G Benjafield (0000-0001-8393-4551, Brock University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2011
Volumen15
Número1
Páginas50-71
Fecha de publicación2011-05-31
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaHistory of Psychology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1093-4510 • E-ISSN: 1939-0610
EditorialAmerican Psychological Association (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1037/a0023386
PMID22530378
OpenAlexW2018196975
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas10
Referencias citadas44

How do particular words come to be part of the vocabulary of Anglophone psychology? The present study sampled 600 words with psychological senses from the Oxford English Dictionary, which not only gives the number of senses for each word but also the date and author for the earliest known occurrence of each sense. Analogous information for the same words was taken from PsycINFO. One can distinguish between words for which their psychological sense is the first to occur in the history of the written language (primary psychological words) and words for which their psychological sense only emerges after one or more other senses have become established in the written language (secondary psychological words). To use a distinction made famous by Ebbinghaus, secondary psychological words have both a past and a history in psychology, while primary psychological words only have a history. Secondary psychological words have more connections to other words and occur more frequently in PsycINFO than do primary psychological words. For secondary psychological words, it is possible to trace a process of metaphoric polysemy that provides a basis for the eventual occurrence of the psychological sense of a word. Some primary psychological words are now developing secondary, nonpsychological senses, showing that they are subject to the same metaphoric process as are any other words

Cognitive psychology · History of psychology · Linguistics · Polysemy · Psychological research · PsycINFO · Subject (documents · Vocabulary · Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology · Computer Science · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Psychology · Social Psychology · Social Representations and Identity