DIFFERENTIATION OF THE MEANINGS OF UKRAINIAN TERMS IN CONTEMPORARY SCIENTIFIC DISCOURSE

Abstract

The article examines the problem of differentiating the meanings of Ukrainian terms in contemporary scientific discourse, which is shaped by intensive interdisciplinary interaction and the active renewal of sectoral terminological systems. It is emphasized that although effective professional communication requires a term to meet the criteria of semantic unambiguity, systematicity, and definitional clarity, these requirements are often violated in actual scholarly and professional practice. The study is based on the terminology of journalism studies, a field that is actively developing at the intersection of linguistics, social communications, and digital technologies and demonstrates a high degree of semantic inconsistency. The aim of the article is to analyze the problems of meaning differentiation in the terminology of convergent journalism and to develop approaches to its systematization. The research material comprises terms attested in terminographic sources as well as in scholarly, educational, and professional texts. The study employs semasiological and onomasiological approaches, the method of component analysis, and elements of expert evaluation. The analysis shows that such terms as convergence, cross-media, multimedia, text, media text, content, media content, and others are characterized by blurred semantic boundaries and divergent interpretations in academic discourse. On the basis of component analysis, the semantic structure of selected terminological units is modeled and hierarchical relationships between them are established. The problem of differentiating term meanings is objective in nature, as new concepts and the terms that denote them undergo a period of stabilization and clarification of both content and form. In this regard, the necessity of developing algorithms for distinguishing term meanings and constructing precise definitions is substantiated. It is also noted that the problem is complicated by the fact that a significant part of contemporary journalistic terminology consists of borrowings, which results in variability of translation, adaptation strategies, and interpretation. Both native and borrowed terms therefore require coordination and clear differentiation within existing interdisciplinary and domainspecific terminological systems. A working algorithm for differentiating term meanings is proposed, which can be applied in the process of standardizing Ukrainian scientific and professional language.