The Development and Migration of Concepts from Donor to Borrower Disciplines: Sublanguage Term Use in Hard & Soft Sciences

Abstract

Academic disciplines, often divided into hard and soft sciences, may be understood as "donor disciplines" if they produce more concepts than they borrow from other disciplines, or "borrower disciplines" if they import more than they originate. Terms used to describe these concepts can be used to distinguish between hard and soft, donor and borrower, as well as individual discipline-specific sublanguages. Using term frequencies, the birth, growth, death, and migration of concepts and their associated terms are examined.