Variation in psychopathological terminology

Representing specialized knowledge in the medical domain implies considering the dynamism of scientific and technological progress. The advancement of knowledge on diseases goes hand in hand with the reconceptualization processes undertaken by experts with consequent conceptual evolutions and possible variations of the terms used to designate medical concepts. Sometimes term variation is the result of a desire to avoid or overcome negative connotations anchored in medical terms, and leads to the creation of less evaluatively charged terms that carry a diminished ideological load. This study illustrates the case of Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD), a relatively under-/misdiagnosed medical condition which has been the object of multiple reconceptualizations by experts. We focus on the analysis of the conceptual evolution of BDD and the consequent variation occurring at the linguistic level. We adopt the theoretical assumption that terminology has a double dimension – conceptual and linguistic. Following on this assumption, the terminologist must examine both the experts’ conceptualizations of a given domain and the discourses produced by them in order to effectively represent the specialized knowledge of a specific subject field. To complete the analysis, we present how information about BDD is disseminated to non-experts through the analysis of a corpus of mass-media articles.