Online terminological glossaries may play a key role in translating and disseminating
terms in multiple languages, especially in those highly specialized domains where
no other terminological sources are available. The influence of English as a lingua
franca is undeniable in the process of shaping target language terminologies. The
purpose of this paper is to explore types of secondary term formation and the related
translation procedures as reflected in specialized online glossaries in the domain
of start-up companies to find out whether they are universal or language-specific.
The study investigates 28 online glossaries in five languages with a total of 1,566
terms. It is hypothesised that contact-based term formation with a considerable influence
of English is significantly more frequent than interpretative term formation with
little or no such influence. It is also proposed that among the translation procedures
transference is of the highest occurrence. According to the third hypothesis, languages
differ in their preference for various translation procedures. Statistical tests have
confirmed all three hypotheses. In addition, our findings also shed light on the lexical
gaps in the target languages under investigation.
