The Alphabetic Abbreviation Process in Persian Scientific Texts

Abstract

Abbreviating has a long history. Lots of new services and products are distributed inthe markets daily due to the wide use of languages all over the world. Certainly, labeling these services and merchandise is quitean interesting subject in the domain of language.Moreover, regarding the increasing number of organizations and developments in science and technology, the need for accelerating the process of communication especially linguistic communication is a must. This study examines the process of alphabetic abbreviation and the extent of its application in some Persian scientific journals.The research data were gathered fromThe Pulse of Economy, Air Industry and Future Trademagazines and were analyzed by the analytical research method. Among the mentioned magazines, the Air Industry had the highest number of alphabetic abbreviations; Future Trade was in the second place and The Pulse of Economy was the third in rank. In this article, the use of alphabetic abbreviation was analyzed in Persian and English languages separately and it was determined that 99 percent of abbreviated words were used in English scientific journals whereas in Persian journals this number was only 1 percent. This indicates the high role of borrowing in Persian texts. An explanation for the higher use of abbreviated elements is the scientific genre, which indicates that message transmission in the least possible time period is the main characteristic of any human communication, especially scientific communication.