THESAURUS MODELLING OF FINANCIAL TERMINOLOGY IN GERMAN

Abstract

This study presents a systematic approach to thesaurus modelling of the terminological system of the subject area 'Finance' in the German language, drawing on terminological vocabulary extracted from the headlines and subheadings of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (2020–2025). From a corpus of 5,000 lexical units, 3,200 unique finance-related terms were identified and subjected to comprehensive structural-semantic analysis. A hierarchical network model proved most effective for structuring the finance term field. Applying this method, the subject area 'Finance' was divided into 15 thematic fields, including Financial Market, Financial Instruments, Capital, Banks, Stock Exchanges, Trade, Budget and Fiscal Policy, Investments, European and International Funds, Money, Services, Social Benefits, Economic Sciences and Research, the European Community, and Miscellaneous Terms. Each field was further subdivided into micro-fields of the first, second, third, and up to the seventh order, producing a detailed hierarchical classification of financial terminology. The research resulted in the development of a codified alphabetical list of German finance terms, which constitutes the basis for a structured thesaurus of the subject area 'Finance'. This thesaurus enables users to navigate the terminological system by establishing semantic relationships between terms and facilitates professional communication, lexicographic work, and foreign language instruction in specialized domains. The findings contribute to a broader understanding of the principles of terminology organization and offer a replicable methodological framework for the thesaurus modelling of other specialized subject areas