Evolution of the English-language terminological system in the field of additive technologies and metal forming: a cross-domain terminological analysis

Abstract

The present article examines the ongoing terminological evolution at the intersection of two industrially significant domains – conventional metal forming and additive manufacturing (AM) – with particular focus on the mechanisms through which established lexical units are being repurposed, semantically shifted, or displaced by newly coined or proprietary designations. As hybrid production systems increasingly combine traditional metal forming operations with layer-by-layer AM processes, the terminological boundaries between these fields have become progressively unstable, generating a class of problematic lexical items whose meaning is context-dependent in ways that are rarely acknowledged in existing normative or pedagogical literature. The study identifies three primary mechanisms driving this instability: inter-field borrowing with semantic narrowing or broadening, technological repurposing of established terms, and trade-mark genericisation. Each mechanism is illustrated through detailed case analyses of terms representative of the broader phenomenon, including strain hardening / work hardening, yield point versus yield strength, and the polysemous drawing family. The analysis is grounded in a cross-domain corpus of peer-reviewed publications, international standards – principally ISO/ASTM 52900:2021 and DIN 8580 – and manufacturers` technical documentation, evaluated against the theoretical framework of terminologisation proposed by Cabré. A particular emphasis is placed on the consequences of these terminological dynamics for English-to-Ukrainian technical translation, the absence of corresponding national AM standards creates a normative vacuum that demonstrably contributes to translational inconsistency in engineering contracts, certification documents, and research publications. The article concludes with a structured set of translator-oriented recommendations and a bilingual EN-UA glossary comprising over forty terminological units organised across four thematic sections, each entry accompanied by contextual commentary designed to prevent the most commonly observed categories of cross-domain translational error.