While researchers use a lot of space in their articles
for defining terms, generic scientific terms are often
used without definition. The terms ‘theory’, ‘hypothesis’, ‘method’, and ‘model’,
for example, are assumed to be self-explanatory and their meaning is only rarely
defined in research articles. The use of these terms in scientific discourse, however,
is not without ambiguity. I investigated the different factors that may affect choices
among generic scientific terms in the field of linguistics, applying a mixed-methods
approach. In the first stage, a study was conducted based on 23 responses by Finnish
linguists to a questionnaire concerning
differences between these terms (Luodonpää-Manni 2013). The second stage, presented
here, consisted of applying the results of the previous study to an authentic research
article corpus, consisting of sixty linguistic articles written in Finnish. The type of sequential strategy adopted allows
us to uncover the factors affecting choices among generic scientific terms according
to hermeneutic principles, in relation to concepts considered meaningful by researchers
themselves. The findings suggest that the choice between generic scientific terms
is influenced by a number of conceptual and stylistic factors, ranging from different
epistemic traditions to stylistic creativity.