The most frequent terms with the adjective telesni in the slovenian kinesiological terminology and their english equivalents

Abstract

In Slovenian kinesiological terminology, the adjective telesni most often appears in terms telesna vadba, telesna dejavnost, telesna pripravljenost, telesna aktivnost and telesna zmogljivost. For some of these terms it could be inferred that they are synonyms, based on their translation into English in the texts by Slovenian kinesiologists. This applies both to the terms telesna pripravljenost and telesna zmogljivost, both of which were translated as physical fitness, as well as to the terms telesna dejavnost and telesna aktivnost, which correspond to the English term physical activity. The term (telesna) vadba, mostly translated as (physical) exercise, was occasionally also translated as physical activity. We examined the semantic differences between these terms by checking the other Slovenian equivalents for the phrase physical activity and the nouns fitness and exercise in our sample of professional and scientific texts in the field of kinesiology. Among the Slovenian terms that refer to the meaning of the English term physical activity, we identified, beside telesna dejavnost, which appears to be by far the most established, and telesna aktivnost, also the terms
gibalna dejavnost and gibalna aktivnost as those that carry the same meaning and tend to be used most often. We propose that the term gibalna aktivnost (or gibalna dejavnost) should be used for this concept, for the purpose of greater terminological clarity. In the lay use of these terms in online texts, telesna aktivnost had the highest frequency and telesna dejavnost was the second most common term in the general usage, followed by fizična aktivnost, which was not used in kinesiological terminology.
In kinesiological texts, the noun fitness was translated not only as telesna pripravljenost, but also, exceptionally, as (telesni) fitnes, telesna priprava, splošna kondicijska priprava, kondicija and vzdržljivost. Regarding the synonyms telesna pripravljenost and telesna zmogljivost, we noted that the former is more widespread, in both the terminological and general usage. In the general web-used Slovenian, the phrases fizična pripravljenost, fizična kondicija and telesna kondicija are all present as common synonyms, while experts advise against using the noun kondicija and also avoid using the adjective fizični. We suggest that the term telesna zmogljivost should be used as the Slovenian equivalent of the term physical fitness, and telesna pripravljenost as the term corresponding to physical condition, based on the definition of the term telesna zmogljivost on the SLOfit website (Faculty of Sports, University of Ljubljana), which explains this concept as a combination of physical condition and body composition. In addition to translating the noun exercise as (telesna) vadba, Slovenian kinesiologists also employed the nouns napor and vaja as the equivalents of this English term. Although they translated the Slovenian noun vadba most frequently as exercise, the other terms they used as English equivalents were training, workout, practice and physical activity, while the term trening was usually translated into English as either training or training session. The terms vadba and trening are closely interconnected; trening may be considered to be a hyponym of the term vadba. It seems that this semantic distinction does not apply to the general use of these terms in online texts, where the noun trening appears more often than vadba, in contrast to the data for kinesiological terminology.