e-Commerce Dictionary for Beginners

Once upon a time, it took years to go from apprentice to master. Today, in order to keep up with the competition, one must quickly learn the basic mechanisms of a given industry. Systematized knowledge, presented in an accessible way, can help to overcome this barrier - emphasizes Dr. Piotr Fliciński, a linguist from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, who, on behalf of the SOTE company, created the first e-commerce dictionary in Poland.

B2B, B2C, tracking code. 400 terms, one hundred pages in print, electronic version. Where did the idea of creating an e-commerce dictionary come from?

- Let's start with the fact that such a publication did not exist in Poland before. Yes, some e-commerce-related websites have short dictionaries containing five to ten terms. However, it can be assumed that their creators wanted not so much to convey knowledge, but rather to create a tool to help with website positioning.

On the other hand, there are economic books that discuss the mechanisms of e-commerce. Terms, definitions appear in them, but they have not been translated into a simple, accessible language for the average person. The recipients of this type of publication are, after all, educated economists.

The idea of creating an e-commerce dictionary in this form was born after my conversation with the co-owner of the SOTE company. It specializes in setting up and managing online stores, and Marek Jakubowicz wanted to have a publication that would help his customers run such a store. For me, due to my profession, the project was extremely attractive. I am a lexicographer, so both theoretical issues and the practice of creating dictionaries are the basis of my scientific work.

So we started to implement this idea. At first, it was necessary to recognize the unknown...

Sifting out the most important terms from the language used by the industry, compiling them, classifying them - this is probably a job that requires Benedictine patience?Indeed, the task proved to be very difficult. From a relatively large resource, it was necessary to sift out what was ephemeral, hybrid, erroneous. I searched for material in many sources. These were not book sources, lexicographical, internet dictionaries, because, as I said, they simply do not exist. So I followed various forums, analyzed entries under the appropriate threads on online store pages. I also received a lot of material from the SOTE team. Employees gave me a set of words that most often appear on the forum of their company's website. But compiling terms is only the first step. I myself did not know the meanings of many of them, I lacked competence. So I had to learn the mechanisms related to setting up and running an e-shop. Acquire knowledge, for example, from the field of computer science. For me, it may not have been too difficult - I am an linguist, but also an electronics and automation engineer by education - but certainly very tedious.

Creating a dictionary, I had in mind all the time that it had to be written in simple language. For a scientist, this is not an easy task. I am used to constructing philological dictionaries, and this one was to be characterized by practicality. I knew that the definitions should be precise, but on the other hand they should not be laconic or colloquial. After numerous discussions with Marek Jakubowicz, a text was worked out that was certainly very useful from the point of view of the dictionary recipient.

The dictionary, which should have counted 400-500 pages, was reduced to one hundred, which is very practical. An index was included in it. The dictionary also appeared in electronic version, which certainly makes it easier to use. Individual definitions will not provoke the opposition of specialists - computer scientists or economists. On the other hand, people who are not specialists, looking into the dictionary, can easily acquire knowledge that facilitates the operation of the store and pass it on. I think we have achieved the set goal.

So I would like to ask about the e-commerce language itself. How does it react to the very dynamic development of the industry?The relationship here is simple. If reality outside of language starts to develop dynamically, the language itself quickly adapts to this trend. It creates new words, borrows lexical elements from foreign languages or other environmental varieties of Polish. The more dynamic the development of a particular field, the more precise nomenclature elements it must search for. The deeper we go into it, the more hermetic it becomes, distant from the general language.

The dynamics of the changes to which the e-commerce language is subject is not constant. At the beginning, new elements must be named: phenomena, technologies, processes. Here words are borrowed, mainly directly from the English language, or from professional varieties of Polish permeated with it, which are related to trade and economics. The user reaches for such tools that are easiest to communicate with. If an entrepreneur talks to another entrepreneur, he prefers to use, for example, the term B2B, rather than talking about the entrepreneur-entrepreneur relationship. It is simply faster, especially since both know this term from economics textbooks. As for the vocabulary typical of computer science, we are mainly dealing with adaptations of English words that acquire a Polish form (for example, the ending -ing, -ingu, -ingiem in the word billing) or are literally translated. A good example here are cookies, functioning as biscuits. Interestingly, the specialist term begins to enter the range of colloquial language in this case...

By the way, many people complain about the number of English borrowings in Polish. But this is a completely natural process that has been present in the language since forever. Thanks to it, we have, for example, burmistrza. Imagine the situation that someone today protests because this is a German word...

Will there ever come a time when the current e-commerce terminology in the language will be completely Polonized? Or will English always have an advantage over Polish?My opinion is that English words will always be strongly represented in e-commerce, as it is a language widely used in fields related to the development of technology. Many of them will certainly be flexibly adapted to Polish, and the number of all kinds of abbreviations will certainly increase. This is a general trend related to striving for economy of words and simplification of language. Just think of the widely used in English-speaking countries expression 4U, which is a shorter form of for you - for you. An even better example is French, in which the pronunciation of many words significantly differs from their spelling.

You used to deal with hip-hop language. Can it be compared in any way to e-commerce language?

- From the point of view of a linguist, they are exactly the same. Both describe a certain separate reality. The only difference is that e-commerce language can be called professional, while hip-hop language is a language of subculture. The difference lies not in the mechanism, but in the reality requiring description. And in the case of e-commerce, it is more hermetic, because it is related to technology, while the language of hip-hop subculture mainly refers to music, dance, behavior, clothes or greetings. To understand what a script is, you need to acquire certain specialist knowledge. What elo, dzielnia or kwadrat mean can easily be inferred from the context. That is why, probably, an average Polish speaker will say that e-commerce language is simply more difficult.

Let's get back to the e-commerce dictionary and its practical dimension. Is it not a sign of the times that for a person starting a business, often even the most basic terms are like black magic...This is a matter of increasing specialization in various areas of life. On the other hand, the time from the moment when a person wanting to start, for example, online trading knows nothing, to the moment when he can already start such activity has significantly shortened. It used to take years to go from apprentice to master, now you have to quickly get to the level where you understand the most important mechanisms of the industry. This is a matter of huge competition. If I don't get better than others, or at least the same as them, in the shortest possible time, my venture will not bring the expected profits. Knowledge conveyed in a simple and systematic way can help to overcome this barrier...

What will be the further fate of the dictionary? Will it be supplemented, expanded?

I was so absorbed in the e-commerce dictionary that I really want to continue it. I would like to create a dictionary that would cover a larger area of both economics and computer science. It would include definitions of more encyclopedic than practical nature. But such a project cannot be successful without the help of intelligent practitioners. It is a job for a team.

Where can you get acquainted with the dictionary?

As I mentioned, it is available online on the SOTE company website. It has also been published in print form. It has reached about 20 of the most important libraries in the country, both university and municipal. So the availability of the dictionary is practically unlimited.

Related Pages

• SOTESHOP Store Price List.
• SOTESHOP Store
• Store Add-ons. Webstore.