Abstract
This article maps the philosophical and linguistic development of terminology studies as a relatively new discipline, on the one hand from objective realism to interpretive hermeneutics, and on the other from system (with a focus on regulatory intervention) to use (with a focus on understanding variation in text). It synthesises and analyses trends which can be traced in seminal works of various orientations over a key decade of development around the end of the 20th century, marking a significant theoretical ‘turn’ in terminology studies of significance for the study of specialist translation in particular and opening up a decision space for the translator in which intratextual, interlingual and systemic relations must be cognitively weighed. Through this analysis, the justification for the rejection of specialist translation as a term substitution exercise becomes clear.