Abstract
<jats:p>The aim of the study is to identify the social and technological determinants of semantic modifications in the English and Russian professional lexis of fine antique furniture restoration. The article categorizes the LSP (Language for Specific Purposes) of antique furniture restoration, considers the main indicators of semantic modifications, and describes the dependence of their directions on the type of a determinant. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the contrastive diachronic description of semantic modifications of special units with due regard to the genre- and register-based organization of professional communication, the degree of codification of units, and the conditions of their interlingual correspondence. The findings show that social determinants are manifested mainly in the pragmatic and evaluative interpretation of special units and in their genre- and register-based distribution, whereas technological determinants are more often associated with the specification of the scope of meaning, the place of a unit in the conceptual hierarchy, and the conditions of interlingual correspondence. This made it possible to identify the main zones of English-Russian asymmetry in the semantics and use of special units.</jats:p>