Terminology and Translation in the Digital Age

1. Terminology and Translation in the Digital Age Chus Fernández m.j.fernandez@salford.ac.uk

2. Overview: • Definition of Terminology • Terminology and LSP • Concepts and Terms • Terminology Research • Terminology Management • Applications of Terminology • The Importance of Terminology

3. What is Terminology? • A theoretical applied linguistics discipline concerned with the study of concepts and terms and their relationships within special languages (LSP). “A theory of terminology is (…) primarily concerned with a referential system which relates knowledge structures to lexical structure and defines the constituent elements of each type of structure.” (Sager 1990: 14) Terminology science studies the structure, formation, development, usage and management of terminologies in various subject fields (ISO 1087-1:2000:10)

4. What is Terminology? • A professional activity, “i.e. the set of practices and methods used for the collection, description and presentation of terms”. (Sager 1990: 3) [= terminography] 3. A collection of terms that represent the conceptual system in a domainor field of knowledge, e.g. legal terminology. “aset of designations belonging to one special language”(ISO 1087-1/2000:10).

5. Terminology and LSP “Terminology can only be understood in relation to special languages…, and addresses a variety of purposes, all of which are related to communication and information”. (Cabré, 1999: 11) Terminology is therefore linked to Language for Special Purposes (LSP) “a formalized and codified variety of language, used for special purposes … with the function of communicating information of a specialist nature at any level, … with the aim of informing or initiating other interested parties, in the most economic, precise, and unambiguous terms possible” (Picht & Draskau 1985: 3).

6. LSP texts Texts belonging to a special language tend to have particular characteristics. • Technical or scientific subject matter • High density of terms that carry specialised content or knowledge. • Their intended readers are other specialists or incipient experts. • Informative texts, objective and concise. • Written in formal style. • Highly structured, usually including graphs, tables, etc. • Lexical restrictions: collocations/phraseology. • Tendency to use certain grammatical constructions (text-type dependent): eg imperative, passive voice. • Tendency to use long strings of nouns or adjective-nouns

7. LSP TEXT Polymer-based nanocapsules for drug delivery A review of the state of knowledge on nanocapsules prepared from preformed Polymers as active substancescarriers is presented. This entails a general review of the different preparation methods: nanoprecipitation, emulsion–diffusion, double emulsification, emulsion-coacervation, polymer-coating and layer-by-layer, from The point of view of the methodological and mechanistic aspects involved, Encapsulation of the active substance and the raw materials used. Similarly, a comparative analysis is given of the size, zeta-potential, dispersion pH, shell thickness, encapsulation efficiency, active substancerelease, stability and in vivo and in vitro pharmacological performances, using as basis the data reported in the different research works published. Consequently, the information obtained allows establishing criteria for selecting a method for preparation of nanocapsules according to its advantages, limitations and behaviours as a drug carrier. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378517309007273

8. Terminology/Terminography Practical terminology or Terminography focuses on the collection, description, processing and presentation of terms which belong to LSPs in one or more languages (Sager 1990). ISO 1087 defines terminology work as: Any activity concerned with the systematization and representation of concepts or with the presentation of terminologies on the basis of established principles and methods. The part of terminology which deals with the production of terminological dictionaries, glossaries, thesaurus, terminological databases, etc. (Bergenholtz&Tarp 1995:10)

9. Terminology and Lexicography Terminology/graphy • Concerned with LSP. • Onomasiological (naming) approach which starts with the concept and records a term to denote the concept. • No connotations are usually attached to terms, but there may be issues with register. Lexicography • Concerned with LGP. • Semasiological (meaning) approach which starts with the word and describes its meaning. • Records all senses, subsenses, connotations and usage . 

10. Objectives of Terminology The practical objectives of Terminology according to Sager (1990: 7) are: “to achieve greater unity, consistency and clarity of expression in special communication”. In order to do this, terminologists “subject language to processes of regularisation, unification and standardisation” (ibid:6).

11. The basics of terminology To understand the basic notions of terminology, we can refer to the Semiotic triangle, as proposed by the American linguists Ogden and Richards in 1923.

12. The elements of the semiotic triangle can be defined as follows:Concept: "A unit of thought constituted through abstraction on the basis of properties common to a set of objects". [ISO 5963:1985] Object (ISO 1087-1/2000:2)“anything that can be perceivable or conceivable”Objects can be material (e.g. a hammer, a dog), immaterial (speed, pain) or imagined (e.g. an extra terrestrial being). Term: "Designation of a defined concept in a special language by a linguistic expression." [ISO 1087]http://ifk-kurse.fh-flensburg.de/ecolotrain/index.php?id=2525&L=1

13. What is a concept? Concepts in special languages are units of specialised knowledge with a unique set of characteristics (qualities, properties and relationships). The concept of "hammer", represented by the term "hammer", does not refer to a specific hammer, but more to a general idea, perception or understanding of all objects that have certain characteristics in common – such as being "a handtool consisting of a handle with a head of metal or other heavy rigid material" commonly used for striking or pounding – and therefore can be classified under the concept "hammer". http://ecolotrain.uni-saarland.de/index.php?id=1808&L=1

14. What is a concept? Concepts are not necessarily bound to any particular language. However, they can be influenced by the social or cultural background and this often leads to different categorizations, for example the concept of “bread” would be pictured and defined differently by people from different cultures. They are also influenced by the research and development in certain domains in certain countries: pharmaceuticals is UK and USA.

15. Types of concepts Entities – derived from material or abstract objects (nouns): nanocapsule Activities – processes, actions, operations (verbs/nouns) segment (to segment a market) Qualities – properties {of entities} (adjectives/nouns) polymer-based adj. (polymer-based nanocapsule) Relations – between concepts (verbs/adjectives/nouns) (Sager 1990:26) Occasionally adverbs: unreasonably (to behave unreasonably)

16. Types of concepts Individual concept: when it relates to only one object. Examples: Barak Obama, Earth General concept: when it relates to more than one object that have common properties. Examples: president, planet

17. Conceptual systems The conceptual system underlying terms belonging to a particular subject field or domain has a very close hierarchical or associative relationship. Those relations can be of different types: • Synonymy: salt = sodium chloride = NaCl • Associative: dog - cat • Hierarchical: animal - dog

18. Term or terminological unit • The designation of a defined concept in a special language by a linguistic expression. (ISO 1087) • A linguistic unit (word, symbol, formula, acronym) that represents or designates a single concept used in a special language.

19. Problematic cases Polysemy: A single term can designate different concepts from different special languages that share certain characteristics as in “virus”, “mouse”. Synonymy: Concepts may be represented by more than one term: German measles or rubella; aphteousfever or foot- and-mouth disease These instances of synonymy are often due to lack of standardisation (but can also be due to variations in register). Homonymy: (same spelling and pronunciation) One term can represent two or more unrelated concepts. Example: Mould (Art) // Mould (Bot)

20. Types of terms Single term: diplopia; glaucoma; bevel. Compound term: double vision; swine flu; flex circuit; reckless driving . Multiterm unit: bed of nails test fixture; acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. Abbreviated terms: flu/influenza; IMF; NATO Symbols: £ ™   Formulas: CO2

21. Phraseological units • Typical collocations or phrases used in special languages: patient presents with blurry vision of the right eye to swing the vote to reach a verdict to have a claim struck out the boom and bust economic cycle

22. Primary Term Formation This applies to new concepts and it is linked to the research and development going on in a given discipline. “Special languages strive to systematise principles of designation and to name concepts according to pre-specified rules or general principles” (Sager 1990: 57) For naming a new concept specialists would typically resort to existing patterns or models as well as conventions for term formation within that domain: “Single letters following a substance name will be expressed in upper case (e.g. vitamin C, amphotericin B, hepatitis B)” http://www.mhra.gov.uk/home/groups/is-lic/documents/websiteresources/con065759.pdf

23. Primary Term Formation Designation in special languages …aims at achieving transparency and consistency, with terms often reflecting in their structure main characteristics of the concepts they represent. (Sager 1990: 57) E.g. video remote controller; carcinoma in situ There is a process by which the designation of a new concept goes through several stages: from initial term(s) (neologisms) to >>>>> preferred term to >>>>> standardised term.

24. Secondary Term Formation When an term enters another language via transfer of knowledge among specialists. In this case, there is a need to fill a terminological gap. Or may occur due to revision of a terminology, e.g. for standardization within a discipline, to withdraw a loan term or to correct a term badly formed from the morphological or syntactic point of view. It should be subject to set guidelines for term formation within the domain in question in that language.

25. Methods: • Direct borrowing: marketing, blog • Paraphrase: me-too products > productos casi idénticos • Loan translation: empty nest > nido vacío • New formation: marketing > mercadotecnia • Adaptation: radiography > radiographie Several methods may coincide until one term is assigned preferred status and the others deprecated.

26. Terminology Research Thematic/systematic (subject-field driven) if it aims at developing a conceptual representation of a special field of knowledge. Typically carried out by terminographers / specialists Specific/ad hoc (text-driven) if it aims to define the terminological fields and/or to research a number of terms in a given text or texts. Typically carried out by translators, interpreters, documentalists.

29. Specific terminology research To start with a corpus of documents related to the chosen domain needs to be selected.The most important elements will be the quantity and quality of resources available: • representative sample of texts • reliable sources in one or more languages Once selected, the corpus needs to be processed, this can be done with software tools for lexical/corpus analysis. They provide standard corpus linguistics methodologies such as frequency lists and concordances. http://www.lexically.net/wordsmith/ http://ucrel.lancs.ac.uk/wmatrix/ This facilitates candidate term identification and well as conceptual and usage information gathering. Further research and analysis will follow.

30. Specific terminology research

31. Terminology research The corpus can also be analysed automatically with term extraction tools – The corpus is pre-processed: domain texts are tagged morphosyntactically and semantically. The corpus is then analysed for term mining: a set of NLP and machine learning methods, are combined in order to identify candidate concepts. A domain lexicon is built. Definitions for each concept are extracted from several on-line sources automatically and finally concepts extracted during the previous phase are added to an intermediate ontology or knowledge representation system. http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/

32. Terminology research Where to find terminological information? • Start from expert/semi-expert to layman documents (general and semi-specialised articles and websites) • Then go up a level to expert to semi-expert/expert: textbooks, technical or specialized journals, encyclopedias • Check terms and definitions in terminological dictionaries and glossaries/ terminological databases • Check available standards and/or technical specifications • Seek advice from specialists if needed

33. Terminology research What information to extract? • Key concepts and terms • Concept definitions as well as concept relations Hints for finding equivalent terms: • Check subject specific glossaries/dictionaries/comparable texts • Try to guess your source term translation and verify your assumption in reliable target language websites • Enter the source word you want to translate and look it up in pages that are written in the target language (Chémali and Sommer 2006)

34. Terminology Research: Sources of Documentation • Encyclopaedias / Textbooks • Specialised Journals (Abstracts are also useful!) • Published glossaries/vocabularies and dictionaries • The Internet – http://www.metacrawler.com/ http://www.intelliwebsearch.com/index.asp An aggregator can be used to search terminological information using multiple Web resources Automatic hyperlink-based concept representation systems (http://www.wikimindmap.org/) and semantic networks with a visualization component (http://www.kartoo.com/, http://beat.doebe.li/bibliothek/) http://www.linguee.com/ Translation search engine http://iate.europa.eu/ http://eurovoc.europa.eu/

35. http://www.wikimindmap.org/

36. Terminology management “A generic term for the documentation, storage, manipulation and presentation of specialized vocabulary”. (Austermuhl 2001: 102) “It focuses on structuring, storing, exchanging, disseminating and using terminological information for text production” (Galinski and Budin 1993)

37. Terminology management There are two approaches to terminology management: Prescriptive: according to the prescriptive approach, terminology work "constitutes an agreement by users to adopt a term for common and repeated use in given circumstances" (Unesco Guidelines for Terminology Policies, 2005). It aims at language planning, technical and scientific unification, standardization and harmonisation. Descriptive: according to the descriptive approach, terminology work "observes and analyses the emergence of terms" (Unesco Guidelines for Terminology Policies, 2005). It aims at documenting terminological diversity for research purposes. http://ifk-kurse.fh-flensburg.de/ecolotrain/index.php?id=1828&L=1

38. Terminology management systems Terminology can be compiled, stored and managed by using electronic terminological databases. Most are available as part of Translation Environment Tools or TEnTs such as SDL Trados Studio (Multiterm), DVX (Termbase). They allow the user to: • design the entry record with different metadata or data categories according to his/her own needs and purposes: field, definition, etc. • Store, retrieve, update or delete entries • group term records according to specific criteria for exportation, revision, verification, etc. • sort entries automatically by concept • feed automatically into and from the translation process Functionality includes terminology verification.

39. Terminology management Terminology can be compiled, stored and managed by dedicated corporate or institutional databases. IATE (= “Inter-Active Terminology for Europe”) is the EU inter-institutional terminology database. IATE has been used in the EU institutions and agencies since summer 2004 for the collection, dissemination and shared management of EU-specific terminology.

42. Any Questions?

43. Corporate terminology management An SDL survey showed that 80% of businesses are aware of inconsistent usage of terms in their organisation. Up to 30% do not manage terminology. However product/services names, technical parts, labels, packaging, etc. need to be used consistently. Terminology should be standardised as part of product development. Businesses are realising that terminological consistency impacts on internal communication, quality and accuracy of content and translation/localisation costs. More companies are using terminologists to manage terminology and work with technical writers and localisers. 15% of IT companies have a full-time terminology team.

44. Interdisciplinarity Terminology is an interdisciplinary field since it incorporates elements form Linguistics, Information Science and Technology, Computational Linguistics, etc. At the same time, it influences and is influenced by the particular characteristics and prevalent practices in each specialised domain. In fact, all disciplines need Terminology as they all make use of terms to communicate and transmit specialised knowledge.

46. Applications of Terminology in the Digital Age Interdisciplinary research Social media data (Term mining from corpus plus glossary building) (Terminologists, computer scientists, medics: electronic health records)

47. Importance of Terminology The International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation is an international not-for-profit organization. IHTSDO maintains and distributes SNOMED Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT). Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine--Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT) is recognized as the leading global clinical terminology. SNOMED CT is concept-oriented and has an advanced structure that meets most accepted criteria for a well-formed, machine-readable terminology. The IHTSDO is fostering the development and use of SNOMED CT, in order to support safe, accurate, and effective exchange of clinical and related health information. The focus is on enabling the implementation of semantically accurate health records that are interoperable. SNOMED CT is a standard clinical terminology with specific support for multi-lingual translation.

48. Importance of Terminology Most professional groups have terminological needs such as domain specialists, translators and interpreters, IT specialists, teachers, journalists, SMEs, large corporations, etc. Terminology work deals with these varied needs by compiling glossaries, dictionaries, solving terminological issues, coining new terms, compiling standards, and so on. ISO International Standards ensure that products and services are safe, reliable and of good quality. Without systematic terminology management there is no consistency in specialist, institutional and corporate communication, research and development is badly affected and quality of translation work suffers. The importance of terminology cannot be underestimated.

49. Training in Terminology The Pavel Terminology Tutorial, Translation Bureau of Canada http://www.bt-tb.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/btb-pavel.php?page=tdm-toc&lang=eng&contlang=eng THE INTERNATIONAL NETWORK FOR TERMINOLOGY http://www.termnet.org