Getting to the core of a terminological project

This is a contribution from Handbook of Terminology. Edited by Hendrik J. Kockaert and Frieda Steurs.© 2015. John Benjamins Publishing Company

This electronic file may not be altered in any way.The author(s) of this article is/are permitted to use this PDF file to generate printed copies to be used by way of offprints, for their personal use only.Permission is granted by the publishers to post this file on a closed server which is accessible only to members (students and faculty) of the author’s/s’ institute. It is not permitted to post this PDF on the internet, or to share it on sites such as Mendeley, ResearchGate, Academia.edu. Please see our rights policy on https://benjamins.com/#authors/rightspolicyFor any other use of this material prior written permission should be obtained from the publishers or through the Copyright Clearance Center (for USA: www.copyright.com). Please contact [email protected] or consult our website: www.benjamins.com

John Benjamins Publishing Company

http://www.copyright.com

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.benjamins.com

doi 10.1075/hot.1.get1© 2015 John Benjamins Publishing Company

Getting to the core of a terminological project

Claudia DobrinaSwedish Centre for Terminology (TNC)

Systematic terminology work is often conducted in the form of a project – a terminological project. In this chapter a tentative classification of terminological projects is suggested based on the following key features: terminological needs which a terminological project is intended to meet, its objective, target user group, and properties of a terminology resource to be created. Seven project types have been established; two of them are examined in more detail: creation of a monolingual domain resource and maintenance of a terminological query service. Two authentic terminological projects carried out by the Swedish Centre for Terminology (TNC) are discussed as examples of the two types with special focus on the phases and steps involved in the implementation of terminological projects.

Keywords: Terminological project; Terminology resource; Terminological concept analysis; Terminological query service

1. Introduction

Terminology work is an activity of many facets and many applications. It is carried out in all spheres of life and by many professions. The driving force behind each ter-minological effort is usually some kind of a communicative need: a researcher try-ing to explain a new concept to colleagues, an engineer looking for an appropriate term to name a new device, a translator in search of a correct term equivalent in the target language, etc. A much broader need, which requires a more comprehensive terminological effort, is the need for clear and effective professional communica-tion in and between domains. It is this need which has made terminology work a field of professional activity. Terminologists are professionals in this field and they contribute to more effective professional communication in all domains by creating reliable terminology resources and providing terminological services to all those who need them.

Systematic terminology work is often conducted in the form of a project. A ter-minological project (TP) has a number of features in common with other kinds of projects (e.g. legal, administrative, financial). As to the objectives, results and methods used in a TP, it has more in common with projects in the sphere of language process-ing, knowledge structuring and information retrieval.

This chapter is essentially an examination of different types of TPs and of content-related phases which the implementation of a TP involves. In Section 2,

© 2015. John Benjamins Publishing CompanyAll rights reserved

Getting to the core of a terminological project 181

some key features of a TP are identified which are used as the basis for classifying TPs. In Section 3, two of the identified TP types are examined by discussing two authentic TPs with a focus on the phases of their implementation and the steps which make up these phases.

2. Terminological projects – features and types

There are not many organizations which spend 100% of their working time carrying out terminology work. The Swedish Centre for Terminology (TNC), already in exis-tence in 1941, is one of them. Much of its work is carried out in a project form, and it is largely my own and my colleagues’ experience of various TPs which has served as a starting point for this investigation of the nature of a TP and its distinguishing features.

I will start by presenting a number of common features, mainly content-related, which are shared by the majority of TPs or rather those TPs, which could be viewed as best-practice cases:1

1. A TP’s primary objective lies in bringing order to terminology in one, several or many domains;

2. It is designed to meet the needs of an identifiable user group;3. It consists of the following (content-related) implementation phases: (1) collec-

tion of relevant terminological material (preparatory phase); (2) terminological concept analysis (main phase) and (3) presentation of the terminological informa-tion produced in the form of a terminology resource2 (presentation phase);

4. It results in producing new or enhancing the quality of existing terminological information;

5. For its successful implementation it is necessary for a project team to possess or have access to (e.g. through a network of contacts) domain expertise, terminologi-cal expertise and linguistic expertise;

6. It is implemented on the basis of established terminological principles and methods.

1. The legal, financial and administrative aspects of TPs will not be considered here.

2. A terminology resource is understood here as a structured collection of terminological information. A terminology resource may vary from the description of a single concept in some domain to a paper publication containing several hundred terminological entries, to a multi-domain, multilingual web-based resource including hundreds of thousands of terminological entries, etc.


182 Claudia Dobrina

There are also many differences between TPs, which concern, for example the number of domains covered by a TP, the number of languages included and the steps which make up the three implementation phases. These differences can serve as a starting point for classifying TPs.

An attempt to classify TPs on the basis of identified differences was made by Picht and Draskau (1985, 175ff.) who suggested the following types of TP:

1. First time elaboration of a subject field;2. One or more languages are added to an existing terminology without altering

either its structure or its volume;3. New portions are added to an existing terminology;4. Revision of existing terminology.

This classification is based on two major differences between TPs: first time elabora-tion vs. revision and extension by the addition of new terminology vs. addition of new languages.

Given the rapid development of information and language technologies and the advent of the web era, it is reasonable to suppose that today’s TPs show greater variation, which means that a larger number of TP features need to be taken into consideration. The following key features are identified as the most essential for classifying TPs:

1. Terminological needs which a TP is intended to meet;2. Objectives;3. Target user group;4. Properties of a terminology resource to be created of which the most important

are: (1) scope; (2) types of terminological information presented; (3) directional-ity, i.e. correlation between the primary (source) language of the resource and the native language of the project team (multilingual resources) and (4) prescription level: normative (standardized), prescriptive, and descriptive.3

Depending on the specific values of each of these key features seven types of TP may be distinguished, each of them is given a brief description below.

. Normative resources (e.g. terminology standards) contain standardized terminology. Prescrip-tive resources contain terminology, which meets some specific criteria, for example, that it should not include jargon or that it should be restricted to some geographical area. Descriptive resources are intended to give a comprehensive view of terminology used in a domain or a subdomain, which implies that no particular restrictions have been used.



Type 1 – Creating a monolingual resource

Needs to be met a new or a fast developing domain lacking reliable terminology resources; a domain where existing terminology resources no longer reflect the current state of the art; a company with an extensive range of products which needs a consistent and clear-cut terminology to use in product specifications, instruction manuals and internal communication; several organizations or companies involved in a joint project which need to agree on the core concepts to be used within a project, etc.

Objective create a new or update an already existing monolingual resource with a view to promoting more effective communication within a domain, an organization or a project

Target users domain experts (researchers, employees in an organization, participants in a project); domain stakeholders (persons with an interest in, or a relation to the domain)

Properties of the resource

(1) scope: domain terminology or terminology used in an organization or a project; (2) types of terminological information presented:– term information: terms, specification of a term status (preferred, admitted,

deprecated)*;– notes on term usage, grammatical and geographical information etc.;– concept information: definitions, explanations, supplementary information,

classification codes, references to related concepts etc.**(3) prescription level: prescriptive

* According to term acceptability rating “rating established from a predetermined scale and used to evaluate a term” (ISO 1087-1 2000, 8).** Resources, which do not contain concept information, for example, bilingual term lists are not considered here.

Type 2 – Creating a multilingual domain resource

Needs to be met as in Type 1, plus the need for communication in several languages

Objective create a new or update an already existing multilingual resource in one or several related domains

Target users as in Type 1


(1) scope: as in Type 1;(2) types of terminological information presented:– term and concept information (as in Type 1);– information on term equivalents in other languages and on the degree

of equivalence (between the concepts in different languages);(3) directionality: the source language (the language of entry terms) is the native language of the project team and the target languages are usually those of the countries with which target users most often communicate;(4) prescription level: prescriptive


184 Claudia Dobrina

Type 3 – Localising a monolingual mono-domain resource

Needs to be met (1) an international domain project where a terminology resource compiled in the lingua franca of the participants has to be localized for use in all the participant countries;(2) an international terminology standard needs to be translated into the language of the country which plans to adopt it as a national standard

Objective localize a monolingual monodomain resourceTarget users domain experts


(1) scope: terminology belonging to the scope of the domain project; (2) types of terminological information presented: term and concept information in the target languages;(3) directionality: the target language is the native language of the project team; (4) prescription level: prescriptive

Type 4 – Adding new languages to an existing translation-oriented terminology resource

Needs to be met domain terminology in languages not represented in an existing resourceObjective complement an existing terminology resource with term equivalents in new

target languages Target users translators of special language textsProperties of the resource

(1) scope: terminology in an existing resource; (2) types of terminological information presented: as in Type 2 and 3; (3) directionality: the target language is the native language of the project team; (4) prescription level: prescriptive

An example of a Type 4 TP is the complementing Eurodicautom4 (a terminology repository developed for the use of EC translators) with languages of new EC member countries.

Type 5 – Enhancing the terminological quality of a resource

Needs to be met a terminology resource failing to meet the needs of its target group due to the low quality of the terminological information (which can, for example, be due to the lack of terminological expertise in the project team involved in the creation of the original resource)

Objective enhance the quality of terminological information in an existing terminology resource by for example, providing better and more consistent concept descriptions or improving the structure and presentation of terminological entries

Target users domain experts


depending on the type of the TP in which the original resource was produced

4. The predecessor of IATE, the European term data base.



Type 6 – Merging existing resources into a multidomain and/or multilingual resource

Needs to be met easy access to high quality terminology in a large number of domains and/or languages

Objective create a multidomain and/or multilingual terminology repository from a large number of already existing resources and thus provide a wide community of users with easy access to a considerable amount of uniformly structured terminological information

Target users practically everybody in need of any kind of terminological information Properties of the resource

(1) scope: terminology in a large number of domains; (2) types of terminological information presented: as in Type 2; (3) prescription level: prescriptive

An example of a Type 6 TP is the creation of national and regional term banks, for example the Rikstermbanken (the Swedish National Term Bank) (Bucher, Dobrina, and Nilsson 2010, 169–180) and EuroTermBank (Towards 2006, 1–125).

Type 7 – Producing terminology on demand (maintaining a terminological query service)*

Needs to be met an urgent need for a relatively small amount of terminological information Objective provide users with just-in-time terminological information in any domain

and/or languageTarget users a single user – a person or an organization Properties of the resource**

* This type is termed “ad-hoc searches” (“work on an isolated term or a limited set of terms in a single special subject”) in Cabré Castellví (1999, 152).** As the focus of this type of TP is not on creating a resource (though new terminological information may also be produced, see Section 3.2) there are no grounds for discussing these issues here

The suggested classification does not exhaust all possible types of TP and it covers only those which may be considered purely terminological, i.e. TPs dealing with collect-ing, processing and presenting terminological information. Terminology work is also carried out within the framework of other projects related to knowledge structuring, for example, the development of ontologies and taxonomies, concept and information mod-eling and business architecture. It should also be noted that there are no firm boundaries between different types of TP and some TPs may combine features of several types.

3. A terminological project: Phases and steps

Two of the established TP types will now be examined in more detail: a Type 1 TP (compiling a monolingual terminological vocabulary) and a Type 7 TP (producing terminology on demand). The focus of the examination will be on the steps which make up the three implementation phases in each of these TP.


186 Claudia Dobrina

3.1 Compiling a monolingual terminological vocabulary

The TP discussed here is to a very large degree a traditional Type 1 TP. What makes it somewhat less traditional is the cross-domain character of the terminology it covers (Type 1 TPs usually deal with terminology in one or two domains).

3.1.1 The basic terms project: An overviewTerms used in professional communication vary from domain-specific terms (e.g. “protective goggles” (domain: working environment)) to terms which are used in several domains the content of the concepts they designate being similar (e.g. “rock” (domain: geology or construction)) or different (e.g. “water” (domain: physics or chemistry)) to those used in a large number of domains and also in general language (e.g. “system”, “object”, “process” and “phenomenon”). Giving a proper description of the concepts covered by the terms of the last-named category (basic terms) is a far from trivial task.

Swedish professionals were already aware of the need for proper definitions of basic concepts in the 1940s. It was then that the definition of concepts “material”, “activity”, “equipment”, etc. became the subject of discussion in TNC’s column in Teknisk tid-skrift (‘Technical Journal’).5 Many years later, in 1995, TNC published Tekniska basord (‘Basic Technical Terms’), a terminological vocabulary covering the most general and widely used concepts from the domains of natural sciences, technology and engineer-ing. The publication (in Swedish) contained about 1400 entries including terms and concept descriptions (definitions and supplementary information).

Since then the interest for basic terminology continued to grow not only on the part of professionals in the engineering domains but also in those of law, economics, management, etc. The need for a revised version of the 1995 publication which would encompass the majority of domains covered by the Swedish languages for specific pur-poses (LSP) and meet the needs of a broader user community became evident. In 2006 TNC started a new TP aimed at compiling an extended and thoroughly revised vocabulary of basic Swedish terminology.

At TNC a TP is usually carried out by a project team consisting of (external) domain experts and one or two TNC terminologists. The project team in this new TP (below called BTP – Basic terms project) included only TNC terminologists whose backgrounds spanned mathematics, chemistry, documentation, medicine, etc. The result – a terminological vocabulary TNC 104 Basord i våra fackspråk (‘Basic Terms in our LSP’) – was published in 2012 both as a traditional paper edition and on the

5. A publication directed at Swedish professionals in all branches of technology and engineering (now called “Ny teknik”).



web as part of the Rikstermbanken, the Swedish National Term Bank, developed and maintained by TNC.

TNC 104 contains 1612 terminological entries. The majority of entries include: term information (the entry term, synonyms, grammatical information and informa-tion on usage) and concept information (a definition, supplementary information and references to related concepts).

3.1.2 Going through the PhasesType 1 TPs and the steps their implementation involves have been given much atten-tion both in terminological literature and in international standards on terminology.6 There is some variation in the number and the content of the steps in different publi-cations but the differences are not great at all and the list of steps carried out in BTP complied well with those outlined in the publications named above.

BTP’s preparatory phase included: (1) delimitation of the domain; (2) identifica-tion of the target group; (3) collection of documentation and (4) extraction of term and concept information.

The main phase (terminological concept analysis) included: (1) selection of con-cepts to be included; (2) establishing the intension and extension of the concepts; (3) identification of concept relations and elaboration of concept systems; (4) elaboration of definitions and (5) selection and evaluation of terms.

The presentation phase included various issues related to the presentation of the term and concept information in a terminology resource.7

The Preparatory Phase: Delimitation of the Domain. In terminology practice delimi-tation of the domain often involves selection of a domain or a subdomain to be covered and establishment of criteria for selecting concepts to be included. In BTP the following main criteria were applied to selecting the concepts: basicness and being in demand.

1. Basicness – The concepts to be included had to belong to (1) top ontology lev-els (viewed in a general ontology perspective),8 for example, concepts depicting processes, operations (e.g. “beräkning” (‘calculation’), “cirkulation” (‘circulation’) and properties (e.g. “adequat” (‘adequate’), “empirisk” (‘empiric’)); (2) several

6. See Felber (1984, 313–332), Madsen (1999, 124–130), Mayer (2010,114–120), Nuopponen and Pilke (2010, 80–94), Picht and Draskau (1985, 164–174), Suonuuti (2001, Annex) and ISO 10241-1 (2011, 10–16).

7. Each of the steps in the implementation consisted in its turn of several “substeps”.

8. Cf. “Most domains will deal with objects, processes, properties, relations, space, time, roles, functions, categories, individuals or similar. An upper-level ontology is an ontology that defines and axiomatises these most general categories” (Hoehndorf, 2010).


188 Claudia Dobrina

domains (e.g. “verktyg” (‘tool’) and “membran” (‘membrane’)); (3) larger domains or “ macrodomains” (e.g. “anläggning” (‘facility’) in the construction domain, “bindemedel” (‘binding agent’) in engineering, “biomassa” (‘biomass’) in life sci-ences, “arbetsgivare” (‘employer’) in the domain of labour and employment) or (4) one of the preceding and to the general language vocabulary (e.g. “kran” (‘tap’) and “färg” (‘colour’));

2. Being in demand – Some of the concepts were included because they had been the subject of frequent queries submitted to TNC’s terminological query service (3.2 Producing terminology on demand). This was considered a sure indication of users’ interest in these concepts, for example, concepts from specific technical domains (e.g. “armatur” (‘electric fittings’), “bult” (‘bolt’)).

The Preparatory Phase: Identification of the Target Group. As mentioned above, a Type 1 TP’s target group is usually represented by domain experts and domain stakeholders. Given the basic character of the concepts to be covered by BTP a broader user commu-nity for the vocabulary was envisioned: domain experts, technical writers, the media, teachers and students, translators and also the general public.

The Preparatory Phase: Collection of Documentation. The documentation for a TP has to meet a number of requirements: it should be comprehensive and it should reflect the state-of-the-art in the domain. For BTP the following documentation was selected:

1. The preceding version of the vocabulary and other terminological vocabular-ies published by TNC (many of them contained entries covering some of basic concepts);

2. Encyclopaedias (e.g. Nationalencyklopedin (‘Swedish National Encyclopaedia’));3. Special language dictionaries;4. National and international standards;5. General language dictionaries;6. Reference literature, handbooks, etc.

The documentation selected was in Swedish and English and ranged from paper publi-cations to web-based resources, for example ISO Concept Data base,9 Termium, IATE and EuroTermBank.

The Preparatory Phase: Extraction of Term and Concept Information. In today’s TPs, both manual and automated extraction techniques are commonly used. In BTP the extraction was carried out manually, mainly because of a relatively small number

9. Now Online Browsing Platform (ISO).



of concepts to deal with and because of the need for a scrupulous examination of the extracted information. The following information types were extracted:

1. Terms with their contexts originating from full texts and from terminology resources;

2. Grammatical, phonetic and etymological information;3. Concept descriptions (definitions, explanations and supplementary information,

such as encyclopaedic information).

For example, the information concerning the concept “agglomerat” (‘agglomerate’) originated from two of TNC’s glossaries (TNC 69 Luftbehandlingsordlista (‘Glossary of Air Treatment’) and TNC 88 Färg- och lackteknisk ordlista), a Swedish national standard (SS 01 66 80, 1983, 2) and an international standard adopted as a Swedish national standard (SS-ISO 8573-1, 1995, 8).

The Main Phase: Selection of Concepts to be Included. Terminological concept analysis starts with identifying groups of concepts to be studied together and ordering them into concept fields (groups of thematically related concepts) or concept clusters (small groups of concepts bound by some kind of concept relations).

In BTP, the concepts selected were grouped into 14 concept fields: “properties”, “processes”, “products”, “substances”, etc. Some of these had to be further arranged into smaller thematic unities, for example, “processes” were divided into “deforma-tion”, “agglomeration”, “maintenance”, etc.

The Main Phase: Establishing the Intension and Extension of the Concepts. In terminology theory a concept’s intension is defined as a set of all characteristics which make up the concept. In terminology practice a concept’s intension is often viewed as a set of essential and delimiting characteristics, see for example, ISO 704 (2009, Clause 5.4). Which characteristics should be considered essential for a given concept often depends on the concept’s content. For example, characteristics form, function and size are important for concepts depicting artefacts, while the characteristics function, purpose, means, cause and effect are relevant for concepts depicting processes. The characteristics form, function, purpose, colour, etc. are parameters which take on different values for different concepts. For example, the characteristic colour can take on values: (being) red, (being) blue, (being) green, etc.10 Delimiting characteristics are essential characteristics which serve to distin-guish a concept from its related concepts and allow a concept’s extension to be determined. A final decision on which characteristics are delimiting for a specific

10. In 1087-1 (2000,3) the term “types of characteristics” is used to designate such characteristics.


190 Claudia Dobrina

concept cluster is usually taken in connection with identifying concept relations and elaborating concept systems.

Let us consider the following example from BTP. The intensions of the concepts “ask” (‘little box’), “bassäng” (‘basin’) and “cistern” (‘tank’) include the characteristics form, size, function and material. If the values of these characteristics are different for different concepts the characteristics are considered delimiting. Form has values: low for “ask”, open and often sunken for “bassäng” and often cylindrical and closed for “tank”. Size has values: little for “ask” and large for “bassäng” and “tank”. Form and size can thus be considered delimiting for this concept cluster as they have different values in the concepts belonging to it.

The Main Phase: Identification of Concept Relations and Elaboration of Concept Systems. One of the important insights any terminologist-to-be acquires early in the course of his/her career is that a concept should never be examined alone, i.e. with-out taking into consideration its relations with other concepts. Three types of rela-tions established in terminology theory, generic, partitive and associative, are widely used in terminology practice. Also in BTP all the three types were used in elaborated concept systems. Many elaborated concept systems contained multiple dimensions which are the means with which to reflect the complexity of the concept relations to be described. An example of a multidimensional concept system is presented in the concept diagram in Figure 1.

The subordinate concepts “instrument”, “mätdon” (‘measuring instrument’), “indikator” (‘indicator’), etc. are joined to the same superordinate concept “anordning” (‘device’) but sorted under several dimensions. For example, “instrument”, “ mätdon” and “sond” (‘probe’) are covered by the dimension “mätning”, (‘measurement’), “antenn” (‘antenna’) and “radar” by the dimension “strålning” (‘radiation’).

An example of a mixed concept system is presented in Figure 2.Figure 2 presents a mixed concept system including (1) generic relations, for

example, between “organism” (‘organism’) and “mikroorganism” (‘microorganism’); (2) partitive relations, for example, between “biomassa” (‘biomass’) and “organism” and (3) associative relations, for example, between “RNA” and “virus”.

The Main Phase: Elaboration of Definitions. Correct and consistent termino-logical definitions should be based on the appropriate essential and delimiting characteristics of the concepts to be defined. Strict logics alone are not usually suf-ficient when dealing with challenges involved in arriving at a terminologically cor-rect definition and a large dose of creativity needs to be added. A terminological definition also has to satisfy a number of content-related and formal requirements established in International standards on terminology work, for example ISO 704 (2009, 22–34) and ISO 10241-1 (2011, 20–29). Some of these requirements proved to be particularly difficult to satisfy in dealing with basic concepts, for example, that a definition should not be too broad or too narrow. The definitions of basic



anor

dnin

gob

jekt

med

tekn

iskfu

nktio

n ...

strål

ning

signa

lm

ätni

ng

inst

rum

ent

prec

ision

sver

ktyg

elle

r app

arat

för

mät

ning

,re

gist

rerin

g el

ler

likna

nde

mät

don

anor

dnin

gfö

r mät

ning

sond

anor

dnin

g,va

nlig

tvis

i for

m av

en st

av el

ler e

ttrö

r, so

m a

nvän

dsfö

r pro

vtag

ning

elle

r mät

ning

indi

kato

r 2(in

om te

knik

:)an

ordn

ing

som

visu

ellt

elle

r på

anna

t sät

t kan

ange

resu

ltate

tav

en

proc

ess

elle

r ett

tillst

ånd

avko

dare

anor

dnin

g so

mom

vand

lar

koda

desig

nale

r elle

rda

ta ti

ll an

nat

form

at

förs

tärk

are

anor

dnin

g fö

rfö

rstä

rkni

ng av

elek

trisk

asig

nale

r

sens

oran

ordn

ing

som

påve

rkas

aven

viss

fysik

alisk

stor

het o

chso

m av

ger e

nsig

nal v

ilken

bero

r av

stor

hete

nsvä

rde

sänd

taga

rean

ordn

ing

som

både

sänd

er u

toc

h ta

r em

otsig

nale

r

term

osta

tan

ordn

ing

som

känn

er av

och

regl

erar

tem

pera

tur .

..

ante

nnra

dar

anor

dnin

gfö

r att

taem

ot el

ler

sänd

a ut

elek

tro-

mag

netis

kst

råln

ing

anor

dnin

gfö

r att

med

hjäl

p av

utsä

nd o

chre

�ekt

erad

elek

tro-

mag

netis

kst

råln

ing

uppt

äcka

före

mål

och

erhå

llain

form

atio

nom

des

sa

Figu

re 1

. A

con

cept

dia

gram

for a

mul

tidim

ensi

onal

gen

eric

con

cept

sys

tem

(TN

C 10

4, w

orki

ng m

ater

ials

)


192 Claudia Dobrina

concepts have to be general enough to fit in more than one domain and at the same time sufficiently specific not to miss some of the essential and delimiting characteristics.

Another challenge was to determine whether a term used in several domains designated the same concept or very similar concepts so that one definition would suffice, or whether it was a question of different concepts in different domains. In Example 1, the concept designated by the term “inspektion” is provided with a single definition which fits into several domains. In Example 2, the term “ankare” designates

kromosomnukleinsyramolekyl medassocierade proteinervilken innehåller genernödvändiga förfortplantning

gensamman-hängandedel avgenom

genomdet DNA eller RNA(för vissa virus) sombär på en cells ellerett visst virusfullständigagenetiska information

DNAnukleinsyrabestående avdeoxiribonukleotider

RNAnukleinsyrabestående avribonukleotider

organismen- eller �ercellig individmed förmåga till egenämnesomsättning

virus(inom biologi:)parasitbestående avnukleinsyra ochprotein

biomassa2(inom biologi:) den totalamängden organismer, ...,inom ett avgränsat områdevid en given tidpunkt

cell2(inom biologi:)denminsta biologiska enhetsom kan upprätthållasjälvständigämnesomsättning

mikroorganismorganism som inte kan sesmed blotta ögat

Figure 2. A concept diagram for a mixed concept system (TNC 104, working materials)



two concepts and there are two definitions for two domains (indicated in parentheses before the definitions).

(1)11 Term: inspektion (‘inspection’) Definition: formal on-site control of certain activities or their results

(2) Term: ankare1 (‘armature’) Definition: (construction) device for holding together parts of a building

(3) Term: ankare2 (‘armature’) Definition: (electrical engineering) non-stationary part of a magnetic circuit

As already mentioned, a proper terminological definition should contain essential and delimiting characteristics of a concept. All other information, if it is considered relevant for understanding a concept, can in a terminology resource be presented in another part of a terminological entry. In TNC 104, the information which comple-ments the definition is given in a comment. The comment may contain encyclopaedic information on a concept, on differences between it and some related concepts, etc.

(4) Term: RNA Definition: nucleic acid consisting of ribonucleotides Comment: RNA is the genetic material of some viruses. In organisms RNA

contains information about protein structure and texture.

It is important that a concept’s description in a definition agrees with its presenta-tion in a corresponding concept system. For example, in the definition of “RNA” in Example 4, “nucleic acid” is the superordinate concept for “RNA”. In Figure 2, “nucleic acid” is the superordinate concept for “RNA” and “DNA”.

The Main Phase: Selection and Evaluation of Terms. In theory, terminologists are supposed to start with the investigation of concepts and elaboration of definitions and only after that to proceed to selecting terms for these concepts. In practice, the major-ity of terms already exist and there are often several terms in circulation for the same concept. At this step term acceptability rating is usually applied which involves iden-tifying preferred terms (the most established), admitted terms (less established) and deprecated terms (terms the use of which is not recommended).

In TNC 104 preferred terms are presented as entry terms and admitted terms as synonyms. Entries containing both preferred and admitted terms are usually pro-vided with information on the conceptual differences or differences in usage between synonyms. For example, the entry for “egg” (‘cutting edge’) also contains the syn-onym “skär”. In the comment to the respective entry it is specified that “egg” is used

11. Definitions and comments in Examples 1–4 and in the text are translated from Swedish.


194 Claudia Dobrina

in connection with, for example, knives, while “skär” applies to scissors. There are no terms marked as deprecated in TNC 104.

Presentation of the Term and Concept Information in a Terminology Resource. This is a very wide-ranging issue including a plethora of interesting aspects, and it is well covered in terminological literature. Here the discussion will be limited to just a few examples of how these issues were handled in BTP.

The definitions in TNC 104 specify the superordinate concept of the concept described and its delimiting characteristics and some of its essential characteristics, the comments, on the other hand may include the following information:

1. Measurement units for physical quantities;2. Notes on the content of a basic concept in its general language use;3. Examples of objects covered by a concept’s extension;4. Notes on the specific uses of a basic concept in different domains, for example,

“konservering” (‘preservation’) is defined as: “treatment for preservation pur-poses” and a comment says that it is “applied to preserve food” (domain: cooking), buildings (domain: construction) and works of art (domain: art)”;

5. Notes on term usage, term forms, etc., for example, in the entry for “urlakning” (‘leaching’) the corresponding verb forms “laka ur” and “urlaka” (‘leach’) are given.

The result of BTP was intended for publishing in paper form and as part of the web-based term bank. An example of solutions applied in the paper version is the inclusion of reference entries providing users easier access to relevant information (due to the limited search possibilities in a paper version). For example, “fosforescens” (‘phospho-rescence’) is provided with a reference entry which directs users to the entry for “lumi-nescens” (‘luminescence’).

(5) Term: fosforescens (‘phosphorescence’) Comment: See the comment under luminescence.

A web version of TNC 104 has in turn some specific features which are not necessary in a paper version, for example, all the entries in the web version include a reference to the paper version of the vocabulary.

3.2 Producing terminology on demand

Producing terminological information on demand is often carried out within the framework of a terminological query service. This service exists at national terminol-ogy centres (e.g. TNC in Sweden and TSK in Finland) and regional terminology insti-tutions (e.g. Termcat in Catalonia and OQLF in Quebec). Also large companies which have both production and customers in many countries may maintain a query service to assist their own employees (e.g. Scania in Sweden).



3.2.1 TNC’s Terminological Query Service – an overviewTNC’s terminological query service started soon after TNC’s foundation in the 1940s and it continues to provide its users with solutions to their terminological problems notwithstanding today’s abundance of freely available electronic resources. Here is a nutshell view of how TNC’s query service (TQS) functions. A telephone call, an e-mail or a web request arrives announcing some urgent terminological need. The requested information is searched for and, hopefully, found. A response is prepared and delivered to the enquirer. The response report is processed and stored in TNC’s internal terminol-ogy data base to be used for future queries or other terminological undertakings.

Users of TQS live in Sweden and abroad, they have all kinds of terminological needs and practice a variety of professions. In the past, the majority of users had back-grounds in science and engineering. Not any longer: humanities and social sciences, economics and management are now also widely represented.

There are three main kinds of queries depending on the type of information requested. In the case of concept-related queries, help is needed with, for example, definition writing or identifying differences between related concepts. Term-related queries are about finding an appropriate term to name a new concept, differentiating between synonyms or finding term equivalents in other languages. In language/style queries the information requested concerns grammatical forms or terms, abbrevia-tions, punctuation in special language texts, etc.

Any enquirer may come up with any type of query but some preferences can still be distinguished: translators need help with term equivalents, domain experts are often interested in definitions and journalists may look for Swedish terms for new concepts.

A vast collection of old query records in TNC’s archive gives evidence that users’ terminological needs have not undergone much change over the years. In 1952 a user demanded that TNC veto the English abbreviation TV which started to spread in Swe-den. TNC made no such effort, and TV (pronounced [teve] in Swedish) stayed put in the host language. What has changed though is that with a huge amount of informa-tion with one click of the mouse, TQS (which is a charged service) is usually contacted about really complicated issues and that enquirers look for terminologically reliable information, which is not easily to be found in the wilderness of the web.

Phases of Query Processing. Once a query arrives, a terminologist on duty: (1) checks it; (2) searches for information to meet an enquirer’s need; (3) analyses the col-lected information and prepares the response report; (4) delivers the response and (5) stores the response report in a query data base. Mapped to the three TP phases, the first two steps correspond to the preparatory phase, the third to the main phase and the fourth and fifth to the presentation phase.

Checking a query involves controlling that there is enough information to carry out the necessary processing, for example, that the domain has been indicated or that the intended use of the requested information is clear or that a request lies within TNC


196 Claudia Dobrina

expertise. Queries concerning general language are usually redirected to the Language Council of Sweden, which has its own query service. In the case of very specific issues enquirers may be advised to contact a respective authority or agency.

Due to the large number of resources to be consulted and the time-constraints involved (there is a maximum of 24 hours for the delivery of a response), it is impor-tant to establish search priorities. TNC’s own collection of resources consisting of TNC-bas (TNC’s internal terminology data base of which the query data base is part), the reference library of some 7000 volumes and a selection of reliable web resources (term banks, encyclopaedias, corpora, search engines, etc.) are searched first. The expertise of the colleagues and that of external domain experts is also of much help for a terminologist on duty. It is important to use terminologically reliable resources. In query processing, a resource is considered terminologically reliable if it meets two principal requirements:

1. It has precise and coherent terminological content built up on the basis of domain and terminological expertise;

2. It is up-to-date (in older resources, especially those concerning rapidly evolving domains, the most recent terms are not captured and the definitions may prove to be outdated).12

Unfortunately, there are not many available resources which can satisfy both speci-fied requirements. TNC’s own meticulously compiled terminological vocabularies available in Rikstermbanken certainly meet the first requirement, but many of them have been around for quite a while so the information they contain has to be checked against more modern resources.

Despite the profusion of available resources, it can happen that a search brings no result. A query may concern a very specific concept in a narrow domain and there is no expert at hand to assist or that it may be about a definition of a concept on which no consensus among domain experts exists.

In processing the collected information it is important to see that the response meets an enquirer’s need and level of expertise. If a layman wants to get a domain concept explained, a definition “lite” may be appropriate; if a domain expert asks for a definition, one with sufficient intension depth (e.g. based on a larger number of char-acteristics) will be suggested. The term or concept information to be delivered also has to meet the requirements for the respective type.

If the information obtained in a search is not sufficient, new term or concept information may have to be created (e.g. a term to name a new or a borrowed concept

12. See Dobrina (2010, 89) and ISO 23185 (2009, 4–16) which provides some guidelines on the assessment of terminology resources.



may have to be coined) or a definition formulated. The same principles and methods are used at this step as at the corresponding steps in other TP types. This is to empha-size that this TP type has more in common with other TP types than might be appar-ent at first sight.

A response report delivered to an enquirer usually includes:

1. The requested information which, depending on the type of the query, may be presented as a text or in the form of a terminological entry;

2. Arguments in support of a terminologist’s suggestion;3. Examples of usage, recommendations, etc.

The information acquired and created in query processing is a valuable asset for future queries for diachronical terminology research and for other terminological tasks. Since the 1970s query records (queries with response reports) have been stored in TNC’s query data base which today contains some 6300 records (the older queries are stored in the TQS’ archive). A selection of most interesting query records is regularly published in TNC’s electronic newsletter and on TNC’s web site and in the nearest future some of them will also be included in Rikstermbanken.

Examples of Queries Posed to TQS. A new product called “energy bar” makes its appearance on the Swedish food market. An enquirer asks if there is a Swedish term to match. The search shows that several expressions are already in use but none of them meets terminological requirements for new Swedish terms. At a brainstorming session at TNC a smart term is coined (“energikaka”), which today (several years after the query was submitted) is still in general use.

A user asks for help with a definition of “rabitzvägg” (‘Rabitz wall’) used in the con-struction domain. The search produces no acceptable result. By analysing the available definitions of “rabitz” (‘plastering’) and “rabitzputs” (‘plastering on metal lathing’) a terminologist comes up with a plausible explanation (not a definition) for “rabitzvägg”.

An enquirer would like to know if it is acceptable to use the newly coined term “prolongivitet” as the Swedish equivalent of the English term “prolongivity” (domain: medicine). A terminologist recommends the use of an already existing Swedish term “livsförlängning” (‘prolongivity’) pointing out that “livsförlängning” is an established term which also is more explicit than “prolongivitet”.

4. Conclusion

The heading of this chapter conceals a question: “What is, after all, at the core of a properly conducted terminological project?” The whole of the chapter was intended to serve as an answer to this question. The following remarks can hopefully serve as a brief reply:


198 Claudia Dobrina

1. A good awareness of the terminological needs to be met by a TP, which allows a project team to reach appropriate solutions concerning the terminological content to be created;

2. A sound combination of domain, linguistic and terminological expertise (includ-ing a good knowledge of terminology theory and methods and the experience of putting them into practice) coupled with project management skills;

3. The use of established procedures in all phases of the implementation of a TP;4. A strong belief in terminology work as a way in which to achieve better profes-

sional communication.

References

Bucher, Anna-Lena, Claudia Dobrina, and Henrik Nilsson. 2010. “All terms in one place.” Терминология и знание (‘Terminology and knowledge’), 169–180.

Cabré Castellví, M. Teresa. 1999. Terminology: Theory, methods and applications. Amsterdam/Phila-delphia: John Benjamins.

Dobrina, Claudia. 2010. “Terminology on demand. Maintaining a terminological query service.” Terminology in Everyday Life, 81–95. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Felber, Helmut. 1984. Terminology Manual. Paris: Unesco and Infoterm.Hoehndorf, Robert. 2010. “What is an upper level ontology?” Ontogenesis Blog, April 13. http://onto-

genesis.knowledgeblog.org/740.Madsen, Bodil Nistrup. 1999. Terminologi 1: principper & metoder. København: Gads Forlag.Mayer, Felix. 2010. “Rechte Wege zum Term.” Best Practices in der Terminologiearbeit: Akten des Sym-

posions Heidelberg, 15.-17. April 2010, 113–121. Cologne: Dt. Terminologie-Tag.Nuopponen, Anita and Nina Pilke. 2010. Ordning och reda. Stockholm: Norstedts.Picht, Heribert and Jennifer Draskau. 1985. Terminology: an Introduction. Guildford/ Surrey: The

University of Surrey.Suonuuti, Heidi. 2001. Guide to terminology. Helsinki: Tekniikan Sanastokeskus.TNC 104. 2012. Basord i våra fackspråk. Sweden: Terminologicentrum TNC.Towards Consolidation of European Terminology resources. 2006. http://www.eurotermbank.com/

download/EuroTermBank_Towards_Consolida-tion_of_European_Terminology_Resources.pdf.

International Standards

ISO 704. 2009. Terminology work – Principles and methods. Geneva: International Standards Organization.

ISO 1087-1. 2000. Terminology work – Vocabulary – Part 1: Theory and application. Geneva: Interna-tional Standards Organization.

ISO 10241-1. 2011.Terminological entries in standards – Part 1: General requirements and examples of presentation. Geneva: International Standards Organization.

ISO 15188. 2001. Project management guidelines for terminology standardization. Geneva: Interna-tional Standards Organization.



ISO 23185. 2009. Assessment and benchmarking of terminological resources – General concepts, prin-ciples and requirements. Geneva: International Standards Organization.

SS-ISO 01 66 80. 1983. Pullvermetallurgi – Terminologi. SIS – Standardiseringskommissionen i Sverige.

SS-ISO 8573-1. 1995. Compressed air for general use – Part 1: Contaminants and quality classes. SIS Swedish Standards Institution.

Web-based terminology resources

EuroTermBank: www.eurotermbank.com.InterActive Terminology for Europe (IATE) – The European Union’s multilingual term base: http://

iate.europa.eu.Online Browsing Platform (ISO): https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/.Rikstermbanken: www.rikstermbanken.se.TERMIUM Plus: http://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/.

Documents

Getting to the core of a terminological project