The future of (terminology) standards is here

The ISO Concept Database (ISO CDB) is now publicly available: http://cdb.iso.org, click “log in as guest” (for the time being). In the CDB you can search for terms and definitions in a large number of (most?) ISO Standards. Under “Codes” you can also search for language identifiers from ISO 639, parts 1, 2, 3, and 5.

It took ISO (and a handful of external database experts) years to conceptualize, plan and implement a database that will include not only terms from all its standards, but also graphic representations, codes, etc.

 

All the careful planning was done for a good reason: The ISO Concept Database (or short CDB for the initiated ) is a major step towards a revolution in the standardization business. Despite the deveopments in the information and communication sector, standards continue to be produced en mass – and more or less in the same old-fashioned analogous way as they have been ever since the foundation of ISO. With an ever increasing number of Technical Committees and domains that require standardization and the diversification of experts who work on these standards this means primarily one thing: reduplication and overlapping of efforts, and what’s worst – contradicting standards due to a lack of harmonization, collaboration and information about what already exists and may even have been standardized by some other committee years ago.

 

This is an in-efficiency that nobody can afford – and that ISO is going to tackle by introducing  “Standards as databases”. Unlike the traditional, paper- (or at least file-)based standards, the future will coordinate the complex universe of international standards development by introducing a work method and environment that is more up-to-date with the possibilities that are offered by the technical development. However, to develop this for an organization like ISO, that has such a huge number of standards, documents and others to handle, a workforce of largely volunteering experts from companies, institutes and organizations worldwide who do the actual standard development PLUS all the legal implications that brings along means that it is no easy task. But once completed it will be a revolution that will affect us all, because it will make standards easier to be implemented and more streamlined. Another quantum leap towards a globalized world in which really all small components can work together. Or maybe I am a bit over-enthusiastic here. However, I hope you follow me about the immense potential this brings along.

But coming back to ISO CDB: This database is just one piece in the larger picture, but a very important one. Somebody once wrote somewhere: “you can not standardize if you do not all talk about the same and have the same understanding about the issue at hand”, if not first of all the meaning is agreed upon by all stakeholders. And this narrows it down again to terminology – our favourite subject.

ISO/CDB is now public and online. Everybody can log-in as a guest and test it on its Website http://cdb.iso.org, search for terms and definitions of nearly all ISO standards published. Of course, as with all innovations, there will be things that need improvement. But the most important step has been done. It is finally there.

Language Portal of Canada launched

Canada has been regarded by most of us as the linguistist’s and terminologist’s paradise for many years. And derservedly so. Hardly any other country puts so much real effort into preservation and promotion of linguistic diversity. And above all, these efforts are crowned with professionalism, efficiency and success!

Canada now finally has her one-stop-shop for anything related to her linguistic heritage. The country’s rich linguistic resources are now accessible at the newly launched Language Portal of Canada.

“Through this portal, anybody can finally obtain access free of charge to TERMIUM^®, the Government of Canada’s linguistic and terminology data bank. With TERMIUM^® finding the right words has just become easier with more than 3,900,000 terms of which some 200 000 are in Spanish” says Gabriel Huard, Director of the Translation Bureau.

He further notes that “the portal also contains a vast array of language tools, a magazine, exercises dealing with problem words in French and English, and a directory of useful links to resources and organizations active in the language field.”

In June 2008, the Government of Canada published the Roadmap for Canada’s Linguistic Duality 2008-­2013: Acting for the Future. Within the framework of this initiative, Public Works and Government Services Canada mandated the Translation Bureau of the Government of Canada to design and put online the language portal.

Go to www.ourlanguages.gc.ca

Terminology Summer School 2010 in Vienna – Registration open

As from now on you can register for the upcoming International Terminology Summer School. The training week will take place in Vienna in the last week of May (24-28 May 2010).

Here’s the link: http://www.termnet.org/english/events/tss2010

TSS 2010

India on its way to a modern, multilingual knowledge society

The Indian government has initiated something that could turn out to be one of the most pioneering projects towards the establishing of the famed knowledge society. Highly multilingual and diverse societies like India have long relied on English as the medium of choice to disseminate knowledge to her people. At the same time it has recognized the fact that a large part of the people do not have sufficient proficiency in that language to make the best possible use of the information transmitted to them in that language. India’s Prime Minister therefore set the stake by demanding to make knowledge, especially in critical areas, available to every citizen – for the sake of nothing less than an educated and informed multilingual society through all levels.

The Prime Minister’s speech was starting point for the National Translation Mission (NTM in short): http://www.ntm.org.in

The initiative is located at the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL) in Mysore from where it operates. NTM experts cooperate with various governmental, non-governmental and academic institutions, media houses, publishers and other companies.

Terminology planning, management and standardization are major aspects for the overall success of the mission.

Who will benefit? Well, according to the initiative’s Website all those who have otherwise little access to the knowledge, liker rural and students of weaker sections, teachers of various subject fields, NGOs, volunteers in non-formal education, government and private agencies, media producers and journalists, translators and interpreters, etc.

And hopefully the international professional community from the expertise, products and services by NTM for the Indian languages.

Long walk to freedom for new terms in France

This great article from Wall Street Journal online describes the way of neologisms through French institutions and expert groups before they become approved new terms.

An excerpt:

PARIS — The word on the table that morning was “cloud computing.”

To translate the English term for computing resources that can be accessed on demand on the Internet, a group of French experts had spent 18 months coming up with “informatique en nuage,” which literally means “computing in cloud.”

France’s General Commission of Terminology and Neology — a 17-member group of professors, linguists, scientists and a former ambassador — was gathered in a building overlooking the Louvre to approve the term.

“What? This means nothing to me. I put a ‘cloud’ of milk in my tea!” exclaimed Jean Saint-Geours, a French writer and member of the Terminology Commission. “Send it back and start again”…

Read the full article on Wall Street Journal online.

Terminology country report: Turkey

If you had asked me about terminology in Turkey one year back, I would probably have answered that there is not much going on in this country. It’s true, we have the occasional (however, I must say, very interested) participants at TSS. But else there was not much information coming out of the country that reached me.

But that was before I encountered TermTurk project (www.termturk.net). This project, sponsored by the EU-Turkey Dialog programme, is an eye-opener for me.

What’s it all about? Actually, it is meant as a beginning. A group of people got together to kick-start what they perceived as long overdue – the development of an elaborate and active terminology infrastructure in Turkey.

Surprisingly, there has not been much institutionalised research on terminology. Nor is there something like an information centre where interested groups or individuals can find what they need to know about it. It is surprising, because there is such a strong patronage: Kemal Mustafa Atatürk himself wrote a brochure to introduce Turkish geometry terminology. Atatürk, as we know was very dedicated to language planning in order to promote and facilitate nation-building processes in the new republic. Terminology is even explicitly mentioned in the country’s famous Anıtkabir – his mausoleum and museum in Ankara (something that my colleagues and I still marvel about because it such a pleasant feeling to see terminology being rewarded such public recognition).

So finally, TermTurk should achieve what is still lacking: an information and research centre at Hacettepe University in Ankara, closer ties with internation organizations and activities (e.g. in standardization and reserach), a national terminology policy, and networking, networking, networking of the many different and often isolated initiatives within Turkey.

And TermTurk is doing well in achieving these goals: Turkish standards institute is now actively participating in ISO/TC 37  standardization projects, a series of well-attended trainings, conferences and workshops foster dialogue and knowledge transfer, quality assurance and service certification (LICS) take root, training material is obtained, translated and produced at high speed.

TermTurk as a project will come to an end in November 2009. But the continuation of the achievements is already planned and prepared.

There is much to be expected from Turkey in the next years. And I, for my part, am quite proud to be at the core of the action from the very beginning.

How the Booby was found

Debora has this terminology story for us:

People thought the Tasman Booby was long extinct – instead he was only going incognito under a different name (*).

Here’s where we found it: http://www.i-to-i.com/campfire/news/extinct-booby-found-living-in-tasmania.html
Tasman booby – a bird thought to have been long extinct – has been found living in Tasmania by scientists.

However, the story is not as straightforward as it seems, reports National Geographic. A ‘masked’ bird which conservationists thought was a different species for years has now been identified as the Tasman booby.

Fossil experts in past decades unwittingly compared the bones of the female Tasman booby to those of a male booby, which is masked. However, they did not take into account the significantly different statures of the birds and assumed they were two different species.

A comparison of their DNA confirmed that the booby is still very much alive.

Tammy Steeves of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand – the leader of the study which made the discovery – told the magazine: “Imagine my surprise when we found that they were identical. It’s a rare treat to uncover such a definitive result.”

The Tasman Booby (if you meet one, you can address him correctly now): http://www.doc.govt.nz/upload/30245/masked-booby-223.jpg

(*) yes, names are important in terminology. Therefore, ISO 704 “Terminology work – Principles and methods” – a must-know standard for the language industry – will add a large section on names in its next revision.

Wouldn’t you want to develop an international standard?

It’s August again and this usually means  it is time for terminology and language experts, computational linguists and other practitioners to convene and talk standardization (or what did you think August was for ?)

This year the meetings take place in Bogotá (Colombia). Our host here, Colombia’s standards organization ICONTEC has gone to tremendous lengths to make our stay here as pleasant and safe as possible. We feel completely welcome and pampered. If there would be one complaint than it is that it is simplemente freezing here at these high altitutes.
But we will not have much time to notice the cold anyway since we are all working like maniacs on the various new standards or those under revision. discussion after discussion and consensus-finding in order to produce standards that are useful to user groups as diverse as anything: culturally, linguistically and by professional background.

Users of standards concerning principles and methods of terminology span the entire range of communication, globalization etc. And everyody who has a stake in these standards or special expertise in a related subject field is welcome to join. Of course it is not quite that everybody could just show up. Work is delegated via national standards institutes. So if you would be interested in – say – getting involved in developing an ISO standard on the principles of style guides (no joke – this is actually a real example as this might become a new project to be taken up soon), you would have to contact your national standards organization (e.g. DIN in Germany, SABS in South Africa, BSI in the UK or ICONTEC in Colombia). They can delegate you to participate. This is the easiest if the standards body is already member of ISO/TC 37 and have an active national mirror committee.

Anyway, they will be able to tell you and help you. And if not, there might be other ways and maybe ISO/TC 37 secretariat can assist.

Have a look at Wikipedia to learn more about ISO/TC 37 and the standards the committee develops: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/TC_37

So if you have no other plans in August or want to escape the holiday frenzy – or have a genuine interest in standardization work:  Welcome!

We’ll report from here in the course of the week via Twitter (twitter.com/termnet) or here in the Blog.

Any questions? Comments? Bring them on!

Innovative e-learning: content development of terminology management modules for the automotive industries:

The ELCAT project  (go to the e-learning programme)

(by Debora Russi, Cologne University of Appl. Sciences)

This project, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, aims at developing an e-learning course which offers a user-friendly and sound introduction to basic principles and methods of terminology management.

Since terminology, especially in innovative enterprises, increases ever rapidly due to faster and more complex development cycles as well as growing multilingual markets, its proper and efficient treatment requires increased attention and with it a basic knowledge about the particular terminological principles.

The consistent use of terminology within an enterprise also warrants compliance with quality management principles and is a precondition for cost and labour efficient knowledge management and localization processes.

As terminology creation takes place during all product development cycles it is essential to raise awareness and provide basic knowledge about handling this terminology to all involved subject-field experts and other stakeholders.

The addressed target group will include management, sales and marketing, standardization, product development, technical documentation, terminologists, translators, language service providers, corporate communications.

The course is prepared in cooperation with members from the automotive and IT industry and will be offered in German and English. The resulting e-learning platform is envisaged to provide company employees an effective training opportunity that can be integrated as a qualification module into the normal every-day working processes. Students of the Cologne University of Applied Sciences can use these modules in the course of master’s level classes. After a successful implementation of the project an extension is planned towards further scientific and technical subject-fields.

Depending on further project agreements a future commercial or non-commercial exploitation and marketing for other economic branches and companies as well as institutes of higher education is also envisaged. The project started in July 2008 and will end December 2010.

ELCAT is carried out by Cologne University of Applied Sciences. Project manager is Prof. Dr. Klaus-Dirk Schmitz and project partners include Audi Academy, Volkswagen AG, 2W Technische Informations GmbH, TermNet, SDL Trados, acrolinx, IAI (Institute of the Society for the Promotion of Applied Information Sciences at the Saarland University), University of Vienna, University of Florida, Macquarie University (Sydney).

Want to know more? Please contact Debora Russi (Debora.Russi@fh-koeln.de)

ELCAT online: www.elcat.info

A few thoughts on terminology planning

Terminology planning for many years has been regarded part and parcel of language planning, in particular the area dealing with corpus planning and lexical expansion. More recently, with the emergence of fast-paced globalization and the rapid development of modern information and communication technology, and its impact on global, multilingual communication and knowledge transfer, the role of terminology has been reassessed by many scientists as well as communities of use, such as industry and service providers, language planning institutes, etc.

 

A number of arguments speak in favour of regarding terminology policies as separate entities. For one, terminology is increasingly regarded as a strategic and central element for communication and knowledge transfer processes that requires regulation.

 

Furthermore, terminology does not only affect linguistic affairs. Rather, it may be an important issue in education, economic development, information and communication, and other sectors of a nation. In some of these sectors a national language policy may not, or only partly, valid. And even if we continue to regard terminology planning as part of language planning, we may argue that the complexity and interconnectedness of terminology matters with others justifies a separate treatment.

 

An article by Galinski, Budin and de V Cluver, titled Terminologieplanung und Sprachplanung, and published in Hoffmann, L.; Kalverkämper, H; Wiegand, H.E. (eds.) Fachsprachen/Languages for Special Purposes (1999) elaborates on differences and overlapping areas between the two. It is published in German language, but in the UNESCO Guidelines for Terminology Policies (http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=20896&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html) a synapsis of the paper is available in English and French.

 

Terminology planning, while still being a major constituting element in language planning processes, is now regarded from many different angles beyond linguistics, too. With the number of stakeholders growing in the different communities of use, so does the variety of requirements for the development and management of terminologies. Which these are, always reflects their pragmatic environment, the real situation with all its features. Terminology policies therefore must be designed to fit perfectly into this environment, yet be adaptable to change, when the environment changes. Some studies exist with regard to terminology planning.

Most notable the study by Bassey Antia “Terminology and language planning”, which, in an example from language planning from his home country Nigeria describes and examines principles, methods and workflows for terminology creation and standardization in language planning. The institutional situation and frame is of utmost importance for an efficient (i.e. under best-possible deployment of infrastructure, human and financial resources), and effective work (i.e. sustainable, with measurable results that have a real perceived impact on a defined target group).

Such frame conditions only in very rare cases are given and guaranteed long-term by a funding and supporting body, e.g. a government. Therefore, it falls under the tasks of the terminology planner or planning organization to create, or to sustain them and thus enable the expert work of terminology planning, management and standardization over as long a time as necessary.

To achieve this goal, a policy is needed, in the meaning of an officially approved systematic plan and recorded regulation with regard to the creation, management or handling of terminology in an organization or language community. Infoterm’s research and expertise concerns the pragmatic environment in which terminology planning takes place.

 

There are a number of studies by Infoterm on the policy-making process on their Website and in Wikipedia. And Infoterm also compiled the UNESCO Guidelines for Terminology Policies. In 2006 a standardization project was initiated under the International Organization for Standardization to develop a methodology standard based on the Guidelines, but including also the interest of professional organizations. If you are interested in terminology planning and minority languages you might want to read the Proceedings of the Special Seminar on Terminology Policies and Minority Languages, organized by the European Association for Terminology in Dublin in 2007.

The proceedings are available at TermNet Publisher or contact termnetpublisher@termnet.org.

Infoterm Website: http://www.infoterm.info/activities/terminology_policies.php

Article on Terminology Policies (in German): eDITion, magazine of the Association for German Terminology (DTT)