ECQA Certified Terminology Manager explanier in Webinar hosted by SDL

Join us in a SDL webinar about the ECQA Certified Terminology Manager training program!

30.04.2012

TermNet member SDL is hosting a webinar about the training and certification program “ECQA Certified Terminology Manager”.

Join us for this webinar and learn more about this innovative and successful program!

Language: German

Date: 10. May 2012
10:00 – 11:00 CETS (Central European Summer Time – Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna)

You can register for this webinar at: http://www.translationzone.com/de/events/translation-agency/may2012/2012-05-10-terminologiemanager-zertifizierung.asp

About ECQA Certified Terminology Manager – Basic

In the globalised knowledge and information societies, specialised language has become a prerequisite of any kind of efficient and effective communication, management and interoperability of technical systems and methodologies. Terminology and terminology management build an integral, high quality and quality-assuring part of the end products, services and tools in the fields of

• INFORMATION & COMMUNICATION,
• CLASSIFICATION & CATEGORISATION,
• TRANSLATION & LOCALISATION.

The new job profile Certified Terminology Manager – Basic combines and bundles the various competences of professionals active in these areas.
ECQA Certified Terminology Manager – Basic is especially suited for professionals who work as

• INFORMATION & COMMUNICATION PROFESSIONALS:
  ICT experts, information and knowledge managers, etc.

• EXPERTS IN CLASSIFICATION & CATEGORIZATION:
  e-Business, Semantic Web, libraries and archives, etc.

• LANGUAGE INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS:
  Translators, interpreters, localisers, technical writers, etc.

This certification can be regarded as specialized professional qualification.

For more information about the ECQA Certified Terminology Manager please visit:
http://www.termnet.org/english/products_service/ecqa_ctm-basic/index.php
or contact us termnet@termnet.org

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.

What to do when you have to create a glossary

UPDATE!

The “glossaries” focus group reports what they did:

Essentially, we introduced ourselves to each other and as we did this, established the various frameworks in which different members of the group create different kinds of glossaries and other terminological resources.

Environments, glossary types, target groups

• Resources designed to respond to distributed development in large enterprises; problem of communication among distributed sites;  getting clear definitions in English
• Resources designed for the purpose of translating EU legislation based on multilingual glossaries with master en equivalents (languages: Croatian & Turkish)
• Regulatory affairs in order to support translation activities by outsourced translators
• Language planning in the context of the Welsh language boards; Welsh/English; issues of acceptance and term creation
• Fachsprache= special language in business; (English and Slovenian) for use by freelance translators
• Bilingual lexicology for special languages
• WIPO terminology database
• Transportation industry; dictionaries and glossaries for Latvian, Russian, English; how to make the terminologies parallel
• Translation department glossaries for EU agencies in a wide range of domains; how to foresee problems and solutions for translators, auditors, interpreters, etc.
• Freelance technical writer: glossaries; technical solutions
• Technology companies where people are creating terms in industry and business
• Technical terms, medical terms, processes to establish preferred terminological usage
• South African experience: language planning and term introduction in languages for which many terms must be created
• Translation unit of the eu: exercise in the combination of various different glossaries into Euroterm; problem of legacy data; problem of unification of entries
• Communications support – total communications management for translation and document production
• Technical translation and terminology management for enterprises, multiple languages
• Modernization of legacy systems and importation of legacy data
• Secretary to a commission in a minority language region; translation of legal terms & laws into a minority language that is a majority language in a neighboring country (i.e., German in Belgium, parallel)
• WIPO – World Intellectual Property Organization; patent translation and terminology management

Problems

• How does one transfer terminological and lexicographical information from tabular Excel glossaries into a structured terminology management system, such as MultiTerm? (Answer: xml output, manipulation and importation into the master system; more of a tools question, but nevertheless related to “glossaries”. Similar issues exist for glossaries found on the web, which may also need to edited for stylistic presentation.

• How does one deal with copyright issues? (To be discussed on Thursday)

• How do we come with new terms in different environments:

• Terms used in well established languages (e.g., German terms for Italian or Belgian law)?
• Terms or even general language words for use in languages where some areas of science, law, etc. have not been as rigorously developed in the past
• How do we introduce and educate the general public so that terms created in such environments will be accepted for general usage?
• Community action procedures and introduction in the school system in order to familiar children, families and interest groups in focused areas of terminology (e.g., family health, water management, childhood education, etc.), with the result that the introduction and acceptance of terminology can actually take a generation!
• How do we deal with the fact that terms are coined in English and tend to be both very compact and short, in addition to being ambiguous with regard to noun/verb/adjective relationships, when some languages require more explicit, longer phrasal terms?
• How do we keep people from just giving up and using the English terms?

No clear solutions here, but we commiserated with each other!

Critical insight: “Nothing is so easy as I thought it would be.”

To be continued tomorrow…