Activitatea

terminologica IV
standardization - organisms; language
planning

Activitatea terminologica IV

Terminology standardization can be

subdivided into two distinct activities:

standardization of terminologies,
standardization of terminological principles and
methods

terminology standardization precedes

subject standardization

Activitatea terminologica IV
Beginnings of standardization:
- the International Electrotechnical Commission
(IEC) - was founded in London, 1906 following a
recommendation passed at the International
Electrical Congress, in St. Louis, USA, on 15
September 1904
Aim: to standardize the terminology of
electrotechnology for the sake of the quality of its
subject standards=>
the International Electrotechnical Vocabulary (IEV)
(1938)
The IEV Online Database can be accessed via
http://domino.iec.ch/iev/iev.nsf/Welcome?OpenForm

Activitatea terminologica IV

The predecessor to the International

Organization for Standardization (ISO) = the
International Federation of Standardizing
Associations ISA ( founded in 1926)
Nominally, ISO/TC 37 was established from
the very beginning of ISO in 1946
re-activated only in 1951
the Committee started operation in 1952
(after WWI). Since then the secretariat of
ISO/TC 37 has been held by Austria.

Activitatea terminologica IV
3 sub-committees:
ISO/TC 37/SC 1 Principles and methods
ISO/TC 37/SC 2 Terminography and
lexicography
ISO/TC 37/SC 3 Computer applications for
terminology.

Activitatea terminologica IV

Standardization (rel. to terminology):

Institutional standardization = a body sets the

preferred use for a designation
International standardization = an international
body sets the characteristics that a product should
have and the term(s) appropriate for it
(non-interventionist) standardization = a
terminological system monitors itself by mutual
accord of its end-users

Activitatea terminologica IV
Standardization Organisms 4 types
: national and regional bodies that represent
ISO and IEC
- Multinational bodies that act as
standardization bodies
- Major international organizations that have
standardization sections
- Specialized bodies in a particular field /
subject matter

Activitatea terminologica IV
Exemples
- DIN Deutsche Industrie Normen
- BS British Standards
- ANSI American National Standards Institute
- IEC International Electrotechnical Committee
etc.
also
International Standardization Organization (ISO)
Prescriptions (quality, size etc.) + terminological info
(terms, definitions)

Activitatea terminologica IV
International Standardization Organization (ISO)
- Initiated in 1926 as ISA (after WWI)
- 1946/1947 => ISO (25 countries)
- Headquarters in Geneva
- Coordinates the process of unifying all standards
(except in electronics)
- Collaborates with other international / national
organizations (AFNOR, BSI, FAO, UNESCO)
- The recommendations are issued by 190 technical
committees

Activitatea terminologica IV

BSI www.standardsuk.com
AFNOR http://www.afnor.fr/
UNESCO www.unesco.org/
FAO http://www.fao.org/ = search glossary
http://www.codexalimentarius.net/web/index_
en.jsp

International organisms

CEN European Committe for Standardization

CENELEC Comit Eutopeo de Normalizacin Electrot
cnica
ETSI Comit Eutopeo de Normalizacin
ISO International Organization for Standardization
IEC International Electrotechnical Commission
ITU-T International Telecommunication Union Telecomm
unication Standarization Sector
IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

National organizations

Asociacin Espaola de Normalizacin (AENOR)

Canada Standards Council of Canada (SCC)
France Association franaise de normalisation (AFNOR)
Germany Deutsches Institut fr Normung (DIN)
Ireland National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI)
Iceland Icelandic Council for Standardization (STRI)
Portugal Instituto Portugus da Qualidade (IPQ)
United Kingdom British Standards Institution (BSI)
USA American National Standards Institute (ANSI)

Activitatea terminologica IV
ISO standards related to terminology
ISO 10241:1992 International terminology standards
ISO TR 12618:1994 Computational aids in
terminology. Creation and use of terminological
databases and text corpora
ISO 5127-1:1983 Documentation and Information.
Vocabulary Part 1: Basic concepts
ISO standards are regularly reviewed and modified
if necessary

Activitatea terminologica IV
Is standardization necessary?
Imprecise/Incorrect terminology can have
undesirable effects on:
-

Regulations and laws (become contradictory);

Technical translations (resulting in confusing
instructions)
Classifications (can become confusing =>
increased search time, unsuccessful product
searching etc.)
Warehouse management;
Production

Activitatea terminologica IV
Operations involved in standardization:

The creation / selection of a norm

The promotion of this norm over other usages

(ap. A. Rey, 1995)

Activitatea terminologica IV
Processes involved in standardization:

Unification of concepts and concept systems

Definition of terms
Reduction of homonymy
Elimination of synonymy
Fixing of designations (i.e. symbols, abbreviations
etc.)
Term creation (primary / secondary)
(ap. M.T. Cabre1999)

Activitatea terminologica IV
Linguistic policy occurs at two levels:
A. Of a state / group of states linked by a
common language / culture

Imposing internal standards (spelling reform, ex.

Romania, 1992; the law for the protection of the
French language; in Canada (Quebec) the
amenagement linguistique ~ linguistic reform a
policy of francisation imposed by The Bureau de
Langues)
Other exemples: the Arabisation of teaching in the
Arabic-speaking countries

Activitatea terminologica IV

B. Interlinguistic standardization of national

institutions (rel. to translation)
Multinational states / International institutions
obliged to use several languages (Canada,
Belgium, EU, NATO) => require translation
(hence documentation and terminology)
services
(for the EU see
http://europea.eu.int/comm/dgs/translation/in
dex_en.htm

Language management involves recording,

storing and disseminating terminology
without interfering in its development.
Language management plays an important
role in the collection and dissemination of
standardized terminology.

Language planning is the intervention into

language to either create new terminology to
fill gaps in a language (as in the case of
domain loss) or to encourage the growth and
development of a language. Terminology
standardization supports language-planning
efforts and facilitates the implementation of
the new terminology.

Terminology planning

A language community whose language has

not developed scientific and technical
terminologies is unavoidably forced to use
some other, more developed foreign
language for domain communication.
Consequence?

A countrys relative level of development can be

measured by the average capability of its citizens to use
information for the sake of knowledge transfer and
capacity building.

Terminology planning

Language planning refers to

deliberate efforts to influence the
behaviour of others with respect to
the acquisition, structure, or functional
allocation of their language codes.
Cooper (1989)

Terminology planning

Language planning covers a mixture of

methods and approaches, including
terminology and lexicography, terminology
management, translation and translation
management, and increasingly, corpus-based
approaches (term extraction, corpus analysis
for spotting neologisms coined in discourse
communities, etc.)

Terminology planning

Terminology planning

Terminology planning develops language largely

according to the needs and requirements of
communication for a specific domain.
Different user groups need terminological data
having different degrees of complexity and detail
for different purposes.
Terminology planning consciously and
systematically develops special language according
to the needs and requirements of domain
communication

Terminology planning

A national terminology policy is a public

strategy formulated at the level of political
decision making in a country (or in a more or
less autonomous language community within
a country or a region that spreads across the
borders of two or more countries) with the
aim of developing or regulating emerging and
existing terminologies for an array of
purposes.

Terminology planning
Stages in the creation and implementation of TS
PHASE I Preparation for the terminology policy;
PHASE II Formulation of the terminology policy;
PHASE III Implementation of the terminology
policy;
PHASE IV Sustained operation of the terminology
infrastructure and the adaptation mechanism for the
terminology policy.

Terminology planning

Terminology planning

Resource
Read the section Standardization in The
Pavel Terminology Tutorial at
http://www.bt-tb.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/btbpavel.php?page=chap51&lang=eng&contlang=eng