Terminology Briefing for Translation Trainees

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Using correct terminology is important for parliamentary work and crucial for drafters and translators working on parliamentary documents. For that reason, TermCoord organises every three months a briefing with the intent of explaining the importance of terminology to all trainees of the European Parliament’s Directorate-General for Translation.

In the briefing, the TermCoord trainees and permanent staff outline the main principles and basics of terminology and terminology work, explaining how to use various IATE fields, such as the Definition, the Context and the Reference fields. Guidelines are given to help the new trainees take the first steps in terminological research and terminology management. The trainees work in two types of terminology projects: language-specific, which is organised by a translation units’ terminologists; and thematic, organised by TermCoord and covering all official EU languages. These projects give the trainees a chance to acquire knowledge in this field and to enrich IATE. TermCoord offers several themes of work, such as human rights, finance, IT and social media, trade and external policy or neologisms, allowing the trainees to choose the subject area they are interested in. When working in these projects the trainees realise how important terminology is for consistency and quality of parliamentary texts, and the additional input to IATE makes the lives of EP and external translators easier. During last year trainees participating in TermCoord’s projects worked on approximately 1200 terms.

Andreia Nuno

Graduate from the New University (Portugal), Degree in Modern Languages, Literature and Cultures, English and Portuguese Studies (PT, EN), Master in Learning and Communication in Multilingual and Multicultural Contexts (EN, FR)

Terminology trainee at the Terminology Coordination of the European Parliament