Recently many structural changes in higher education systems have taken place in the European Higher Education Area. The Bologna Process wants to create comparable systems, assure the quality of higher education and increase mobility among students and staff. Comparable and standardised structures need similar terminology. However, there are still many differences on the national, regional and institutional level. This leads to challenges for translating terms.
The case of Austrian-German and English at the University of Vienna is presented in the article by Barbara Heinisch-Obermoser. She describes the difference of higher education and university terminology. University is a sub-branch of higher education which offers academic degrees. Sub-categories of university terms are academic and administrative terms. Administrative university terminology can be divided in smaller fields for example HR, organisation, etc.
The University of Vienna is still in the transition phase from the old to the new system. “Studienplan”, the term used in the old system, and the new term “Curriculum” are still used to indicate the change in the system. To emphasise this change in an English translation can be difficult when only one equivalent can be found. Standardised use of terminology is needed for a concise image of the university. The University of Vienna created UniVieTerm with recommendations and preferences for German and English terms. It is a useful tool for internal and external communication. The majority of the end-users are university employees and have none or little experience with translating terms. To engage the users, the database promotes active participation in adding new terms.
The target group for terminology databases can vary from professional translators and terminologists to other users without background in either terminology or translation. Universities with many employees and students from different language backgrounds should target their databases carefully.Therefore, individual terminology databases to coordinate internal and external communication are important to meet the specific needs. Due to the increasing mobility of students and staff, terminology should be standardised more on a European level. However, there will always be national and institutional differences.
Read the whole article: University terminology: Why it is not just higher education terminology
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Written by Anne Becker, study visitor at TermCoord