Top 10 articles of the year!

1416

2017 was a bright year for TermCoord: the website had a record number of views for two months in a row, beating the previous record, set in March of the same year. Taking this opportunity to express our gratitude to all those who have visited the website or shared any of our articles in the past months, we would like to share with you a selection of the top 10 articles from last year, which have been selected by our followers themselves. In fact, the articles below are the most clicked and commented by our audience.
We really appreciate your continued support, and hope to keep providing you with interesting articles and useful resources for years to come.
May it be a New Year full of translation, interpretation and multilingualism, and keep following us on termcoord.eu!

top 10

1-What is the relationship between language and culture?

Language is used not just as a tool for the exchange of information, but as a symbolic system with the power to create and shape symbolic realities, such as values, perceptions, identities through discourse.

2- Translator and perfection: an impossible match?

The importance of translated information goes far beyond the conference room. Translations of major documents are often cited by the media, quoted in statements and incorporated into legislation. So, can you imagine how much pressure translators of any European Institution have to live with? The responsibilities they need to take on?

3- What does a “close friend” mean for you?

Do these two nice words mean the same for everybody, in each country, language and culture? The same word is used every time but not with the same meaning…

4- How can note-taking improve your interpreting skills?

Interpretation envisages making a rendition of speech rather than a summary, which involves a lot of stress – especially when you are a beginner interpreter and you are not aware about some useful principles of notation that help you memorise. In this post you will read about some interpretation strategies that may help reduce the time of the speech memorisation.

5- The age factor in second language acquisition

Is there an optimal age for second language acquisition? Everybody agrees that age is a crucial factor in language learning. However to which extent age is an important factor still remains an open question. A plethora of elements can influence language learning: biological factors, mother tongue, intelligence, learning surroundings, emotions, motivation and last but not least: the age factor.

6- Misused English words and expressions in EU publications

The European institutions have developed a vocabulary that differs from that of any recognised form of English: discover here words that do not exist or are relatively unknown to native English speakers, or words where users (including many native speakers) ‘prefer’ a local term to the one normally used in English-speaking countries…

7- Foreignization or domestication?

“For truly a successful translation, biculturalism is even more important than bilingualism, since words only have meanings in terms of cultures in which they function”. Eugene Nida, linguist.

8- Terminology issues unique to medical translation

A translator who embarks on the seemingly steep path of medical translation has two main obstacles: medical knowledge, and medical terminology. This post is about the latter, presenting the most obvious problems in determining the right medical terminology.

9- Damn!: the perception of swearing in different languages

How old is swearing? Actually, a better question would be; how old is language?! According to some studies, some of the first sounds emitted by our ancestors had the form and the function of our bad words, and they were produced as a reaction to different situations of shock or surprise, danger or pain…

10- How can parents enhance child’s bilingual development?

Parents are the key figures in supporting the active bilingualism since they provide a language input for their children, which is shown to have an essential role in developing bilingual proficiency. Therefore, they strive to support the child’s bilingualism by using the appropriate strategies.

top 10

Written by
Carolina Quaranta – Schuman Trainee at the Terminology Coordination Unit of the European Parliament. Master Graduate in Public and Political Communication in the University of Torino, Italy; communication specialist and journalist.