Talking about Terminology

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Terminology Symposium in Germany

Matilda-article

From 27 to 29 March, terminologists and other linguists took the opportunity to meet in Mannheim, which is, by chance, one of the major centres for study of the German language.

The DTT e.V. (German Association for Terminology) is the only association in Germany which organizes such a major conference having terminology as its main focus. The event takes place every two years.

The main topics of this year´s symposium were the rights on terminological content and databases, terminology management tools and terminological resources, as well as return on investment in the context of terminology management.

Many presentations showed that it is time to raise the bar for terminology and translation tools. One of the new big developments in the field of terminological tools is the representation of taxonomies in terminological databases.

Networking is the key issue in terminology work and terminology management, both in the outside world between colleagues and inside the company. The importance of sharing terminology and the efficacy of reusing acquired and user-reviewed terminology resources was recognized by many specialists in the field of terminology and research in this area was carried out in the last two years in the European project TaaS (Terminology as a Service). The results of the research lead to a platform providing multilingual and collaborative terminology services in the cloud to identify term candidates and extract them automatically, retrieve translation candidates from various sources, share terminology with other users or using terminology in other working environments. You can test the Beta Version here.

DTT awarded the first prize for best work in the field of terminology at this year´s symposium to Georg Löckinger for his dissertation “Übersetzungsorientierte Fachwörterbücher” (Translation oriented specialized dictionaries).

The DTT symposium is a perfect opportunity to exchange knowledge with colleagues coming from various working environments and also a very good chance to keep pace with the latest research results and tool developments in the field of terminology.

At this year’s symposium, DTT presented the new edition of the Terminology Best Practices folder (in German), a very practical and useful guide for the daily work of terminologists and other language specialists, comprising eight chapters on different terminological issues from basic knowledge of terminology science and tools and technologies to project and process management in terminology work, through to profitability of terminology management. The Terminology Best Practices folder is only one of the broad range of DTT publications devoted to all the possible aspects of terminology work. You can view the lists of contents and order the publications here.

In addition to the publications, DTT offers different seminars and workshops in the field of terminology. Have a look on the website. Here you can also find the presentations from this year’s symposium.

 

Article written by Matilda Soare, Research Assistent at Cologne University of Applied Sciences and Terminology Trainer, former TermCoord trainee.