Terminology quarterly briefing for new Translation trainees

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TermCoord October's briefing

TermCoord October's briefing

As usual, the Terminology Coordination Unit (TermCoord) of the European Parliament held its quarterly briefing for the new Translation trainees. The aim of the seminar was that of presenting the division’s activities to the multicultural group of almost 80 young people who have been selected for a Translation Traineeship.

The Head of TermCoord Unit welcomed the trainees, while a terminologist from the same unit illustrated the role of Terminology in the EP. People who want to work in this field have to keep in mind that, being today’s European Union legislation drafted in 24 different languages, Translation plays an important role in the process of adopting legal acts. For this reason, TermCoord was created with the aim of collecting glossaries and facilitating terminology research in the translation units. One of its main goals is also to increase the EP’s interinstitutional contribution to the EU terminology database called “IATE” (InterActive Terminology for Europe), which already contains millions of terms in all EU languages.

The IT Coordinator explained how the internal and the public websites work. Another goal of TermCoord, indeed, is that of staying connected with the actors of the discipline, in order to exchange valuable expertise and material and help its translators. The Linguistic Coordinator later presented the current terminology projects, which have become an integral part of Translation Traineeships. Trainees are given the opportunity to develop their terminology skills while working on one of the many on-going thematic projects coordinated by TermCoord staff and the translation units. Some of the on-going projects – which usually encompass a wide range of topics – are Aquaculture Terminology (containing terms related to different types of aquaculture and soilless cultivation), Birds Project (containing taxonomical terms for different European bird species), Human Rights Terminology (which is currently focused on terms related to the fields of human trafficking and humanitarian law), and a new one, Neologisms (which includes terms from the fields of new technologies, knowledge engineering, IT, linguistics and environment).

Finally, the Terminology Coordinator deepened the Terminology theory and research discussion. She better defined the science of Terminology itself, listing the essential purposes of it (which are clarity, consistency, equivalence, avoiding repeated research, and translatability through additional information for the translators) while also describing what a concept is (“a unit of knowledge created by a unique combination of characteristics”).

By Eva Barros Campelli. Trained journalist at the London School of Journalism.

Communication trainee at TermCoord.