Why Terminology Management?

2236

For a lot of people, terminology is still an obscure field. We have heard this word, met people specialised in it and yet, we still have no clue as to what its role and even more its importance in our daily tasks are.

Why Terminology Management_

Whatever your field of activity, be it translation, manufacturing or marketing, viable terminology and its management are crucial. Language and its ever-evolving nature can sometimes be an obstacle. This fact does not only apply to translation units as, every day, companies provide clients with products. These products need to be marketed, legally regulated, correctly defined, and this across different services of one same company. It is then recommended to incorporate enterprise terminology management into the localisation workflow. To do so, websites such as TermWiki provide you with a widget that enables to embed a vast database of subject-specific terminology content on their own pages for free.

shutterstock_120632071Each person working on this project has its own vision of the end product, its composition and characteristics, very often depending on the role they’ve had in the developing process of the latter. Due to this subjectivity, terms might be inconsistently used and provoke confusion on both ends.

Therefore, the creation of a database systematically compiling the terms to be used across the departments of a same company is of great importance. As a result of such implementation, less time is spent on definitions and corrections, thus speeding time-to-market processes. The writing and editing tasks are eased, less expensive, more efficient and consistent.

Legal matters also have to be considered as the misuse of registered or serviced trademarks and many other legal demarcations is common and leads to high costs.

Translation of content related to a product for its export is also a challenge and terminology management is another key to success. It is believed that 40% of translation time is spent in terminology research. A database or different terminology management tools will effectively reduce this time and also facilitate the work of in-country reviewers if your company has employed one. In-country reviewers are providing final quality check of all content. They are generally experts in the product and/or content to be sold and are native of the target country.

Translation of content related to a product for its export is also a challenge and terminology management is another key to success. It is believed that 40% of translation time is spent in terminology research.

To summarise, not only terminology management ensures coherence, consistency and quality of content, but automated and human management also benefit the society with less cost and a speeding of the time-to-market of your company.

So, who said terminology was obsolete?


Article written by Floriane Loup, trainee at TermCoord