On December 5, 2022, Tinatin Margalitadze, Professor of Ilia State University, Director of the Centre for Lexicography and Language Technologies, and Nana Gogia, a senior editor and translator at the Bureau of Translation of International Agreements at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia held two meetings at Batumi Shota Rustaveli State University and Batumi State Maritime Academy.
The meeting at Batumi Shota Rustaveli State University was attended by the Head of the Department of Translation Studies of the University, Professor Khatuna Beridze, and the academic staff of the Department.
The meeting at Batumi State Maritime Academy was attended by the Vice-Rector of the Academy, Kristina Rzgoeva, and the academic staff of the Academy, involved in the work on maritime terminology.
Tinatin Margalitadze and Nana Gogia presented to the representatives of Batumi State University, as well as the Maritime Academy the project of the Terminology Coordination Unit of the European Parliament “Terminology Without Borders”, a project of academic cooperation between universities of different countries, between professors and students, interested in and working on the terminology of different fields.
T. Margalitadze and N. Gogia explained to the hosts the importance of this project for the description of Georgian terminology according to European standards, for standardization and harmonization of the Georgian terminology, which will be incorporated in a multilingual terminological base and will eventually be added to IATE, Interactive Terminology for Europe. N. Gogia presented to the hosts IATE, its search functionalities, the benefits of using IATE in terminological work. She also explained the methodology of working in the excel file for “Terminology Without Borders”, explained all the fields that are to be filled and why it is important to describe terms according to this methodology.
Professor Beridze and her colleagues at Batumi State University expressed great interest in joining the project “Terminology Without Borders”. They have a module, training conference interpreters with specialization in legal and medical terminology and said that they would work in this field together with students.
The Vice-Rector and the academic personnel of the Maritime Academy also expressed interest in the project “Terminology Without Borders” and readiness to start adding maritime terminology to it. They said that they would need some training in theoretical issues of terminology, as well as the TermCoordUnit project. Tinatin Margalitadze and Nana Gogia promised the hosts to support their terminological work with training them in the theory and practice of terminological work.
The sides agreed that it would be very useful to organize a Summer School in Batumi, invite representatives of TermCoordUnit, as well as students, involved in this project from different universities to attend this Summer School.
The decision was made to make the first steps, summarize the meeting at both Higher Education Institutions, write to the TermCoordUnit and officially express readiness to join the project. It was also decided to start organizing Summer School in terminology and ask representatives of TermCoordUnit if they will be available for travelling to Batumi in Summer and help work with students. Meanwhile, some training sessions could be arranged with Tinatin Margalitadze and Nana Gogia to discuss some terminological issues and get better insight into the project and databases involved in it.
Written by: Tinatin Margalitadze
