Building on a terminology resource – the Irish experience

www.focal.ie is the national database of Irish language terminology. In this paper, we examine: (i) the impact achieved by this resource in the five year period since work commenced; (ii) the possibilities which have arisen from one project over a short time span, to develop sub-projects and related initiatives; and (iii) the advantages and opportunities arising from the creation of one high-quality electronic language resource. The Irish case shows that the development of high-quality resources for a lesser-used language can have interesting and unexpected knock-on effects. We present eight stages and aspects of term planning: preparation/planning; research; standardisation; dissemination; implantation; evaluation; modernisation/maintenance; and training. Fiontar, in its work,has moved from its initial involvement in the dissemination of terminology, to take an active part in other aspects of term planning for Irish: research, standardisation, evaluation, modernisation and training. This has been achieved through editorial and technological development, in partnership with key stakeholders and always from a socioterminological point of view – that is, with an emphasis on terminology as an aspect of language planning and from the point of view of users in particular. Particular projects described include Focal as a term management system and as a user resource; tools for translators; user links to a corpus; the development of a new sports dictionary; and research into subject field headings. Two related projects are the LEX legal terms project for term extraction and standardisation, and the development of terminology for the European Union

Analysis of documentary and terminological needs of doctors and medical translators as a basis for the development of a next-generation multilingual dictionary

The objective of this study is to develop a multilingual lexicographical resource aimed at doctors and medical translators. Due to the fact that these two groups have different needs, current resources are unable to satisfy both equally. Our premise is that it would be possible to design a single adjustable, adaptable and flexible tool which could address their different expectations, needs and preferences. The development of this tool is underpinned by empirical user analysis through an online trilingual survey.This article is the English version of “Análisis de necesidades documentales y terminológicas de médicos y traductores médicos como base para el diseño de un diccionario multilingüe de nueva generación” by Gloria Corpas Pastor & Marina Roldán Juárez. It was not published on the print version of MonTI for reasons of space. The online version of MonTI does not suffer from these limitations, and this is our way of promoting plurilingualism

In search of knowledge: text mining dedicated to technical translation

Articolo pubblicato su CD e commercializzato direttamente dall'ASLIB (http://shop.emeraldinsight.com/product_info.htm/cPath/56_59/products_id/431). Programma del convegno su http://aslib.co.uk/conferences/tc_2011/programme.htm

Collocations and Grammatical Patterns in a Multilingual Online Term Bank

This article considers the importance of including various types of collocations in a terminological database, with the aim of making this information available to the user via the user interface. We refer specifically to the inclusion of empirical and phraseological collocations, and information on grammatical patterning. Attention is also given to provision of information on semantic prosody and semantic preferences — aspects which have been rather neglected in South African terminological databanks and language for special purposes (LSP) dictionaries. Various strategies for the effective semi-automatic extraction of collocational data from specialized corpora are explored. Possibilities regarding access to and presentation of collocational information to the user are briefly considered. It is argued that users should have direct access to collocational information, and that collocations should not only be accessible via the lemmatic address of the term appearing as part of the collocation. The research is done within the context of the establishment of an Open Access Resource Term Bank, which is developed as a pedagogical tool to support students whose language of learning and teaching is not the L1.Keywords: Collocations, grammatical patterning, multilingual terminology database, semantic prosody, semantic preference, open access resource term bank, corpus-based terminolog

STRATEGIE I NARZĘDZIA TŁUMACZENIA PRAWNICZEGO

The article deals with translation strategies in their relation to translation tools. It reflects the theoretical requirements for professional legal translations in the light of the legallinguistic equivalence and the skopos-theory. The author stresses that developing translatorial strategies as well as designing and using translation tools are theory-dependent activities. What remains to be developed is the explicit model of hitherto implicitly followed particular translatorial strategies in relation to all types of translation tools. In the institutional setting the relevant translatorial strategies are influenced by guidelines that regulate many issues that are subject to choices made by individual translators. These guidelines often also determine the use of translation tools. As of now, on-line translation tools widen considerably the traditional lexicographical notions and they contribute to work rationalization in that they offer the translator a survey of already existing translation alternatives. However, available translation tools, traditional and digital, tend towards solving problems of translatorial routine.Their multitude corresponds with the number of dynamic problems in legal translation that cannot be rigidly determined. Therefore, creative legal translation remains an essentially human activity. Meanwhile, the multitude of existing approaches might lead in future to the emergence of a legallinguistic thesaurus that would display the totality of legal speech acts that constitute the legal discourse. The legal-linguistic thesaurus, that would constitute the main translation tool, does not preclude developing of other goal-oriented translation tools of limited scope. Therefore, notwithstanding the on-going changes, strategically responsible choice of translatorial strategies and the corresponding informed choice of translatorial tools are essential techniques for daily translation work.W artykule omówione zostają problemy wynikające w relacji pomiędzy strategiami translatorskimi i narzędziami wspomagającymi tłumaczenie. Punkt wyjściowy stanowią teoretyczne wymagania dla profesionalnych tłumaczeń tekstów prawnych wynikające z pojęcia ekwiwalencji legilingwistycznej oraz teorii skoposu. Autor podkreśla, że planowanie strategii translatorskich, jak również stosowanie narzędzi wspomagających tłumaczenie są działaniami zależnymi od wyboru teorii. W tym kontekście koniecznym wydaje się rozwinięcie eksplicytnego modelu strategii translatorskich związanych z wyborem narzędzi wspomagających tłumaczenie, które dotychczas są jedynie domyślne w praktyce translatorskiej. Ponadto, w instytucjach w których wykonywane są przekłady mają zastosowanie dyrektywy dla tłumaczy, które regulują kwestie związane z wyborem i zastosowaniem narzędzi wspomagających tłumaczenie. Cyfrowe narzędzia wspomagające przekład rozszerzyły dotychczasowe pojęcia leksykograficzne i przyczyniły się do racjonalizacji trybu pracy udostępniając tłumaczowi do wyboru przegląd ekwiwalentów tłumaczeniowych. Jednakowoż, tradycyjne i cyfrowe narzędzia wspomagające są pomocne głównie przy rozwiązywaniu rutynowych problemów przekładów. Ich znaczna liczba odpowiada ilości problemów przekładu prawnego o charakterze dynamicznym, które nie mogą być rozwiązane w sposób sztywny. Z tego powodu kreatywne tłumaczenie prawne pozostaje działalnością wykonywaną przez ludzi. Jednakże istniejąca mnogość podejść do identyfikacji strategii translacyjnych mogłaby w przyszłości doprowadzić do stworzenia tezaurusu języka prawa dokumentującego całokształt prawnych aktów mowy, które tworzą dyskurs prawny. Tezaurus języka prawa, który mógłby stać się głównym narzędziem wspomagającym, nie wyklucza jednak rozwoju innych narzędzi mniejszego pokroju wspomagających przekład. Dlatego, pomimo zachodzących zmian, odpowiedzialny wybór strategii translatorskich i narzędzi wspomagających przekład pozostaje jedną z podstawowych umiejętności zawodowych tłumacza w jego codziennej prac

Web-based tools and resources for legal translators: the JudGENTT translation-oriented glossaries for criminal courts translators

One of the requirements that most obviously characterises the work of translators in highly specialised fields is to have instant access to expert knowledge management systems that enable them to carry out their work with the precision and rigour demanded when working with specialist texts. However, in the field of professional private translation practice we do not yet have sufficiently powerful tools (of the kind available to international organisations) to enable translators to carry out their terminological work in a systematic way, combining the requirements for linguistic information with those for conceptual information and those related to the time pressure to which they are frequently subject in their work. In this paper we reflect on the general features that such expert knowledge management systems for freelance legal translators should possess, and in particular on the terminological resources that they should feature. To this end we present the design and methodology used by the GENTT research group in creating highly specialised glossaries for translators of criminal court procedure documents from four legal systems: Spain, France, the United Kingdom and Germany. These glossaries are part of a broader webbased expert knowledge management system for translators which also encompasses conceptual (legal concepts and procedures) and textual resources (corpus).This article is part of the research project: 2012-2014 (P1·1B2012-53) funded by the UJI and the research project FFI2012-34200, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy (MINECO) and developed by the GENTT research group of the University Jaume I (Spain)