Terminology Coordination

Terminology at the European Parliament:Terminology at the European Parliament:

a new approach in the EU Institutionsa new approach in the EU Institutions

November 2011

Why is Terminology important for the EP?

• Legal texts are translated into the 23 official languages of the EU

• Every translation is legally binding

• The European Parliament votes the final law

• Inaccurate wording transfers the legislative powers to … the Court of Justice!

• Translation and Terminology

• 22 Language Units for 23 languages = ca. 700

translators, 300 assistants

• Terminology Coordination Service (since 2008)

• Technology Support Services for Translation

• ITS: develops and supports technical tools

• Pretrad: administers the inter-institutional EU-

translation memory Euramis

• Outsourcing Unit: coordinates external translations

• The Training and Traineeships Unit

• Human Resources

The EP Directorate General of Translation

consists of two Directorates:

Te

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Co

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ina

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Org

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To coordinate the terminology work in the

translation units, we are supported by:

1 Rotating

Terminologist

Working

Groups

Terminology

Network

100 translators

Terminology Coordination: Tasks

• Coordinates the Terminology Network

• Finds terms, saves them and makes them

available for translators

• Provides terminology tools

• Supports translators in daily work

SERVICES PROVIDED

Internal PR Campaigns

2010:

• To encourage translators to save their terms while translating

2011 In Termino Qualitas:

This year’s promotional campaign from

TermCoord focuses on quality in the

IATE database.

Internal PR Campaigns

Conferences: Terminology in the changing world of translation

• Interactive Terminology for Europe

• 8,5 Million EU-related terms

• Strict quality control

• Reliable sources

• Organized according to domains

• Multilingual

Terminology Database

Public version

• All terms have been validated by a terminologist in

his/her respective native language

• Average of 3500 visitors per hour

• For internal use within the EU Institutions

• Users have different rights and roles to create

entries, make changes and comments, validate

terms etc.

• Terms go public after validation

Internal IATE

• Extracting terms and entering them into

IATE, updating entries using these sources:

– EP Rules of Procedure

– EP Establishment Plan

– EP Fact Sheets

– EP Committee names

– EP Political Parties’ names

– EP Delegation names

– MEP biographies

EP-specific Terminology

The Human Rights

Terminology Project

• The EP has undertaken the task to update/complete the terms related to HR in IATE

• All the language units are currently working on the project, which involves terminologists, translators and trainees

• Find provided terms

and their definitions in

23 languages

• Source: legal texts

organized by domain in

the multilingual

database EUR-Lex

• Involves trainees in the

language units

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/index.htm

IATE Feeding project

“TERMINOLOGY MACRO”

� Terms that are found during translation can easily be collected into a Word table with just two clicks

� New terms and their translations are inserted in IATE by TermCoord after validation by the terminologists in the respective languages units

Real-time terminology tools

Terminology in the other EU

Institutions and Bodies

• The Council:

– Two officials work with a team of rotating terminologists to coordinate the work in the translation Units (average 25 translators). There is at least one FTE as helpdesk. 5-6 translators are trained per Unit and work on terminology according to the workload

• The Commission:

– A central coordination in Luxembourg with 11 officials coordinates the terminology work of 1750 translators, who are split between Luxembourg and Brussels. The intermediate structure is a « Terminology Tribunal », a forum of the 23 units and terminologists in each language sector going from 0,2 to 2,0 FTEs

Terminology in the other EU

Institutions and Bodies

• The Translation Centre

– is coordinating the terminology work of the EU agencies and

responsible for the technical support of IATE (1 coordinator and

5 IT-experts). Their language units consist of 4 to 8 translators,

one of which acts also as terminologist. The central terminology

unit has 3 members

• The European Economic and Social Committee

and the Committee of the Regions

– share a common translation service with 353 translators and 2

translators per language acting as « terminology

representatives », who enter in IATE their specific terminology

Terminology in the other EU

Institutions and Bodies

• The European Central Bank

– is expanding financial glossaries with the respective national

Central Banks

• The Court of Justice

– is extracting in own archives the terminology of the Jurisdiction

• The Court of Auditors

– has no central terminology service. There is one terminology

contact in every unit coordinated by the 2 IT officials

• The European Investment Bank

– has inserted some 16.000 terms in IATE

• Elise:

– a forum permitting collaboration in the co-decision procedure

• Euramis:

– the translation memory containing the legislative texts

• Quest:

– a metasearch engine looking on the basis of the given priorities

for the terms’ translation in the databases, memories and other

sources

Other inter-institutional

terminology and translation tools

Worldwide Terminology

contacts and cooperation

• Universities and external bodies

• Exchange terminology material and know-how

• Presentations of the EP Terminology

Coordination Service to visitors in Luxembourg

• Presentations abroad in the respective

languages

• More than 800 regular external contacts

Any questions?Any questions?

rodolfos.maslias@europarl.europa.eu -www.europarl.europa.eu

L-2929 Luxembourg - Tél +352 43 00 23872 - Fax +352 43 00 23774

Useful EP Links

EP in General• Fact Sheets about the EU:

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/parliament/expert/staticDisplay.do?language=EN&id=72

• List of EP Committees:http://www.europarl.europa.eu/activities/committees/committeesList.do?language=EN

• Eur-Lex Database for EU Law: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/index.htm

• Online Application for a traineeship:http://www.europarl.europa.eu/parliament/public/staticDisplay.do;jsessionid=21F90AB95C

198B2F742B49B0BFD3FDCD.node2?language=EN&id=147

IATE• the IATE database: http://iate.europa.eu/

• Info brochure: http://iate.europa.eu/iatediff/brochure/IATEbrochure_EN.pdf

Terminology Coordination Service• Blog http://termcoord.wordpress.com

• E-Mail termcoord@europarl.europa.eu