Terminology at the Dutch Language Institute: Towards a Centre of Expertise for Professional Language

7Terminologija | 2021 | 28 doi.org/10.35321/term28-01 Terminology at the Dutch Language Institute: Towards a Centre of Expertise for Professional Language FRIEDA STEURS Instituut voor de Nederlandse Taal, Leiden & KU Leuven ORCID id: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2884-5713 ABSTRACT When it comes to terminology, the Dutch-speaking regions have a long tradition of collaboration. Since the eighties there have been several initiatives, all led by the Dutch Language Union. There was a growing awareness that a platform was needed to bring together all information concerning Dutch terminology and to make it accessible for every possible user. Since 2016, the Dutch Language Institute (INT) in Leiden manages and develops all kinds of Dutch language materials. The whole spectrum of language, including professional language, regional languages and dialects, is now given attention, making it obvious for the INT to accommodate the Centre of Expertise for Dutch Terminology (ENT). In this article I will go deeper into the wide range of information supplied by the ENT, including specific software tools for terminological tasks. I will also describe a project on medical terminology that links lexicography and terminology and that is conducted at the INT. KEYWORDS: Dutch terminology, economic impact, terminology tools, education, medical terminology ANOTACIJA Olandų kalba kalbantys regionai terminologijos srityje turi jau seniai gyvuojančias bendradarbiavimo tradicijas. Nuo XX a. 8-ojo dešimtmečio įgyvendintos kelios iniciatyvos, visoms joms vadovavo Olandų kalbos sąjunga. Vis labiau didėjo supratimas, kad reikia sukurti visiems vartotojams prieinamą platformą, kurioje būtų sutelkta visa su olandų terminologija susijusi informacija. Nuo 2016 m. įvairią olandų kalbos medžiagą tvarko Leidene įsikūręs Olandų kalbos institutas (INT). Dėmesys šiuo metu skiriamas visoms kalbos atmainoms, tokioms kaip profesinė kalba, regioninės kalbos, tarmės, taigi tapo aišku, kad Olandų kalbos institute reikia steigti Olandų terminologijos žinių centrą (ENT). Straipsnyje aptarsiu šio centro teikiamą įvairaus pobūdžio informaciją, 8Frieda Steurs Terminology at the Dutch Language Institute: Towards a Centre of Expertise for Professional Language įskaitant konkrečias programines priemones, skirtas terminologinėms užduotims atlikti. Taip pat pristatysiu Olandų kalbos instituto įgyvendinamą leksikografiją ir mediciną siejantį medicinos terminologijos projektą. ESMINIAI ŽODŽIAI: olandų terminologija, ekonominis poveikis, terminologinės priemonės, edukacija, medicinos terminologija 1. TERmINOLOgy IN ThE DUTCh-SPEAkINg REgIONS: A ShORT hISTORy The Dutch-speaking regions have a long tradition of (linguistic) collaboration. Since the eighties there have been several partnerships and committees, all led by the Dutch Language Union (Nederlandse Taalunie, NTU). Linguistic ideas saw a significant change in the eighties. In the twentieth century, theoretical linguistics had evolved from structuralism to generative grammar, focusing on syntax. The approach to the lexicon was still rather traditional, with an emphasis on standard language, modern and historical. Because of the growing internationalisation and the consequential increased demand for translators and interpreters capable of dealing with specialist texts, professional language received more and more attention, although not immediately, from the side of traditional, theoretical linguistics. The NTU realised there was a need for a consultation platform on the subject of professional language. There were two other interested parties: the Royal Netherlands Standardization Institute (then NNI, now NEN) and the Belgian Bureau for Standardisation (then BIN, now NBN). A partnership was started: the Dutch terminology group SaNT (Samenwerkingsverband voor Nederlandse Terminologie). The SaNT was working closely together in the period 1988-1996. Within this collaboration, the interested parties were brought together into two groups: a ‘Language and Education’ group and a ‘Language and Business’ group. In the series Voorzetten (‘proposals’) by the Dutch Language Union, two reports on terminology were published. The first report (Voorzetten 32)1 included articles on the promotion of the use of authorised terminology lists, on how to use terminology databases in businesses and government institutions, and also an article on how universities should offer ‘Terminology’ as a subject in its own right2. Recommendations were written on 1 Vroomen Pim de (ed.) (1990). 2 Vervoorn Ad (ed.) (1992). 9Terminologija | 2021 | 28 the contents of such courses and on how the research into professional language could be given shape. As a result of these recommendations by the SaNT, all translation and interpretation programmes in Flanders began to pay more attention to terminology, making it a separate subject in the curriculum. At the time, this was highly innovative, as most language courses still maintained an overwhelmingly philological approach. This was also the time of the POINTER project. POINTER stood for ‘Proposals for an Operational Infrastructure for Terminology in Europe’ and was launched in December 1994 by the European Commission. Back then, there was already an awareness that professional language was becoming very important in European businesses and that a multilingual policy was required. “The proper and accurate use of a specialised vocabulary or ‘terminology’ is vital to successful communication in the modern world and consequently also to businesses, research and the further development of ideas. many companies and organisations use and invent terms on a daily basis, not only in their own institutions and countries, but also across regional and national borders. Although new and frequently occurring terminology is often recorded, there is a lack of rationalisation despite our so-called ‘information society’ and hardly any efforts are made to work together to maximise the use of valuable sources.”3 The POINTER project is aimed to make a set of concrete, practical proposals in order to support terminology users all over Europe by facilitating the distribution of terminologies. The emphasis of POINTER was on meeting the multilingual needs of a growing European market. These were fascinating times: most researchers had gradually switched over from paper to working digitally and were learning to use their first PCs. The importance of digital linguistic data to researchers and users became clear. The SaNT working group ‘Language and Business’ experimented with the first digital terminology banks: Euroterm (maastricht) and Eurodicautom (European institutions, Luxembourg, later replaced by IATE). In all the activities of these two working groups, we noticed an increasing interest in professional language. Economic activity and the use of professional language are of course closely interwoven. Because of the strong economic markets in the Netherlands and Flanders, many busi3 Available at: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/LRE63090/results. 1 0 Frieda Steurs Terminology at the Dutch Language Institute: Towards a Centre of Expertise for Professional Language nesses needed professional texts for customers, suppliers and technicians. These texts had to be quickly available in different languages, which caused a need for terminology lists and later terminological databases. This phenomenon has certainly contributed to the development of a consultation platform for Dutch terminology. The activities of the SaNT came to an end in 1996, when this collaboration was discontinued by the NTU. As the standardisation institutes had hardly contributed to this initiative, the NTU did not consider it a real partnership between the parties mentioned. The colleagues concerned, terminologists, linguists and translators, who had been working together with the SaNT, were left on their own and decided in 1997, on the occasion of a congress in Utrecht, to found a field association for Dutch terminology for the Netherlands and Flanders. Thus NL-Term was born, an association which aimed to be a contact point for anyone involved with Dutch terminology, both its practice and its theory. In its first years NL-Term was kept afloat by volunteers and enthusiastic members of the association, without any subsidies. Later a subsidy was granted by the NTU. NL-Term has been successful now for over 30 years and organises a congress or a workshop every year4. After cancelling the SaNT, the NTU did not abandon terminology, but appointed a strategic committee which was to establish the policy and priorities for terminology in the Dutch-speaking regions. CoTerm was founded in 2006 and drew up policy decisions until 2012. It was the committee’s task to advise the NTU on the terminology policy to be implemented within the long-term policy framework of the NTU, to formulate projects within that framework and to carry them out or have them carried out under its own supervision. Within the committee, the exchange of expertise was promoted. Eurodicautom was the pioneering terminology database of the European Commission, set up in 1975, at first to be used by translators and other employees of the Commission. By 1980 it was accessible online to the Commission. During the eighties and nineties the database grew, while it was still necessary to call in through a modem to consult the database from outside of the European Institutions. At first, only Dutch, French, german and Italian were represented, the four languages of the 4 Available at: https://www.nlterm.eu. 1 1Terminologija | 2021 | 28 six countries that formed the EEC (the three Benelux countries, France, germany and Italy). When more countries joined the European Union, other languages were added, the number increasing to six, then seven, nine and eventually eleven languages (Latin was added for scientific names). Later, public user interfaces were added, giving the larger public free access to multilingual terminology related to the European Union activities. The ministries of Foreign Affairs of several member states added terminology to the database. Senior terminologists worked on the evaluation and creation of new entries in the existing database in different languages. In 2007, Eurodicautom was replaced by Interactive Terminology for Europe (IATE). On June 28th, 2007 the European institutions sent out a press release to announce three existing terminology banks were merged into a single EU terminology database: IATE, which covered 23 languages and was open to the public. Two particular features distinguish IATE from its predecessors EURODICAUTOm, EUTERPE and TIS. First of all, IATE is interactive: any translator in an EU institution can add and update information in the database. To ensure the quality of the individual contributions, a change in the database automatically launches a validation cycle: terminologists of the translation departments validate the new and modified information. Secondly, IATE is interinstitutional: its project partners are the European Parliament, the Council, the Commission, the Court of Justice, the Central Bank, the Court of Auditors, Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions, the European Investment Bank and the Translation Centre. Not all knowledge and insights regarding terminology came from the translation community, however. As it happens, the first steps in the theorization of terminology were made by engineers and professional experts and were strictly monolingual. It all started with the ‘Viennese school’, which laid the foundations of classical terminology, articulated by Eugen Wüster (1898-1977). Wüster was an Austrian engineer and the founder of terminology. he got a degree in electrical engineering, but was above all fascinated by the science of terminology. Living in a time when technology was developing rapidly, he asked himself questions about the way in which new concepts are reflected in language. his dissertation Internationale Sprachnormung in der Technik, besonders in der Elektrotechnik (Berlin, 1931) was regarded a terminological standard work. he taught at the University of Vienna, where after his death the Institut für Wissen- 1 2 Frieda Steurs Terminology at the Dutch Language Institute: Towards a Centre of Expertise for Professional Language schaftstheorie und Wissenschaftsforschung and the Eugen Wüster Archive were founded. his research into technical communication resulted in the establishment of the Technical Committee for Standardization of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO/TC 37). Wüster developed the general Theory of Terminology (gTT)5. he was involved in Infoterm6, the International Information Centre for Terminology founded in 1971 by Unesco. Infoterm aims to support and coordinate international collaboration in the field of terminology. The members of Infoterm are national, international and regional institutes, organizations and private specialists, in short, everyone who has anything to do with the standardizations and harmonization of professional language. It is a worldwide platform, with members on all continents. Infoterm and the later founded TermNet7, the international network for terminology, will keep playing an important role in the dissemination of terminological insights, the organization of workshops and the promotion of terminology applications in businesses and governments. Another important player in the international field is Tekom. Both Tekom germany8 and Tekom Europe9 are very large professional associations for technical communication. Their activities are worldwide and of great importance in the world of technical and professional documentation. Again, terminology is one of their core tasks. In the following we will specifically look into the situation regarding Dutch, especially with regard to how all the data concerning terminology can be centralised and promoted. 2. DUTCh TERmINOLOgy INSTITUTIONS AND PROJECTS In 2016, the Institute for Dutch Lexicology transformed into the more broadly oriented Dutch Language Institute. This change went hand in hand with the renewed task of the general Secretariat of the NTU, which was to focus on policy tasks, leaving the executive tasks to the INT. To the Dutch Language Institute this transfer of tasks offered the opportu5 Wûster Eugen (1979). 6 Available at: http://www.infoterm.info. 7 Available at: https://www.termnet.org. 8 Available at: https://www.tekom.de. 9 Available at: https://www.technical-communication.org. 1 3Terminologija | 2021 | 28 nity to broaden its own activities. The institute became the central point of contact regarding the keeping and maintenance of digital language materials and the safekeeping of data collections related to any variations of Dutch. This evolution reflects the strongly altered landscape of linguistic research: large language infrastructures are digitally set up and contain the corpora, dictionaries and other specialised lexicons and databases, grammar and so much more. The institute develops and provides data for dictionaries, (computational) lexicons, corpora and tools. The dictionaries are online accessible. Software and computational linguistic tools are available as open source. The INT takes up a central position in the whole of the Dutch-speaking world (the Netherlands, Flanders, Suriname and the Caribbean) as a developer, keeper and distributor of scholarly and sustainable language resources. The institute is well-equipped for this task and has a large international network for the exchange of information with like-minded institutions. The Dutch Language Institute also provides the necessary building blocks for all language applications aimed at the development and improvement of businesses and public organisations. We intend to strengthen this role in the coming years, which is why we are focusing on the sustainable distribution of any language materials, with an emphasis on: ·the Dutch vocabulary, both historical and contemporary, both standard language and the dialects, both general language and professional language; ·new technologies and techniques to make the Internet accessible for linguistic research and for the ongoing maintenance of constantly updated, extensive corpora of contemporary Dutch; ·contribution to the accessibility of historical text material (coming from inside and outside of the INT), in which the considerable spelling variation is no longer a search impediment and ways are offered to detect and circumvent variations in word use; ·use of and contribution to new computational linguistic or language technology techniques in aid of information retrieval from language materials; ·formal structuring of linguistic information, making it suitable for computational linguistic applications; ·further expansion of spelling information; 1 4 Frieda Steurs Terminology at the Dutch Language Institute: Towards a Centre of Expertise for Professional Language ·realisation of facilities for third parties to contribute interactively to the description of the Dutch language and the optimization of the central digital data infrastructure for this purpose; ·becoming a point of contact for all language teachers and building an infrastructure of language materials that are useful and necessary for the support of teaching Dutch to various types of language learners. The institute responds to the new developments in the field of Digital humanities. In order to fulfil this role, the INT keeps and maintains a digital infrastructure for the Dutch language, paying attention to language variation (terminology, dialects, etc.). Both academic and non-academic parties can make use of this infrastructure. The INT sees a clear overlap between its own activities – the central data infrastructure – and recent developments within the ehumanities. With its own expertise, the INT contributes to the digital future of the humanities in the Netherlands and Flanders. On the one hand, knowledge and products are delivered in aid of other scientific organisations, and on the other hand collaboration with the ehumanities enhances the quality of the central data infrastructure of the Dutch language. In the next years we will work closely together with centres for digital humanities at various universities and with networks such as the kNAW humanities Cluster (Netherlands), Digital humanities Benelux and the WOg Digital humanities (Flanders). The INT functions as a Clarin centre for Flanders and informs Flemish researchers about the latest developments in the field of linguistic sources and the wider linguistic infrastructure in Europe (Clarin-Eric)10. This allows every researcher to learn more about access to repositories, standards, metadata, available corpora, the methods to encode their own corpus material, storage facilities, etc. That an infrastructure like the INT’s can become a real digital platform of all language materials is an interesting and quite recent development. For a long time, attention both in theoretical and applied linguistics had been focused on the general standard language, which was studied from a diachronic and synchronic point of view. Public institutions for language were not expected to build collections of dialects, regiolects or specialist professional language. 10 Available at: https://www.clarin.eu. 1 5Terminologija | 2021 | 28 Only when the insights into language variation changed, the step was made to a wider research field, describing the complete language spectrum with attention to all registers. From highly specialist terms to more common terms for technical or scientific concepts in standard language, to local speech, regional variation and informal usage: the whole range is now covered. It was no more than a logical step to embed the Centre of Expertise for Dutch Terminology (ENT) in an existing institute that makes all language materials available. The ENT is a junction in a wider network of relations both with the terminological field and with more general social sectors and wider user groups. Two lines of policy are being further developed: ·The ENT provides diversified supporting facilities with regard to terminology, especially Dutch terminology. ·The ENT positions itself in the terminological network by means of contact or collaboration with terminological associations or terminology-related institutions, both nationally and internationally. The ENT is part of the wider INT organisation. For the sake of the recognisability of this structural connection and also to make use of the wide reputation of the INT website, the ENT has not developed a sepaFig. 1. The connection between general language and professional language: a continuous spectrum 2 2 Frieda Steurs Terminology at the Dutch Language Institute: Towards a Centre of Expertise for Professional Language Fig. 4. Details of the lexicographic working environment in Lex’it 2 3Terminologija | 2021 | 28 2 4 Frieda Steurs Terminology at the Dutch Language Institute: Towards a Centre of Expertise for Professional Language Fig. 5. The user friendly version of the medical pilot in Lexit’ 2 5Terminologija | 2021 | 28 2 6 Frieda Steurs Terminology at the Dutch Language Institute: Towards a Centre of Expertise for Professional Language 3. CONCLUSION The creation of the Centre of Expertise for Dutch Terminology has allowed us to bring together a lot of interesting information on professional language and on how the Dutch language has developed in the field of science and technology. The centre also makes it possible to build a large network together with governments, businesses, international institutions and users such as teachers and translators. Such a centre can certainly be of great extra value and maybe serve as a source of inspiration for other language communities. REFERENCES Vervoorn Ad (ed.) 1992: Samenwerkingsverband Nederlandstalige Terminologie. Terminologieleer: Beleid en Praktijk. – Voorzetten 38, The hague, Stichting Bibliographia Neerlandica. Vroomen Pim de (ed.) 1990: Terminologie in het Nederlandse Taalgebied. Verslagen en rapporten over het eerste driejarenplan (1988–2000) van het Samenwerkingsverband Nederlandstalige Terminologie (SaNT). – Voorzetten 32, The hague. Stichting Bibliographia Neerlandica. Wüster Eugen [1979]: Introduction to the General Theory of Terminology and Terminological Lexicography, Wien, Springer. SOURCES http://www.infoterm.info/ https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/LRE63090/results https://ec.europa.eu/info/resources-partners/european-masters-translation-emt_en https://ivdnt.org/terminologie/expertisecentrum/ https://ivdnt.org/woordenboeken/algemeen-nederlands-woordenboek/ https://www.clarin.eu/ https://www.geneeskundeboek.nl/pinkhof-geneeskundig-woordenboek https://www.nictiz.nl/english/ https://www.nictiz.nl/overig/van-eenduidige-informatie-uitwisseling-tot-hulpmiddel-voor-betere-zorg/ https://www.nlterm.eu/ https://www.snomed.org/ https://www.technical-communication.org/ https://www.tekom.de/ https://www.termnet.org/ https://www.iso.org/standard/62510.html TERMINOLOGIJA OLANDŲ KALBOS INSTITUTE: ŽINGSNIAI PROFESINĖS KALBOS ŽINIŲ CENTRO SUKŪRIMO LINK Santrauka Straipsnyje aprašomas augantis susidomėjimas terminų rinkiniais, specializuotų žodynų svarba ir profesinės olandų kalbos žinių centro sukūrimas. Olandų kalba kalbantys regionai turi seniai gyvuojančią (kalbinio) bendradarbiavimo tradiciją. Nuo XX a. 8-ojo dešimtmečio veikė keletas partnerysčių ir komitetų. Ekonominė veikla ir profesinės kalbos vartojimas yra glaudžiai susiję. Stiprios Nyderlandų ir Flandrijos ekono- 2 7Terminologija | 2021 | 28 mikos rinkos, daugybė verslų nulėmė profesionalių tekstų, skirtų klientams, tiekėjams ir technikams, poreikį. Šie tekstai turėjo būti greitai parengti skirtingomis kalbomis, todėl iškilo terminų rinkinių ir terminologijos duomenų bazių poreikis. Šis reiškinys neabejotinai prisidėjo prie olandų terminologijai skirtos konsultacinės platformos sukūrimo. Metams bėgant, pradedant XX a. 9-uoju dešimtmečiu, matėme didelių skaitmeninių terminologijos duomenų bazių, tokių kaip Eurodicautom (dabar – IATE), augimą Europos institucijose. Straipsnyje aptariamas ir Vienos terminologijos mokyklos (Bendrosios terminologijos teorijos) iškilimas, Infoterm ir TermNet bei tarptautinio terminologijos tinklo vaidmuo. Olandų kalbos institutas (INT) atlieka svarbų vaidmenį kalbinėje bendruomenėje, pvz., siekia sukurti infrastruktūrą, kuri veiktų kaip reali skaitmeninė platforma, apimanti visą kalbinę medžiagą. Ilgą laiką daugiausia dėmesio teorinėje ir taikomojoje kalbotyroje buvo skiriama bendrinei kalbai ir jos diachroniniams ir sinchroniniams tyrimams. Sudaryti tarmių, regiolektų ar profesinės kalbos rinkinius nebuvo valstybinių kalbos institucijų tikslas. Tik pasikeitus požiūriui į kalbos atmainas, buvo žengtas žingsnis į platesnį tyrimų lauką, kuriame yra aprašomas visas kalbinis spektras, o dėmesys yra kreipiamas į visas kalbos atmainas. Nuo specialiųjų ir bendresnių techninių ar mokslinių terminų bendrinėje kalboje iki vietinių kalbinių variantų, regioninių atmainų ir neformaliosios vartosenos – dabar aprėpiamos visos kalbos atmainos. Olandų terminologijos žinių centro (ENT) integravimas į jau egzistuojantį institutą, kuriame būtų prieinama visa kalbinė medžiaga, buvo logiškas žingsnis. Šiame straipsnyje aprašome užduotis ir konkrečius ENT terminologijos projektus. Jie apima terminų rinkinius, programines priemones, Termraad (ES) ir Termraad akademijos atliktą darbą. Pabaigoje pateikiame bandomojo medicinos projekto, kuriame susiejama medicinos srities terminija ir bendrinės kalbos žodynas, pavyzdžių. gauta 2021-06-14 Frieda Steurs Rapenburg 61 N2311 gJ Leiden E-mail [email protected]