Terminologija ir vertimų technologija daugiakalbėje informacinėje visuomenėje

FROM FOREIGN TERMINOLOGY TERMINOLOGY AND TRANSLATION TECHNOLOGY IN A MULTILINGUAL INFORMATION SOCIETY On 17–19 August 1992, an international conference on terminology, “Terminology: State and Prospects,” dedicated to the 100th anniversary of E. Drezen’s birth, was held in the Latvian resort town of Jūrmala. Ernest Drezen (1892–1937) was born in Liepāja and lived and worked in Moscow. He was a military engineer, a man of broad erudition who engaged in a variety of scholarly activities and took a keen interest in terminology, particularly the standardization of terms. E. Drezen examined terminology and standardization in his books (Стандартизация научно-технических понятий, обозначений и терминов, 1934; Интернационализация научно-технической терминологии, 1936) and articles. Scholars from 13 countries attended the conference: Austria, Denmark, Estonia, the United States of America, Canada, Latvia, Poland, Lithuania, the Netherlands, France, Russia, Sweden, and Ukraine. The second international conference on terminology, “Terminology and Translation Technology in a Multilingual Information Society,” dedicated to the 110th anniversary of E. Drezen’s birth, was held in Riga on 21–25 October 2002. It was organized by the Latvian Academy of Sciences, the Latvian Language Institute, the State Language Centre, the International Institute for Terminology Research (IITF), the International Information Centre for Terminology (INFOTERM), and the European Association for Terminology (EAFT). The organizing committee was chaired by Valentīna Skujiņa, full member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences and chair of its Terminology Commission, and Juris Ekmanis, full member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences and its vice-president. At the second international conference on terminology, scholars from Austria, Denmark, Estonia, the United States of America, China, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Finland, Hungary, and Germany presented papers in English or Latvian. The conference was opened by, and the welcoming address was delivered by 122 Jānis Stradins (Stradiņš), president of the Latvian Academy of Sciences. In his paper “Theories of Terminology – A Critical Review of Recent Decades,” Prof. Heribert Picht of Copenhagen first briefly discussed the principal aims of terminology formulated by Drezen, Wüster, and scholars of the Russian school. He examined developments and new directions in terminology in Central Europe, the Nordic countries, Canada, France, and Spain. H. Picht critically reviewed the main aims advanced by new movements toward a new theory of terminology, and discussed how these aims intersect with research from the Wüster era and, especially, the post-Wüster period. Stasys Keinys, Solvita Labanauskienė, and Albina Aukšoriūtė, terminologists at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language, spoke about Lithuanian terminology at the turn of the century, its achievements, and its problems. They highlighted three current areas of work: 1) the preparation and publication of terminological dictionaries, encyclopedias, and standards; 2) the creation of electronic terminology banks (databases); and 3) theoretical research in terminology. The paper emphasized that the preparation of terminological dictionaries had increased particularly since 1990: around 150 explanatory and bilingual terminological dictionaries and glossaries of varying scope and purpose had been published. General-purpose and standardized terminology banks are being developed. Theoretical studies are published in the annual journal of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language, Terminologija, and in other Lithuanian and foreign publications; a monograph has also been published. In his paper, Prof. Sergiejus Šelovas, a scholar from Moscow, discussed new prospects for the theory of terminology in the 21st century. He distinguished two principal aspects of the theory of terminology he is developing: 1) a term is distinguished from a (general) word or phrase by the concept it denotes; 2) this feature of a term is entirely relative when compared with general concepts expressed by words or phrases in general language. S. Šelovas stressed that publications on terminology research demonstrate a steadily growing and considerable interest in the problem of analyzing term definitions. Prof. Valentīna Skujiņa of the Latvian Language Institute presented a paper entitled “Ernest Drezen and Contemporary Theory and Practice of Terminology.” She identified internationalization as one of the urgent problems in terminology and described how E. Drezen addressed it in his book 123 “The Internationalization of Scientific and Technical Terminology.” V. Skujinš highlighted E. Drezen’s idea that, from an international perspective, the conceptual level of terms should be harmonized, whereas the expression of terms depends on the distinctive features of each national language; therefore, attempting to standardize the expression of terms across all languages would place unnatural pressure on national language systems. The speaker noted that the ideas put forward by E. Drezen are relevant to addressing urgent problems in terminology at the international level and, moreover, demonstrate the enormous role of national terminology in achieving successful, unambiguous international communication. Arvis Tavast of the Estonian Terminology Society discussed the proposed infrastructure for managing descriptive terminology. Prof. Valentina Novodranova of Moscow examined the semantics of compound medical terms in her paper “The Semantics of Compound Terms,” while guest from China Qing Liu spoke about problems in standardizing terminology symbols. Lithuanian terminologists Angelė Kaulakienė and Jolanta Gaivenytė presented a paper entitled “The Theoretical Rationale for a Term and Its Practical Use,” in which they analyzed inconsistencies in the presentation of terminology in dictionaries of physics and related fields and considered why terms adopted by terminology commissions in various fields of science are not always used by specialists. This is determined by extralinguistic factors: the authority of specialists, reluctance to use the terms, lack of coordination in the activities of professional organizations, and so on. Another speaker from Lithuania, Kastytis Beitas, spoke about term systems and systematicity. Tellervo Hyttinen, an employee of the Finnish Government Terminology Service, gave an overview of terminology work in the Finnish government administration. In Finland, not only Finnish but also Swedish has the status of a national language, so all official documents are provided in both Finnish and Swedish. The speaker explained that the Government Terminology Service has been carrying out terminology work for twenty years. The service handles translations of acts and various official documents, provides telephone consultation services, and participates in projects to harmonize terminology in government administration. All terminology work is carried out in cooperation with experts in the subject under consideration. The Finnish Government Terminology Service publishes multilingual dictionar- 124 ies, in which it provides terms, their definitions, and equivalents in several languages. It has already published more than ten such dictionaries. Prof. Ina Druviete (Riga) presented a paper on the terminology of bilingualism and bilingual education. The concept of bilingualism has been familiar in Latvia for many decades, but the term bilingualism became widespread only in the last decade, and to this day there is no consensus on its form and usage; the author therefore put forward several proposals on these matters. Latvian terminologist Iveta Pūtėle considered the influence of linguistic and extralinguistic factors on work involving occupational titles. She noted that considerable difficulties arise in harmonizing occupational classifications from different countries and compiling terminology dictionaries, since it is necessary to observe the principles of term formation in one’s own language, as well as the term-creation traditions of each language. Latvian philologist Ojārs Bušs reported in his paper “On the Translation of Proper Nouns” that the view that proper nouns need not be translated is heard quite often and is found in the literature. The speaker, however, cited the following examples to argue against this view: Serbian Crna Gora – Russian Черногория – Italian Montenegro – Albanian Mali i Zi – Turkish Karadag – Lithuanian Juodkalnija – Latvian Melnkalne. However, a corresponding theoretical analysis of the linguistic process is necessary to ensure the accuracy of such translations. It is not uncommon for the semantic structure of a proper noun in the source language to be richer than that of its potential translation. In his paper, Jānis Rozenbergs raised several still-relevant problems in terminology associated with the development of science. He emphasized that: 1) areas of terminology related to the human being, their essence, and spiritual world have been neglected; 2) terms are essentially inventories of humanity’s decisions and achievements; 3) terminology records the existence of human life and the development of civilization, or what is envisaged. Janos Pusztay of Hungary presented research on the terminology of the Finno-Ugric languages of Russia (Komi, Mari, Mordvin, etc.). Several papers analyzed translation problems. Ieva Zauberga (Riga) spoke about the influence translators have on the establishment and development of new terminology. Prof. Andrejs Veisbergs of Riga examined 125 the use of computers in translation and the training of translators, while Juris Baldunčikas of Ventspils spoke about business terminology problems encountered in training translators in this field. Prof. Larisa Aleksijeva (Perm) revealed a cognitive approach to scientific translation in her paper. Christian Galinski, director of the International Information Centre for Terminology in Vienna, delivered a paper entitled “The Economics of Terminology in the Age of the Multilingual Information Society.” He emphasized that science and technology influence our modern society, and their development is accelerating especially rapidly today owing to information and communication technologies. According to him, these technologies gave us the Internet and are accelerating globalization. They are promoting the transition to a global information society, in which language (languages) will remain the most important means of human communication. However, the development of information and communication technologies also affects the nature and use of both general language and languages for special purposes. Zaiga Ikerė, a professor at the University of Daugavpils, spoke about the relationship between national and international philosophical terms in contemporary society. She noted that one of the main tasks of contemporary philosophy is to create a new meaning of the human world and reveal new horizons. All this can be realized through thought in each person’s native language. This explains the emergence of new concepts and new terms in the native language. Hermeneutic processes of the human mind are one of the reasons explaining the synonymous use of native-language and international terms. Maire Raadik of Estonia surveyed the development of Estonian banking terminology over the previous decade and discussed dictionaries published in this field. The speaker emphasized that since the 1990s, English has begun to have a profound influence on Estonian banking terminology. Several papers in Latvian were presented at the conference, examining the terminology of particular fields. Speaking about firefighting terms, Viktorija Kuzina (Riga) emphasized that a serious problem in terminology is defining the boundaries between scientific and professional terminology. In Uldis Švinkis’s view, sports terminology facilitates the training of sports specialists and makes it possible to systematize the diverse activities of coaches, referees, and athletes, as well as the names of sports equipment. In Latvia’s national- 126 minority schools, Latvian has been used in physical education classes and training sessions since 1996. Latvian sports vocabulary enables specialists not only to acquire the knowledge they need but also helps them learn Latvian successfully. Velga Laugale delivered a paper entitled “Terms in Pedagogy and Their Use,” in which she compared the use of pedagogical terms in specialist literature with the findings of a study in the 2000 Explanatory Dictionary of Pedagogical Terms. Juris Gunārs Pommer analyzed international terms for motor vehicles. Approximately 30 percent of the terms used in this field are international words. They are recognized as terms if they are used in at least three of the four or five languages considered decisive in the relevant field. Māris Baltinis (Baltinš) examined key trends in Latvian medical terminology over the past ten years. In Latvian medical terminology, English has become predominant in place of Russian. Alongside advances in medical science, problems in Latvian medical terminology have also increased since 1988: the unjustified abandonment of previously used terminology, a predilection for inconsistent use of abbreviations, the adoption of anglicisms, and so on. Andrejis Bankavs discussed the creation of lexicographic terms. He spoke about the emerging field of theoretical lexicography. To make its terminology easier to understand, the first trilingual (French–Latvian–English) dictionary of lexicographic terms appeared in Latvian terminography; its compilation drew on monographic research in French and Latvian, data from periodicals, and other materials. Two papers compared Latvian and Lithuanian terms. Regina Kvašytė compared the origins, structure, and fields of use of Latvian and Lithuanian terms in economics, finance, accounting, and law presented in the Latvian–Lithuanian Dictionary and the Lithuanian–Latvian Dictionary. In their paper “Latvian Plant Names in the Lithuanian Botanical Dictionary,” Lithuanian terminologists Stasys Keinys and Solvita Labanauskienė discussed Latvian terms that had appeared in the very first Lithuanian terminology dictionaries, compiled in the early nineteenth century by J. A. Pabrėža. They noted that Latvian names are no longer included in new Lithuanian plant-name lists. 127 At the conference’s closing session, papers were presented addressing terminology databases and terminology in computing and information technology. Sergiejus Šelovas spoke about moving from the creation of a term bank to the development of a scientific foundation for terminology. Inguna Skadiną reported on the use of computer technology in translation and dictionary compilation, while Ilzė Vancānė and Valėrijis Kruglevskis explained the structure of multiword terms and computerized searches in texts. Valentina Dagienė spoke about the computer science literature and terminology used in Lithuanian schools. One day of the conference was devoted to a seminar and a colloquium. The seminar “Computerized Terminology in the Internet Age: Problems and Solutions” was led by Prof. Sue Ellena Wright from the USA and Prof. Klaus Dirk Schmitz from Germany. They discussed the basic principles of terminology management, introduced terminology databases and computer programs for creating databases, and reviewed and demonstrated other computer programs, including spelling checkers, dictionary compilation tools, and others. The colloquium “Strengthening Cooperation between Eastern and Central European Countries in the Field of Terminology” was organized by the International Institute for Terminology Research, the International Information Centre for Terminology, and the Latvian State Language Commission, and was led by Prof. Heribert Picht. Prof. Valentina Skujiną discussed terminology work in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. Christian Galinski, director of INFOTERM, spoke about terminology organizations in Central Europe and their work, while Prof. Sue Ellen Wright presented trends in terminology theory in the region under discussion. Prof. Sergiejus Šelovas provided a fairly comprehensive overview of terminology centres in Eastern Europe. K. D. Schmitz spoke about the development of applied terminology and terminography in Central Europe, and A. Vasiljevas about developments in the Baltic countries. Conference participants discussed how to intensify and strengthen cooperation between terminologists in Eastern and Western Europe. Albina AUKSORIŪTĖ Institute of the Lithuanian Language P. Vileišio g. 5, LT-2055 Vilnius E-mail: [email protected] Solvita LABANAUSKIENĖ Institute of the Lithuanian Language P. Vileišio g. 5, LT-2055 Vilnius E-mail: [email protected] Received 2002-11-22 128