Terminology work is an interdisciplinary activity involving tasks from different other fields such as informatics, linguistics, cognitive science, documentation, knowledge management, etc… In a multilingual specialised environment one cannot imagine providing high-quality linguistic services without terminology work undertaken by highly skilled terminologists. But what is a terminologist and what is their role in a company or institution? What are the tasks of a terminologist and what skills, competences and knowledge do they need to possess? Finally, what training and qualification possibilities should an aspiring terminologist have?
Today
terminologists working in the private industry as well as in the public
sector do not have a fixed role and could be found in different
departments of the company or institution. They can be seen in the
translation or foreign languages units, in the documentation or
information department, in the technical writing section, in the
research and development or in the public sector. Sometimes they work in
the standardisation, patents or law departments. Some of the
terminologists, and in particular in the language units, would also tend
to hold the positions of the project manager or leader of terminology
working groups.
Analysing
all the mentioned possible working environments, we can conclude that
the tasks of a terminologist vary a lot from compiling monolingual or
multilingual terminological collections and making them available for
the users to terminology planning activities and advisory and training
activities.
To manage all these activities there are skills, competences and knowledge a terminologist is required to possess.
To reach the
necessary level of expertise, one must acquire one of these main
categories: qualifications obtained during terminological studies,
preparation courses or seminars, qualifications obtained by conducting
terminology work and general skills.
The most
important requirements for a terminologist are the good knowledge of the
principles of terminology science, mastery of terminology working
methods and terminology management tools.
A high level
of language competence of the mother tongue and of other foreign
languages and a high degree of linguistic knowledge in all languages are
also part of the most needed skills.
Preparing a
corpus for the terminology work and the documentation of the terminology
collections is one of the terminologist´s main tasks, implying thorough
research and documentation competencies. Given the lack of awareness of
terminology despite its importance for companies and institutions, they
should also be able to give seminars or hands-on trainings on
terminology and terminological resources. That also asks for high
didactic abilities.
On top of
all these specific requirements, terminologists should also present a
lot of general skills from systematic working methods, to sociability
and ability to work in intercultural teams, and project management. One
must possess very good IT knowledge, planning, organisational and
negotiation skills as well as a real power of persuasion.
Due to the
changing world of technologies, the profile of the terminologist should
always be adapting to new advancements especially in the technological
field.
For example,
with the development of the web 2.0 technologies it is very important
that the terminologist has the ability to work with these new media and
use them to provide a better and efficient terminological output.
The
terminologist should be able to communicate through the new channels
like blogs or forums and wikis, to get involved in different
professional communities present on the web and virtually collaborate
with them.
Due to the
high amount of information available on the web, terminologists, in
their field specialist position, should provide the terminology users
with the most reliable information available, and as a result hold the
competence of evaluating the source of the resources used for
terminology work. Through critical thinking they need to be able to
validate the quality of data they find on the web.
To acquire
these competences and particularly the very specific ones related to
terminology science, working methods and tools, good training and
qualifications are required. Usually, in every course of studies in
translation, computer linguistics, technical writing and interpreting,
seminars on terminology are offered. In some countries there are
specific curricula with a main focus on terminology and language
technologies. Some organisations and institutes offer trainings and
continuing education courses for terminologists.
In view of
the quick developments in all technical fields, technologies and
communication, the main requirements from terminologists are to acquire
new knowledge in a process of life-long learning and to stay all the
time up to-date.
You can find here the Professional Profile for terminologists issued by the Council for German-Language Terminology.
Article written by Matilda Soare, trainee at TermCoord
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario