ISO/TC 37/SC 2/WG 2 - Terminography

ISO 10241-2:2012 addresses the introduction of standardized terminological entries into other cultural and linguistic environments, and in particular the adoption of internationally standardized terminological entries by regional and national standardizing bodies. It establishes principles and guidelines for dealing with the key issues to be considered in this process. It also provides examples of, and solutions to, problems that occur when the adopting standardizing body adopts internationally standardized terminological entries, aligns the concept systems of the adopting standardizing body with internationally standardized concept systems, and prepares standardized terminological entries as additions or supplements to internationally standardized terminological entries.

ISO 10241-1:2011 specifies requirements for the drafting and structuring of terminological entries in standards, exemplified by terminological entries in ISO and IEC documents. Terms and other designations occurring in terminological entries can include letters, numerals, mathematical symbols, typographical signs and syntactic signs (e.g. punctuation marks, hyphens, parentheses, square brackets and other connectors or delimiters), sometimes in character styles (i.e. fonts and bold, italic, bold italic or other style conventions) governed by language-, domain- or subject-specific conventions. Terms can also include standardized symbols (which can be language independent or internationally harmonized, such as symbols for quantities and units as well as graphical symbols) which are under the responsibility of different committees in ISO and IEC. ISO 10241-1:2011 is based on the principles and methods given in ISO 704 and provides rules for both monolingual and multilingual terminological entries in standards and their indexes. ISO 10241-1:2011 is applicable to all standards that contain terminological entries. It does not deal with the administrative procedures nor the technical specifications required by standardizing bodies for the preparation of terminology standards. Since presentation and layout rules by nature are very much tied to the script and to the publishing rules of the standardizing body, they are dealt with only on an abstract level in ISO 10241-1:2011. Examples and rules for a typical layout and presentation in ISO documents are provided for information in Annex A.

This International Standard provides guidelines to enable translators and translation support staff to record, maintain and quickly and easily retrieve terminological information in connection with translation work. The quality of a translation can be measured partly in terms of linguistic elements, such as style and grammar, and partly in terms of the accurate use of the terminology involved. The guidelines in this International Standard provide the necessary elements for quality control of terminological information in translations. The guidelines can also be adapted to provide a basis for the administration of source-language texts, parallel texts, translations, and other information (e.g. bibliographies, references) in the target language. This International Standard is applicable to the work of an individual translator as well as the work of a team or a department. It also lays down guidelines that are essential for the interchange of terminological data.

Establishes rules for the preparation: preliminary work (needs analysis, target group, subject delimitation, sources, number of concepts, choice of languages, schedule) and working procedure (collecting and recording terminological data, establishing the term list, concept fields and concept systems, formulating definitions, coining and selecting terms), as well as for the terminography (structuring of entries, order of entries, indexes, graphic representation, bibliography). Does not deal with changes that may be necessary when an International Standard is adopted as a national standard.