Terminology work at the
European Central Bank
Catherine Lane
Senior Terminologist/Language Technologist
Terminology/Language Technology (TLT) unit
9 December 2011
Overview
• Linguistic services at the ECB
• The Terminology/Language Technology (TLT) unit
• Terminology activities
– (i) People involved in terminology work
– (ii) Terminology project
– (iii) Term extraction projects
– (iv) Quality management
– (v) Term source work
– (vi) Irish terminology work
– (vii) €uroTERM
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The European Central Bank (ECB)
• Set up in June 1998 and replaced the EMI (European
Monetary Institute)
• Located in Frankfurt am Main
• Approx. 1 600 staff
• Headquarters of the Eurosystem, the central bank of the
euro area and the hub of the European System of Central
Banks
• External communication: 23 official EU languages
• Internal communication: English
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Linguistic services: staff
• 2 translators per language (translating out of English)
• 14 translators/‘editors‘ English native speakers
• 1 lawyer-linguist per language (belonging to the Legal
Services)
• 4 Terminologists/Language Technologists (TLTs)
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Linguistic services: organisational structure
Language Services Division
Germanic and
Finno-Ugric
Languages Section
(GFU)
Romance and
Mediterranean
Languages Section
(RML)
Secretariat Division
English Translation
and Editing Section
(ETE)
Slavonic and Baltic
Languages Section
(SBL)
Terminology/
Language
Technology unit
(TLT unit)
Lawyer-Linguist Division
Lawyer-Linguists
(LEG)
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ECB’s relationship with the Centre de Traduction
• Before translators and lawyer-linguists were recruited: provision
of translation services for
–
Regular translation work
–
Legal acts
• Today: jobs which have to be translated into languages for
which we do not have the in-house resources
• Irish terminology extraction
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Overview
• Linguistic services at the ECB
• The Terminology/Language Technology (TLT) unit
• Terminology activities
– (i) People involved in terminology work
– (ii) Terminology project
– (iii) Term extraction projects
– (iv) Quality management
– (v) Term source work
– (vi) Irish terminology work
– (vii) €uroTERM
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TLT unit: staff
• TLT = terminologist / language technologist
• Permanent team:
– 4 TLTs & 1 assistant
• Additionally:
– 1 ESCB/IO staff member
– 1-2 interns
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TLT unit: tasks
Terminologists / Language Technologists (TLTs) provide
support to the linguists at the ECB and to the translators at
the NCBs in two fields:
• terminology services, including:
expansion and maintenance of a database of ESCB-specific
terminology in all the official EU languages
• support for language technology tools, including:
assistance with the CAT tools used at the ECB
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TLT unit: Language Technology-related tasks
• Problem solving & TLT unit service desk
• Creating translation workflows
• Creating step-by-step guides
• Testing and evaluating translation software
• Preparing files for translators (TTX files)
• Checking files for SDL Trados compatibility
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TLT unit: terminology-related tasks
• Maintaining our multilingual terminology database
• Coordination of terminology work and term extraction
• Creating best practices document
• Checking the terminology in our database against our
in-house conventions
• Term source management
• Maintaining the ECB’s website glossary
http://www.ecb.europa.eu/home/glossary/html/index.en.html
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CAT tools at the ECB
• SDL TRADOS tools:
– SDL MultiTerm 7.5 for terminology management
– SDL TRADOS 8.3 (incl. TagEditor and WinAlign)
• ABBYY PDF transformer 3.0
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Overview
• Linguistic services at the ECB
• The Terminology/Language Technology (TLT) unit
• Terminology activities
– (i) People involved in terminology work
– (ii) Terminology project
– (iii) Term extraction projects
– (iv) Quality management
– (v) Term source work
– (vi) Irish terminology work
– (vii) €uroTERM
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(i) People involved in terminology work
• Terminologists
(guidelines and
technical aspects)
• English native
speaker translators
• Translators for
other languages
• [Experts]
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(ii) Terminology project
• In 2003: identification of some 2,000 principal concepts in
English
• In 2003/2004: terminology extraction in the remaining
19 languages
• In 2006: terminology extraction in BG und RO
• Currently extracting terminology in Irish
• Purpose: harmonisation of terminology within and outside
of the ECB
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(iii) Term extraction projects
• Translators propose documents for term extraction
• Identification of terms in English – mandatory and
optional terms
• Liaising with experts
• Adding of English terms
• Validation of English terms
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(iii) Term extraction projects
• TLT unit launches the term extraction in all official EU
languages
– At the same time notification of any changes to
existing entries
• Validation of terms in all official EU languages
• Purpose: equal growth of the terminology database in all
languages
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(iv) Quality management
• Focuses on assuring quality from the initial stages of
data entry in the database to data publishing
• Ensures data completeness, consistency, correctness
and integrity
• Checks are carried out according to a checklist for
– Term fields
– Definition fields
– Context fields
– Source fields
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(vi) Work on sources
• Compliance check of sources in all new terminological
entries
• Restrictions to add new sources: TLTs suggest and add
new source codes
• All new source codes are simultaneously recorded in
an ACCESS database and in MultiTerm
• 4 600 validated source index entries in ECB’s
terminology database
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Term source management – example 1
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Term source management – example 2
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(vii) Irish terminology work
- Preparation of outsourcing job and background
documents
- Terminology extraction by Irish translator at the Centre
de Traduction
- Checking of the terms by external collaborator
- Creation and correction of sources
- Input of data into MultiTerm
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(viii) €uroTERM project
• Online access to the set of principal concepts in the
ECB‘s terminology database
• Interim solution: circulation of terms lists to requesting
third parties
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Sample entry
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Questions?
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