Language standards as a cornerstone
for business strategies
Implications for the design of academic curricula
Kara Warburton, City University of Hong Kong
International Chair, ISO Technical Committee 37
Terminology and other language and content resources
The premise
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The foremost aim of international standardization is to
facilitate the exchange of goods and services through
the elimination of technical barriers to trade.
To this end, standards are produced in all disciplines.
 Standards need to be implementable
 To be implementable, they need to be
understandable
Standards are usually domain-specific, which contains
a lot of specialized terminology
 Therefore the terminology must be understandable
ISO/TC 37 Terminology and other language and content resources
The premise
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Effective communication is essential for eliminating
barriers to trade
Standards for language can make communication more
effective
ISO/TC 37 Terminology and other language and content resources
Language industry and language resources
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The language industry includes translation and
interpretation, authoring, content management, natural
language processing (NLP), and so forth
Language resources include terminologies, lexical
resources, translation memories, authoring memories,
annotated corpora, thesauri, ontologies, etc.
ISO/TC 37 Terminology and other language and content resources
Documenting terminology in ISO standards
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According to the Directives, each standard:
 must document and normalize its terminology
 must use the normalized terminology consistently
Why? Because if the key concepts in a standard are not
fully understood, and if variable and inconsistent terms
are used, then the standard is not implementable
Terms are typically documented in a glossary section of
the standard, called “Section 3 – Terms and definitions”
ISO has over 260 technical committees (TCs), which
have produced 18,500 standards
ISO/TC 37 Terminology and other language and content resources
ISO/IEC Directives Part 2 – Rules for the structure
and drafting of international standards
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“The objective of documents published by ISO and IEC is to
define clear and unambiguous provisions in order to facilitate
international trade and communication.”
To achieve this objective, “uniformity of terminology shall be
maintained”.
Requirements for documenting terminology in ISO standards
are laid out by ISO TC37:
 10241-1 - Terminological entries in standards — Part 1:
General requirements and examples of presentation
 ISO 704, Terminology Work - Principles and methods
TC37 is one of only 9 “horizontal committees” in ISO
ISO/TC 37 Terminology and other language and content resources
The requirements
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“The standardization of terms and definitions is fundamental to all
standardization activities.”
Provisions based on fundamental principles of ISO 704
All terms used in the body of a standard should be defined in the
glossary
One designation corresponds to one concept (a term should only be
used with one meaning)
One concept corresponds to one designation (a concept should be
denoted by only one term)
Terms shall be used consistently
The TC shall establish a concept system
ISO/TC 37 Terminology and other language and content resources
Standards do not always adhere to the
requirements
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In just 7 standards, nearly 100 terms were never defined
Standards cannot be effectively implemented if the
concepts they use are not perfectly clear.
Failure to define the key terms in a standard can lead to
implementation errors that can have potentially serious
consequences ranging from safety issues to unintended
impediments to international trade.
ISO/TC 37 Terminology and other language and content resources
Standards do not always adhere to the
requirements
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In a 48 page standard about hockey helmets, the term
headform was used 120 times, yet this term was never
defined.
In the same standard, the term face protector was used
sometimes as a synonym for helmet, sometimes with its
own unique meaning.
ISO/TC 37 Terminology and other language and content resources
Without term definitions, phrases like the following
are impossible to understand
“Whilst in operational mode, double functions of
controls shall be avoided on such controls as for pan,
vertical trim, field of view and other essential functions.”
ISO/TC 37 Terminology and other language and content resources
ISO TC37 standards for language resources
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Translation and interpretation services
Computer-assisted translation and machine
translation
Software localization
Terminology resources of all kinds
Language policies
Annotation of corpora
File formats
Exchange formats
Language codes
Classification systems
ISO/TC 37 Terminology and other language and content resources
Applications of TC37 standards
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e-Government, e-health, e-business
Leveraging content for reuse
Content management systems
All kinds of natural language processing systems
Classification systems for products/services
ISO/TC 37 Terminology and other language and content resources
How language standards support business
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Safeguard investment
Enable interoperability of resources
Reduce costs
Increase productivity
ISO/TC 37 Terminology and other language and content resources
Incorporating language standards in academic
curricula
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Any program that touches upon international trade
and economic development should include a
component about standards
A key criteria for standards in any industry is
language standards, particularly terminology
standards
ISO/TC 37 Terminology and other language and content resources
Curricula incorporating a component on language
standards should include:
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Linguistic requirements to address diverse linguistic
communities
The importance of developing international
standards that are implementable on a national level
The need to translate and adapt international
standards to local environments, and the processes
and challenges involved
The importance of standardized terminology in all
standardization projects
ISO/TC 37 Terminology and other language and content resources
Thank you!
kara@languageautomation.com
ISO/TC 37 Terminology and other language and content resources