Lietuvos Respublikos terminų bankas: 10 metų po įstatymo priėmimo

Alvydas Umbrasas

Preparing document pages…

The Terminology Bank of the Republic of Lithuania: 10 Years After the Adoption of the Law

ALVYDAS UMBRASAS

Institute of the Lithuanian Language

KEYWORDS: Terminology Bank of the Republic of Lithuania, terminology management, terminology database, legal act terminology

Ten years ago, for the first time in the history of Lithuanian terminology, terminology management was regulated by law—the end of 2013 marks the tenth anniversary of the Law on the Terminology Bank of the Republic of Lithuania. The Terminology Bank of the Republic of Lithuania, established under this law, has now become a fairly well-known source of terminology for interested members of the public. It is used by drafters of Lithuanian legal acts, translators, editors, and others concerned with terminology or who have questions about it. This article surveys the concept of the Terminology Bank and its legal framework, and examines its structure, content, search statistics, and other aspects. The main focus is on approved terms.

Let us begin by looking back. The idea of creating an electronic terminology database covering various fields in Lithuania is roughly as old as the restoration of independent Lithuania, if not somewhat older. According to Valentinas Černiauskas, former head of the Research Automation Laboratory at the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics (Urnėžiūtė 2002: 21), the need for an electronic terminology database was first raised during the Sąjūdis period by Aleksandras Vanagas, then deputy director of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature. The Institute of Mathematics and Informatics and terminologists from the Institute of the Lithuanian Language began to consider the practical aspects of such a project more seriously in 1992, and actual work began in 1995. At that time, the Council of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language considered guidelines for creating the terminology database, while the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, with support from the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language, undertook to implement them. For various reasons—technical problems and, apparently, unwise decisions—the work dragged on, given the rather complex database structure, designed for academic needs and equipped with various

Alvydas Umbrasas

Lietuvos Respublikos terminų bankas: 10 metų po įstatymo priėmimo

search options. Although the data had been accessible earlier via the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics’ local computer network, about a decade ago all interested internet users were given the opportunity to access the institute’s terminology database, commonly known as Terminynas¹. The database included selected, high-quality terminology dictionaries in various fields, published between 1965 and 2003 (27 in total; the list is on the database website).

Even before Terminynas was made available online, the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language, in view of Lithuania’s imminent accession to the European Union and the related challenges in terminology, had initiated the development of a different concept for a terminology bank—one intended for the administrative needs of the state. The Seimas Committee on European Affairs proposed that this idea of the Language Commission be implemented through legislation. The draft law was prepared by a working group headed by Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis, chair of the aforementioned committee, and composed of representatives of the Seimas, the Language Commission, the Translation, Documentation and Information Centre, the Ministry of Justice, the Department of Statistics, the Lithuanian Standards Board, the Lithuanian Institute of History, and the Institute of the Lithuanian Language (Decision No. 1576 of the Board of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania of 18 June 2003, “On the Establishment of a Working Group to Prepare the Draft Law on the Terminology Bank of the Republic of Lithuania”). Following deliberations and discussions, the Law on the Terminology Bank of the Republic of Lithuania was adopted on 23 December 2003 (Žin., 2004, No. 7-129), and shortly afterwards, on 2 February 2004, the methodology of the Terminology Bank was approved by Resolution No. N-1 (90) of the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language (Žin., 2004, No. 26-842). The Information Technology Department of the Seimas Chancellery immediately began developing an information system, completing the work at the end of 2004, when entry of terms into the system began. On 26 January 2005, a presentation of the Terminology Bank information system was held at the Seimas (at that time the database contained only about 100 term records).

As stated in the methodology, the purpose of the Terminology Bank is to ensure consistent use of standardized Lithuanian terms, especially in the legal acts of the Republic of Lithuania, and to create a shared information system for various state institutions. Different individuals would be able to connect to the system and contribute data, while specialists in various fields working both in Lithuania and abroad would be able to use it freely.

¹ The website from which the necessary software for accessing the database can be downloaded is www.terminynas.lt. For information about the database’s development and structure, see Meškauskienė 2005; Andžius, Dagienė, Meškauskienė 2005.

Terminologija | 2013 | 20

Thus, the Terms Bank is being developed primarily as a shared information system for state institutions (for more on its concept, see Ivanauskienė 2005, 2008). In accordance with the Terms Bank Law and its implementing legislation (for the list, see the end of the article), ministries, government agencies, and other state institutions are authorized to collect and manage the terminology of the fields under their supervision here. For this purpose, terminology commissions were established within them. Initially, the commissions were mainly responsible for inventorying and managing the terminology of legislation in force and submitting it to the Terms Bank; later, attention shifted to coordinating the terms in draft legislation under preparation with the Language Commission and entering them into the Terms Bank. Once development of the Terms Bank was already well under way (in 2008), the legislation was amended, and state research institutions were also authorized to establish terminology commissions; universities were likewise encouraged to do so (although terminology commissions of researchers did emerge, their direct contribution to the Terms Bank is still barely visible; structural reforms of research institutions may have been an obstacle).

The Terms Bank is freely available online and can be used by any unregistered user (http://terminai.vlkk.lt). The material presented has been assessed both linguistically and with regard to subject matter. There is also an internal information system, to which registered users who submit terms to the bank (primarily members of institutional terminology commissions) connect via the internet using passwords (at a different address). They enter terms into the system themselves and create their own collections of term entries, which are initially accessible to no one but the collection’s compiler (usually members of a terminology commission from a single institution, although an individual term submitter may also compile one). This enables institutions to maintain their own terminology databases.

In the Terms Bank, status is a particularly important data category for term entries and their collections. It indicates the stage reached at a given time in preparing a collection of term entries; access to the data depends on its status. Data are transferred by changing the status. A predefined list of available statuses and their order has been established. The final statuses assigned indicate whether a term is suitable (not recommended, recommended, approved²). Unregistered users of the public bank can see only terms that have these sta-

² It should be noted that the status approved is assigned only to terminologically sound terms that are used or proposed for use in legislation. Other terms that are linguistically correct and conform to the principles of terminology receive the status recommended.

98 Alvydas Umbrasas │ Lietuvos Respublikos terminų bankas: 10 metų po įstatymo priėmimo

Terms with final statuses. While expert assessment and discussion are under way, the terms are already in the bank, but all users see them only after approval.

All terms are classified by fields and subfields (a hierarchical list has been created). A term that has not been assigned to a field cannot be entered into the bank. The list of fields was drawn up on the basis of the structure of the European thesaurus Eurovoc, but that structure was not followed strictly. The list was adapted to Lithuanian realities: it includes the fields overseen by state institutions that have established terminology commissions. The list is not exhaustive and is expanded as needed.

Besides the Lithuanian term itself, the most important elements of a term entry are its field, definition, equivalents in other languages, source, and status. Other data may also be provided, for example, an abbreviation or short form, examples, illustrations depicting the subject, or internet links. The compiler decides whether such data are needed. It is also possible to link term entries (e.g., narrower and broader terms, antonyms, or terms related in other ways).

The stages of reviewing and approving Terms Bank data are similar to the established stages for evaluating terminology dictionaries. The only difference is that the development of the Terms Bank makes greater use of the opportunities offered by information technology for managing terminology: comments by compilers of term entries, experts, the Terminology Subcommittee, or the Terms Bank data administrator (i.e., the Language Commission Secretariat) are entered into the Terms Bank system and saved. Registered users can view them according to the access rights granted to them. If necessary, the system itself provides an opportunity for discussion. In addition, compared with the review of terminology dictionaries, the Terminology Subcommittee’s review of term entries being prepared for approval is more detailed. Terminology dictionaries are reviewed as a whole, with most attention devoted to shortcomings identified by reviewers, whereas collections of Terms Bank entries submitted for approval are reviewed entry by entry, with each term and its definition examined. As a result, review of these term entries is relatively slow: at a meeting, usually lasting three hours, only a few dozen (about 30–60) term entries are discussed. Even with relatively limited resources, the Terminology Subcommittee holds about 40 meetings each year, most of which are devoted to Terms Bank matters.

The Terms Bank contains more than just the terminology of legislation. The number of term entries it currently holds already exceeds 210,000. The aim is to make it as universal a source of terminology as possible. Most of its content consists of data from terminology dictionaries. In total, 36 have already been uploaded to the Terms Bank

Terminologija | 2013 | 20

Dictionaries of terminology in various fields (a list can be found on the website of the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language, www.vlkk.lt; their data were structured and adapted for the Terminology Bank by the Computational Linguistics Group of the Informatics Methodology Department at the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics of Vilnius University, now discontinued). Most of them are explanatory and bilingual. The preparation of precisely this type of dictionary is now being encouraged. Bilingual terminology dictionaries are avoided because, without definitions, it is often difficult to assess whether a term is appropriate. Terms published in recommendations of the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language are also added to the Terminology Bank—there are about 10,000 of them. These are mainly plant names. The Terminology Bank is also expected to publish terms from Lithuanian terminology standards evaluated by the Language Commission.

As the Terminology Bank’s data grow, so does the number of its users. The resource is becoming increasingly well known and is being consulted ever more frequently. In the first years of the Terminology Bank’s operation, the system recorded just over 32,000 user queries³. Thereafter, the number of queries increased rapidly each year. In 2012, about 700,000 queries were recorded (see Table 1). The total number of queries reached 3 million in February 2013. For interest, we can also look at the number of queries by month in 2012 (see Table 2). As can be seen, most queries were made in autumn. As might be expected, use of the Terminology Bank declines somewhat in summer, but remains fairly intensive.

An examination of the Terminology Bank’s query data for 2012 reveals several trends. Looking at the language of the words searched for, English leads (see Table 3). Queries for words in this language slightly outnumber those for Lithuanian words—about 48% and 43% of queries, respectively. It is also clear that terms in other languages are searched for much less often. French and German, commonly found in multilingual terminology dictionaries, are far behind English (the first and second account for about 3% and 2% of queries, respectively), while Russian, still studied by many, is queried half as often as Latin (Latin searches may be for plant and animal names, anatomical terms, and so on). Queries for Russian account for less than 1%. Other languages are rare in the Terminology Bank’s sources, and their words are also searched for very rarely. The fact that Lithuanian equivalents of terms are searched for more often than Lithuanian terms themselves should come as no surprise—it is likely that translators or other people for whom the relevant translation is important often use the Terminology Bank.

³ I thank Vytautas Kirna, an employee of the Information Technology and Telecommunications Department of the Office of the Seimas, for providing the query data.

100

Alvydas Umbrasas

Lietuvos Respublikos terminų bankas: 10 metų po įstatymo priėmimo

Despite the predominance of searches for English words, the ten most frequently searched words in 2012 included just one English word, input (see Table 4). The most frequently searched words were information and data (909 and 707 searches, respectively).

Table 1. Number of Terminology Bank queries by year

2005 | 32,487 | 2008 | 233,940 | 2011 | 601,803; 2006 | 59,386 | 2009 | 521,984 | 2012 | 699,791; 2007 | 143,287 | 2010 | 581,513

Table 2. Number of Terminology Bank queries by month in 2012

January | 55,739 | May | 62,747 | September | 57,971; February | 59,877 | June | 57,275 | October | 71,340; March | 64,654 | July | 45,714 | November | 73,270; April | 54,926 | August | 42,500 | December | 53,778

Table 3. Number of Terminology Bank queries by language in 2012

English | 337,670 | Latin | 10,741 | Portuguese | 488; Lithuanian | 298,619 | Russian | 5,283 | Polish | 66; French | 23,172 | Spanish | 5,254 | Latvian | 40; German | 15,730 | Italian | 2,728

Table 4. Most frequently searched words in the Terminology Bank in 2012 (number of queries)

information | 909 | device | 177 | input | 147; data | 707 | company | 156 | datum | 142; knowledge | 498 | loan | 155; leasing | 226 | file | 148

The search system allows users to search not only the fields for terms, their synonyms, or equivalents, but also other parts of a term entry. Users rarely take advantage of this option—in 2012, searches in other parts of term entries (these

Terminologija | 2013 | 20

101

including definitions and source titles) was searched 7,905 times, accounting for only approximately 1% of all queries. The system also allows users to search for terms by subject area (selecting one may be useful, for example, when the search produces an excessive number of results), but users generally prefer to see terms from all subject areas. A subject area was specified in only 11,482 queries (fewer than 2%). When a subject area is selected, it is most often education and science. This choice can presumably be explained by the fact that various terminology dictionaries are most often entered in the Terminology Bank under this subject area. Terms are also rarely distinguished by status in queries (approved terms alone were searched for 4,814 times, recommended terms for 1,891, and non-recommended terms for 431; all these queries together account for just 1%); most often, no status is specified. Users probably either want to see as diverse a range of data as possible or try to spend as little time as possible selecting parameters. Incidentally, in most cases (64% of queries in 2012), more than 9 letters are entered in the search field. Queries of 8 and 9 letters together account for 15%; the fewer letters entered, the less frequent the queries. Interestingly, about 56% of the queries in the years examined were made with the setting to hide accented letters. One possible reason is that some internet browsers display accented letters incorrectly (the system is adapted for the Internet Explorer browser; users of other browsers are advised to install the Palemonas font). It is likely that employees of European Union institutions often prefer to view terms without accents, since strict security requirements make it difficult for them to install additional fonts. There may be other reasons as well: unaccented words are easier to read and more convenient to copy. In general, it can be assumed that the established view that Lithuanian terms in terminology dictionaries should be marked for stress is not very important to many dictionary users, although it does increase the terminographic value of the dictionary.

Table 5. Number of approved term entries submitted by institutions

Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Lithuania

2 907

Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Lithuania

1 235

Ministry of Environment of the Republic of Lithuania

953

State Medicines Control Agency under the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Lithuania

454

Police Department under the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Lithuania

342

Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Lithuania

316

102

Alvydas Umbrasas

Lietuvos Respublikos terminų bankas: 10 metų po įstatymo priėmimo

Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Lithuania

290

State Food and Veterinary Service of the Republic of Lithuania

289

Ministry of Transport and Communications of the Republic of Lithuania

259

Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Lithuania

252

Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Lithuania

248

Ministry of National Defence of the Republic of Lithuania

244

Ministry of Health of the Republic of Lithuania

194

Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania

141

Bank of Lithuania

110

Department of Statistics under the Government of the Republic of Lithuania

106

Fire and Rescue Department under the Ministry of the Interior

Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania

Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Lithuania

Communications Regulatory Authority of the Republic of Lithuania

Ministry of Social Security and Labour of the Republic of Lithuania

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania

Securities Commission of the Republic of Lithuania

Insurance Supervisory Commission of the Republic of Lithuania

State Nuclear Power Safety Inspectorate

Lithuanian Radio and Television Commission

Special Investigation Service of the Republic of Lithuania

State Border Guard Service under the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Lithuania

Information Society Development Committee under the Ministry of Transport and Communications

Office of the Chief Archivist of Lithuania

State Data Protection Inspectorate

Department of National Minorities and Lithuanians Living Abroad under the Government of the Republic of Lithuania

Financial Crime Investigation Service under the Ministry of the Interior

Office of the Prime Minister

Department of Physical Education and Sports under the Government of the Republic of Lithuania

Terminologija | 2013 | 20

103

Since the primary and most important aim in creating the Terms Bank is to manage the terminology of legal acts, it is appropriate to take a separate look at the status approved terms (as mentioned, this status is granted only to terms in legal acts). In September 2013, there were 9,056 such term entries in the bank. The number of term entries considered by the Terminology Subcommittee is in fact higher, because some entries were not returned after being amended in accordance with the comments or were not amended sufficiently; it was therefore decided not to submit them for approval. These terms were submitted by 35 institutions. The first collection of term entries submitted to the Terms Bank was considered by the Terminology Subcommittee almost a year after the adoption of the Terms Bank Law (18 November 2004). The first term provider was the State Food and Veterinary Service. Some institutions have submitted only one or a few collections of term entries, while others are much more active (see Table 5). From the very beginning of the creation of the Terms Bank, the terminology commission of the Ministry of Agriculture has been the most active; the number of approved term entries it has submitted is rapidly approaching 3,000. The terminology commissions of the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of the Environment are also active (the former has submitted about 1,200 terms, the latter about 1,000). Thus, a large proportion of the approved terms are from the fields of agriculture, finance and the environment. In the Terms Bank, the broad field overseen by the Ministry of Agriculture is agriculture, fisheries and food; it includes terms relating to land management, land reform, agricultural economics, agricultural policy, as well as food, feed production and trade, farming, crop production, animal husbandry, poultry farming, fisheries and other areas (a). The Ministry of Finance submits terms relating to auditing, budgeting, accounting and financial reporting, insurance, financial and fiscal policy, taxation, administration and control of financial assistance, and property valuation, as well as terms relating to securities, financial instruments, collective investment undertakings, etc. (b). The Ministry of the Environment is responsible for terms relating to environmental protection, environmental impact assessment, natural resources, forestry, green spaces, geology, hydrometeorology, spatial planning, construction, etc. (c). Examples of terms approved from those submitted by these institutions include:

a) genetic erosion of populations of oil and fibre plants, olive-growing organisations, flavoured tar preparation, bacterial fertilisers, bee genetic line, bioethanol production enterprise, share of the potato starch quota, defective sample, dehydrated fruit juice, day pasture, irritant threshold limit, genealogical line of farm animals, rodent control, grain impurities, inspection certificate for organic products imported into the European Community, whey butter, establishment of a young farmer, sensory assessor expert, caseinate,

104

Alvydas Umbrasas

Lietuvos Respublikos terminų bankas: 10 metų po įstatymo priėmimo

confectionery industry waste, control mixed parcel of land, cooperative, very weak beer, licensed warehouse register book, marmalade, microorganism invasion, mixture of forest mushrooms, natural meadow, consignment of frozen beef products imported under a tariff quota, replacement ram lamb, farrowing pen, feather meal, aftertaste, industrial inulin syrup, supported pilot integrated strategy, trotter, rye bran, disposal of animal by-products, self-propelled combine harvester, seed balls, scion, liquid manure recirculation, somatic cells, wine made from fruit and/or berries using a special technology, spelt bake, fresh poultry meat, placing fresh fruit and vegetables on the market, triple hybrid, empty feed sample, closed aquaculture system, breeding purebred, wine support programme, Escherichia coli titre, member of an agricultural company, fish breeding, user of fish resources;

b) public oversight of certified auditors and audit firms, provision, reverse repurchase agreement, excise stamp, branch of a company, biological asset, budgetary discipline, code of ethics for professional accountants, error rate in the making of declared eligible expenditure, significant insurance risk, grant to an undertaking, financial crisis, irregularity without financial impact, financial engineering instrument, fiscal agent, functional classification of appropriations, long-term anti-inflationary budget policy, severance pay for an employee, acquisition or production cost, obligations to an investor, exceptional asset valuation method, management company of a fund of funds, coupon period of a government security of the Republic of Lithuania, equivalent financial collateral, mass valuation of property, useful life, indirect decisive influence over an undertaking, loan for use, application for funding a project co-financed from European Union funds, option premium, subsidiary undertaking, parent undertaking, money transfer, market price of goods or services, post-internal-audit supervision, captive insurance or reinsurance undertaking, structural general government balance indicator, sub-project under a subsidy programme, direct debit, foreign creditors, currency exchange office, state guarantee for a guarantee institution, fully decentralised system for implementing the PHARE programme and the Transition Facility;

c) stone dam, closure of a geological carbon dioxide storage site, anti-seepage screen, environmental restoration measures, certified architect, disposal of waste at sea, habitat, placing chemicals and preparations on the market, apartment building, major hazard of geological carbon dioxide storage, soil slice, assessment of dose (concentration) and response (change), lake fish trap, photoabrasion, safety control of a genetically modified organism or product, strictly protected species, hydrometeorological forecast,

Terminologija | 2013 | 20

105

individual wastewater management, inert waste, infrastructure development scheme, mining industry, cliff, administration of municipal waste management service provision, coastal management, cremation activity, free selective forest felling, ship cargo residues, meristem, new chemical substances, adverse environmental impact, packaging user, shelter, polymer family, preliminary ecogeological investigation, reintroduction, seismic monitoring, seedling, greenhouse gases, monitoring borehole, roof gutter, interested public, clean development project, pollution source, terrace, ultraviolet solar radiation, urban space, lawn, planting site.

The combined contribution of all the other ministries is only slightly more than 2,000 approved terms. Among institutions subordinate to the ministries, the State Medicines Control Agency under the Ministry of Health works responsibly and productively. Nearly half a thousand pharmaceutical terms have already been approved in the Terms Bank. These are mostly names of pharmaceutical forms, methods of administering medicines, devices, etc., for example: ampoule, applicator, ear stick, tamper-evident container, canister, mouthwash, toothpaste, dental gel, dosing valve, pharmaceutical form, gargle (tablet for solution), cervical canal gel, impregnated tampon, implantation, implantable matrix, solution for injection in a cartridge, iontophoresis, mouthpiece, concentrate and solvent for solution for injection or infusion, cream, cryogenic medical gases, intrastemal use, intradiscal use, spatula, powder and solvent for solution for injection or skin-prick testing, powder for bladder solution, prolonged-release granules in a sachet, peritoneal dialysis solution, gastro-resistant hard capsule, transdermal spray (solution), closure, use on the affected area, use in the posterior episcleral space, oral use, buccal film. The Police Department under the Ministry of the Interior has also submitted quite a large number of terms (over 300). These are terms relating to the administration of police activities, operational activities, forensics, road safety enforcement and other areas connected with public safety, for example: agent method, vintage motor vehicle, security alarm, ballistic examination, fingerprint card, partial personal search, maximum permitted vehicle mass, traffic restriction, electronic surveillance, motorway, wanted person, burglary tool, roadside, informant, school bus, juvenile police officer, uninterrupted movement of a motorcade, prevention of situations involving criminal offences and other legal violations, official warning, ambush, micro-relief of a trace, police detention cell, combat training for police officers, covert operational interview, specialised police institution, service dog, polygraph examination.

106 Alvydas Umbrasas Lietuvos Respublikos terminų bankas: 10 metų po įstatymo priėmimo

It is recommended that terms submitted for approval be accompanied by equivalents in the most relevant foreign languages. Institutions themselves decide whether to provide equivalents. Of the 9,056 term entries, 2,674 entries (about 30%) have no equivalents. The other term entries have equivalents in at least one language. As might be expected, English equivalents are given most frequently—they appear in 6,092 term entries (about 67%). German and French equivalents are given much less frequently—2,938 (about 32%) and 2,471 (about 27%), respectively. There are 1,943 approved term entries with Russian equivalents (about 21%). It is possible to give equivalents in less commonly used languages as well, but institutions submitting terms generally do not do so. Only here and there can one find equivalents in Spanish (33), Italian (26), Latin (11), Polish (9), or Latvian (7). Since, as mentioned, terms are often searched for using their English equivalents, institutions should pay more attention to these equivalents. The aim should be to submit term entries without equivalents as rarely as possible. It is precisely through equivalents that the terminology of European Union and Lithuanian legislation can be linked. Term entries submitted without equivalents may simply be impossible for translators at European Union institutions to find.

A separate issue is the selection of equivalents and their accuracy. The Terminology Subcommission does not usually assess the quality of equivalents (only the Lithuanian terms are assessed, although questionable equivalents are also noted); this is the responsibility of those submitting the terms. Equivalents for approved terms are often taken from European Union documents, and terminology dictionaries are also consulted. At times, their scope does not appear to coincide, for example, the terms approved from a Lithuanian legal act, placing tractors or engines on the market, “placing tractors or engines on the market for the first time,” and commencement of the use of agricultural machinery or an engine, “the date on which agricultural machinery or an engine, assembled and adjusted by the manufacturer or a third party appointed by it, is first used for its intended purpose; this is deemed to be the date of its registration or placing on the market” (draft amendment to the Order of the Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of Lithuania “On amending Order No. 3D–171 of the Minister of Agriculture of 1 March 2011 ‘On amending Order No. 3D–685 of the Minister of Agriculture of 29 December 2004 on the approval of the Rules for the assessment of conformity of agricultural and forestry tractors, their trailers and interchangeable towed machinery’”). Their equivalents are given respectively as: English placing on the market, German Inverkehrbringen, French mise sur le marché, and English entry into service, German Inbetriebnahme, French mise en service. As can be seen, the equivalents are more general because they are taken from the directive under which the Lithuanian legal act is being drafted.

Terminologija | 2013 | 20

107

In the translation of the directive, the Lithuanian terms are also brief: “placing on the market – the first supply of a tractor or engine to the market”; “entry into service – the first use of a tractor or engine for its intended purpose in the Union. The date of entry into service is deemed to be the date of registration or, where applicable, the date of placing on the market” (Directive 2011/72/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 September 2011 amending Directive 2000/25/EC as regards the provisions for tractors placed on the market under the flexibility scheme). At meetings of the Terminology Subcommission, efforts are made, when considering and editing terms in the Terminology Bank, to harmonise the terms with their definitions as far as possible. This harmonisation often results in terms being revised (lengthened). Generally, in the interests of brevity, legal acts tend to define short forms of terms, or even related terms, rather than terms for specific types. Since the very beginning of the Terminology Bank’s development, efforts have been made to eliminate such submissions (although there are cases where terms cannot be revised). Questions concerning the concept of a term in a legal act and its definition merit a separate study. Practice shows that terms and their definitions in legal acts (though sometimes it may be inaccurate to call them definitions; they are more like explanations) are not always of the same form as scientific terms and definitions, particularly since the purpose of providing definitions in science and in legal acts is not entirely the same. In science, the aim is usually to provide a generalised definition, whereas terms in legal acts are often defined with reference only to the context of a particular legal act. In its comments, the Terminology Subcommission seeks to ensure that both the term in a legal act and its definition are as clear as possible even without context, so that, where necessary, the term can also be used in another legal act.

During the first few years of the Terminology Bank’s development, when most attention was devoted to cataloguing the terminology of legal acts in force, it was quite common to add comments to term entries stating that a term used in the cited legal act should be replaced with another, that it had been revised and/or that its definition had been revised or edited. Such comments are still occasionally added when terms from a legal act already in force are under consideration. Comments on changes to a term and/or its definition appear in one-fifth of approved term entries (over 1,800). It should be noted that editors of term entries sometimes change terms or definitions in the Bank without adding comments, so the actual figure could be slightly higher. Table 6 shows, for example, how some catalogued legal-act terms were changed (many of the definitions shown were also edited or revised). The relationships between terms found in documents and those approved vary. There are efforts to use Lithuanian equivalents (e.g., anosmia → loss of smell, cryopreserved

108

Alvydas Umbrasas

Lietuvos Respublikos terminų bankas: 10 metų po įstatymo priėmimo

semen → frozen semen); language errors and other linguistic shortcomings were corrected (e.g., young man below the age of conscription → young man below the call-up age, amateur garden area → amateur gardeners’ garden area); terms were improved with due regard to the semantics of their constituent words (e.g., dual warehouse receipt → two-part warehouse receipt, damaged grain → spoiled grain); logical errors were sometimes eliminated (e.g., ultra-high temperature milk → milk treated at ultra-high temperature); and certain term-formation patterns were followed (e.g., spermatozoid motility → spermatozoid motility (short form)). Terms are always revised with regard to the content expressed in the definition, in order to ensure technical accuracy (e.g., cane sugar → sugar cane sugar, intervarietal hybrid → hybrid variety, agricultural irrigation fields → field for spreading liquid organic fertilisers); words are also quite often added to a term to ensure it is not too broad in light of the definition (e.g., manufacturer → manufacturer of civil pyrotechnic articles). Some revisions make very little difference to the form of the term; for example, a definite form is adopted or, conversely, a definite form is dropped depending on the content (audited entity (definite form) → audited entity, Bulgarian sour milk → Bulgarian sour milk (definite form)); sometimes the word order is simply changed for greater fluency (e.g., persons without a place of residence → person without a place of residence). The last example shows that the number was also changed—as far as possible, and where the concept is not collective, terms are submitted in the singular.

Table 6. Approved terms that differ from terms in the sources (examples)

Approved

Found in the source

Definition

Source

audited entity

A public legal person, its division or divisions, a public legal person subordinate to it and/or assigned to its management area, whose internal audit is carried out.

Order No. 1K-175 of the Minister of Finance of the Republic of Lithuania of 31 May 2010 “Amending Order No. 1K-117 of the Minister of Finance of 2 May 2003 ‘Approving the Model Internal Audit Methodology, the Rules of Professional Ethics for Internal Auditors and the Framework for Analysis to Assess the Need for Internal Audit’” (Official Gazette, 2010, No. 64–3169)

Terminologija | 2013 | 20

109

Approved

Present in the source

Definition

Source

Bulgarian cultured buttermilk

Bulgarian buttermilk

Cultured buttermilk obtained by fermenting milk with pure cultures of lactic acid streptococci and Bulgarian lactic acid bacilli (Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus).

Order No. 3D-165 of 17 April 2003 of the Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of Lithuania “On the Approval of Sensory Analysis Methods” (Žin., 2003, No. 60-2733)

manufacturer of civil pyrotechnic articles

manufacturer

A legal person registered in the Republic of Lithuania or a branch of a foreign legal person holding a licence to manufacture civil pyrotechnic articles issued in accordance with the procedure established by the legal acts of the Republic of Lithuania.

Law Amending the Law of the Republic of Lithuania on the Control of the Circulation of Civil Pyrotechnic Articles (Žin., 2002, No. 62-2496; 2004, No. 53-1790)

cane sugar

reed sugar

A crystalline disaccharide obtained by extracting sugar cane.

Order No. 3D-597 of 3 November 2004 of the Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of Lithuania “On the Approval of the Rules for Placing Feed Materials on the Market” (Žin., 2004, No. 163-5961)

two-part warehouse receipt

double warehouse receipt

A document consisting of two parts—a warehouse receipt and a pledge certificate—that confirms ownership and grants the right to dispose of goods stored in a warehouse.

Law of the Republic of Lithuania on Licensed Warehouses and Warehouse Documents (Official Gazette, 2002, No. 74-3139)

person without a place of residence

persons without a place of residence

A person who does not have living accommodation or who, for objective reasons, cannot declare a place of residence in accordance with the procedure established by law.

Lietuvos Respublikos gyvenamosios vietos deklaravimo įstatymas (Žin., 1998, Nr. 66-1910; 2004, Nr. 80-2834)

1 1 0

Alvydas Umbrasas

Lietuvos Respublikos terminų bankas: 10 metų po įstatymo priėmimo

Approved

Present in the source

Definition

Source

hybrid variety

intervarietal hybrid

The first generation, approved by the breeder, obtained by crossing plants grown from elite seed of two cross-pollinated varieties.

Order No. 3D-464 of the Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of Lithuania of 30 September 2005 “On amending Order No. 274 of the Minister of Agriculture of 29 September 2000 ‘On the Mandatory Quality Requirements for Cereal Seeds’” (Official Gazette, 2005, No. 118-4280)

young person below the age of conscription

a young man of pre-conscription age

A person liable for military service (male) aged 16 to 19.

Lietuvos Respublikos karo prievolės įstatymas (Žin., 1996, Nr. 106-2427)

loss of sense of smell

anosmia

Absence of sensitivity to olfactory stimuli. It may be complete or partial, permanent or temporary.

Order No. 3D-165 of the Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of Lithuania of 17 April 2003 “On the Approval of Sensory Analysis Methodologies” (Valstybės žinios, 2003, No. 60-2733)

territory of an amateur garden

A territory established under a land management project or another territorial planning document, allocated by legal acts to a gardeners’ association, and divided into individual garden plots and commonly used land.

Lietuvos Respublikos sodininkų bendrijų įstatymas (Žin., 2004, Nr. 4-40)

field for spreading liquid organic fertilisers

agricultural irrigation fields

A field intended for spreading liquid organic fertilisers (slurry, wastewater, liquid organic waste, liquid sludge). Spreading is carried out irrespective of the plants’ moisture requirements three or more times during the fertilisation season and/or at a rate exceeding 300 m³/ha (or t/ha) per year.

Order No. D1-367/3D-342 of the Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of Lithuania and the Minister of Environment of the Republic of Lithuania of 14 July 2005 “On the Approval of Environmental Requirements for Manure Management” (Valstybės žinios, 2005, No. 92-3434)

Terminologija | 2013 | 20

111

Approved

Found in the source

Definition

Source

sperm motility

The ratio of the number of motile spermatozoa to the total number of spermatozoa in the volume of semen examined, calculated according to the prescribed methodology and expressed in points or as a percentage.

Order No. 3D-550 of 29 November 2005 of the Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of Lithuania “On the Technical Regulation on Methods for Testing the Semen of Pedigree Bulls” (Official Gazette, 2005, No. 142-5140)

spoiled grains

damaged grains

Grains unfit for human consumption or feed because they are rotten, infected with mildew or bacteria, or for other reasons. Spoiled grains also include grains overheated or damaged by drying at too high a temperature, as well as bunt grains that are fully mature and whose husks range in colour from greyish brown to black, while the cross-sectional area of the grain ranges in colour from yellowish grey to brownish black.

Order No. 3D-471 of 9 August 2004 of the Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of Lithuania “On Approval of the Rules for Determining Grain Impurities” (Official Gazette, 2004, No. 126-4542); Commission Regulation (EU) No 1272/2009 laying down common detailed rules for the implementation of Council Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007 with regard to the buying-in and selling of agricultural products under public intervention

milk treated at ultra-high temperature

ultra-high-temperature milk

Drinking milk obtained by heating milk for at least 1 s at a temperature of not less than +135 °C.

Regulation (EC) No 853/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 laying down specific hygiene rules for food of animal origin

frozen semen

cryopreserved semen

Semen diluted, packaged, cooled, and frozen sequentially in accordance with technological requirements and stored in liquid nitrogen.

Order No. 3D-550 of the Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of Lithuania of 29 November 2005 “On the Technical Regulation on Methods for Testing the Semen of Breeding Bulls” (Žin., 2005, No. 142-5140)

The criteria of terminological precision and brevity are sometimes difficult to reconcile; nevertheless, priority is given to precision. All 9,056 approved ter-

112

Alvydas Umbrasas

Lietuvos Respublikos terminų bankas: 10 metų po įstatymo priėmimo

ms were analyzed by word⁴ count, starting from the assumption that most terms are compound. The analysis showed (see Table 7) that one-word terms rank fourth in frequency, numbering 925 (about 10%). Two-word terms predominate—accounting for a third—with 2,927 (about 32%); there are also relatively many three-word terms—one quarter—with 2,160 (about 24%), while four-word terms are already noticeably fewer, at 1,329 (about 15%). A clear tendency is then apparent: the more words a term consists of, the fewer such terms there are. The number of five-word terms is still relatively substantial (719, about 8%), whereas there are only 385 six-word terms (about 4%). There are 611 terms with seven or more components in total (about 7%). There are no strict criteria for how many words a term must contain to be called multiword. The author of this article has used “multiword” for terms with four or more components (Umbrasas 2010: 211), while other studies have also called terms with three components multiword (Džežulskienė 2010: 18; Babickienė 2012: 60). If we adopt the latter position, more than half of the approved terms (5,204, about 57%) are multiword.

Table 7. Number of approved terms by the number of words comprising them (top row)

2 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 18 2 927 | 2 160 | 1 329 | 925 | 719 | 385 | 265 | 142 | 86 | 53 | 35 | 12 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1

The figures presented show that legislation most commonly defines specific concepts. On the other hand, Table 7 contains some rather unexpected data—some terms are very long. The longest approved term consists of as many as 18 words: non-formal continuing vocational training programme for farmers, forest owners, members of local action groups, other rural residents and their consultants “A document setting out in a consistent manner the theoretical and practical subjects required to acquire certain professional knowledge for farmers, forest owners, members of local action groups, other rural residents and their consultants” (Order of the Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of Lithuania of 2010 May-

⁴ Unlike in our traditional terminology, function words are counted here as separate components. In the age of computer technology, a formal criterion for distinguishing them is more convenient and, presumably, more promising. Moreover, the international terminology standard likewise does not take into account the function of words in a term—the defining feature of a compound term (English multiword term) is formal: it is “a term consisting of more than one string of characters” (LST ISO 1087-2:2005: 4).

Terminologija | 2013 | 20

113

… February 26 Order No. 3D-1035 “On Amending the Order of the Minister of Agriculture of 26 February 2009 No. 3D–132 ‘On the Preparation of Non-formal Continuing Vocational Training Programmes for Farmers, Forest Owners, Members of Local Action Groups, Other Rural Residents and Their Consultants, and on Repealing Order No. 241 of the Minister of Agriculture of 12 July 2001’” (Žin., 2010, No. 141–7220)). Both the spelling (lowercase) and the context of the document (the term is also used in the plural) indicate that this is not the name of a programme but denotes a type. Understandably, such a long term (it is even difficult to call it a term) is inconvenient to use, so the document uses a shortened form, training programme; however, according to the definition provided, it would not be suitable as a term, as it would be too broad. Other legal acts have approved several more related terms: tractor-driver training programme, non-formal continuing vocational training programme for farmers, training programme for persons engaged in agricultural and forestry activities. The definitions of all these terms specify certain particular features by which the concepts are distinguished from a mere training programme. Incidentally, there is no such approved term, although it can be found in terminology dictionaries. They give the most general characteristics: “A structured and coherent description of elements of theoretical and practical learning content that ensure a specific educational attainment and/or qualification or competence. A training programme may be for a particular field of learning, specialisation, occupation, subject, module, etc. The recommended structure of a programme comprises a description of learning objectives (for vocational training, the competences to be acquired), materials and methods; a description of specific learning conditions; provision for textbooks and other learning materials; a description of parameters for assessing achievement of the objectives; etc.” (AKSTŽ 2008).

Examples of terms containing ten or more elements are presented in Table 8. The reason for the emergence of these and other similar terms is the pursuit of precision and the effort to convey the content of a concept as fully as possible. Of course, such terms already border on definitions, and sometimes the information in their definitions is only slightly more detailed. The emergence of long—descriptive—terms is determined by the distinctive nature of concepts in legal acts. Given the definitions, short terms are hardly possible.

As already mentioned, legal acts often tend to use more general terms, essentially only shortened forms of terms (without even indicating the long form), although their definitions could support more specific terms. A term is chosen as a conventional sign that does not reveal more particular features, with attention focused solely on the definition. The criterion of convenience plays a significant role here,

114

Alvydas Umbrasas

Lietuvos Respublikos terminų bankas: 10 metų po įstatymo priėmimo

but how, then, should the relationship between a term and its definition be assessed from a terminological perspective? Apparently, a compromise must be sought between the requirements of precision and brevity.

Table 8. Approved terms with the greatest number of elements (examples)

Term (number of words)

Definition

Source

a vehicle insured under compulsory motor third-party liability insurance

A vehicle covered by a compulsory motor third-party liability insurance contract or by another insurance contract complying with the requirements of the Law of the Republic of Lithuania on Compulsory Motor Third-Party Liability Insurance.

Law Amending the Law of the Republic of Lithuania on Compulsory Motor Third-Party Liability Insurance (Žin., 2007, No. 61-2340)

average retail price of an agricultural or food product in rural shops

The average value of the price of a selected agricultural or food product over a given period, calculated as the arithmetic mean of the average prices of the same or similar agricultural or food products recorded in representative rural shops.

Draft Order of the Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of Lithuania “On Amending Order No. 3D-941 of the Minister of Agriculture of 27 December 2011 ‘On Approving the Rules for Surveying Retail Prices of Agricultural and Food Products in Markets and Rural Shops’”

recipient of assistance under the PHARE programme and/or the Transition Facility

A ministry, another state institution or agency receiving financial assistance under the PHARE programme and/or the Transition Facility.

Draft Order of the Minister of Finance of the Republic of Lithuania amending Order No. 1K-043 of the Minister of Finance of 6 February 2004 “On Approval of the PHARE Programme and Transitional Institution Development Facility Coordination Manual of the European Union Programmes Management Department of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Lithuania”

Terminologija | 2013 | 20

115

Term (word count)

Definition

Source

Sender of documents and/or messages sent via the National Electronic Document and Message Delivery System

A legal or natural person sending electronic documents and/or messages via the National Electronic Document and Message Delivery System.

Order No. 3-617 of the Minister of Transport and Communications of the Republic of Lithuania of 15 October 2010 “On Approval of the Programme for Establishing a System for Delivering Electronic Messages and Electronic Documents to Natural and Legal Persons Using the Public Postal Network and the Plan of Measures for Its Implementation”

elements of drinking-water supply and wastewater management infrastructure that are hazardous to human health and/or the environment

Elements of water supply and wastewater management infrastructure (e.g. a pumping station) which, due to the energy stored in them and the processes taking place, may pose a risk to human life, health, the environment or property.

Draft Law Amending and Supplementing the Law of the Republic of Lithuania on Drinking Water Supply and Wastewater Management

independent intervention withdrawal of fishery products from the market or transfer to storage by fishery producer organisations

An intervention measure whereby the products listed in Annex IV to Council Regulation (EC) No 104/2000 of 17 December 1999 are not sold at a price below the withdrawal price established by the producer organisation pursuant to Article 24 of Council Regulation (EC) No 104/2000 of 17 December 1999, but are withdrawn from the market or stabilised or preserved.

Draft Order of the Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of Lithuania amending Order No. 3D-52 of the Minister of Agriculture of 1 February 2005 “On Approval of the Rules for Applying Intervention Measures to Regulate the Market in Fishery Products”

movable cultural property or other cultural objects unlawfully removed from the territory of the Republic of Lithuania or a foreign state

Movable cultural property or other cultural objects removed in breach of legislation governing the protection of movable cultural property or other cultural objects of the Republic of Lithuania or a foreign state, or not returned to the Republic of Lithuania or the foreign state after the expiry of the period of lawful temporary removal of such movable cultural property or other cultural objects, or removed in breach of other requirements laid down by legislation.

Lietuvos Respublikos kilnojamųjų kultūros vertybių apsaugos įstatymas (Žin., 1996, Nr.14-352; 2008, Nr. 81-3183)

116

Alvydas Umbrasas

Lietuvos Respublikos terminų bankas: 10 metų po įstatymo priėmimo

Very long terms are quite rare in terminological dictionaries, but it cannot be said that such terms are absent from them. Nevertheless, the lengths of terms approved in legal acts and those provided in terminological dictionaries differ markedly. If we compared the groups of terms under consideration by word-count ratio with the groups of terms in the dictionaries published in the Termin yne mentioned at the beginning of the article, we would see an obvious difference. The longest approved terms (consisting of five or more words) account for about 19%, whereas such terms make up only about 1% of the dictionaries in the Terminyno⁵; the longest consists of 12 words, for example: machine with a closed-circuit air-cooling system and an externally mounted, separately driven fan (11 words), machine with a closed-circuit air-cooling system and an external fan mounted on the machine shaft (12 words), single-phase series-wound commutator motor with a short-circuited compensating winding (10 words) (ETŽ 1999). As noted earlier, about 10% of approved terms consist of one word, whereas entries for one-word terms account for as much as a third—about 32%—in the dictionaries mentioned. Two-word terms account for about 32% and about 52%, respectively. A relatively large number of three- and four-word terms have been approved (about 24% and 15%), while in the dictionaries of the Terminyno they account for only about 12% and 3%, respectively. This is probably a result of the refinement of terms being approved; the Terminų bankas has contributed to the lengthening of the terminology used in legal acts.⁶

The Terminų bankas is having—and has undoubtedly already had—an impact on the terminology of legal acts. Creating such a system opens up opportunities to reach agreement on how particular concepts are understood and on the selection of terms for them. The same terms (and concepts) may be explained somewhat differently in different legal acts. The Terminų bankas helps make this apparent. By entering terms into the bank, specialists can reach agreement to harmonize concepts and definitions as much as possible, or, once differences between concepts have been clarified, designate them differently. Questions about whether synonyms are needed and how to select them are also addressed. Specialists from various institutions who attend meetings of the Terminology Subcommission become familiar with the specifics of terminological work, receive useful feedback, and gradually improve the terminological quality of legal acts. In this respect, it is possible to

⁵ The Termin yne has accumulated 298,824 term entries from 27 dictionaries. Statistical data were calculated using the system’s search capabilities.

⁶ It should be noted that in both this terminology database and the Terminų bankas of the Republic of Lithuania, dictionary definitions are presented as separate entries (this matters for the statistics, since one-word terms in particular often have more than one meaning). Only among the entries for terms approved in the Terminų bankas are there cases that cover more than one meaning (sometimes this is how differences between concepts in legal acts are indicated).

Terminologija | 2013 | 20 117

to say that the Terminų bankas indirectly contributes to the terminological education of specialists and society at large.

Compared with conventional terminology work, whose outcome is usually terminological dictionaries, the Terminų bankas opens up other possibilities: new terms can be published quickly, and previously published terms can be improved or corrected quickly when necessary. Compared with dictionaries, electronic terminology work also offers entirely new and much more extensive search capabilities. Nevertheless, the standardization of terminology in legal acts poses different difficulties from the management of scientific terminology and the publication of dictionaries. Dictionary authors, drawing on their research or sometimes acting under pressure from linguists, can change previously used terms, name new concepts, and propose neologisms in a dictionary, hoping that specialists in the field will adopt them. New terms sometimes take hold, while others remain unused, proposals recorded only in dictionaries. The situation is different with terms in legal acts, especially higher-level ones such as laws. Once published, these terms inevitably enter official usage and subsequently appear in other legal acts, such as implementing legislation, and the chain continues. Terms are often copied from one document to another, and it is difficult to stop this flow. Specialists are often reluctant to change even poor but widespread terms, especially since changing terms can entail considerable costs not only for the institutions drafting documents but also for the businesses implementing them. A separate problem is the terminology of translations of European Union legal acts, which varies in quality and is also adopted in national legal acts. Changing the terminology in these translations requires complex procedures, so institutions are reluctant to undertake it. Nearly ten years of experience in developing the Terminų bankas shows that specialists respond differently to proposals to improve the terminology of legal acts: some welcome them, while others are predisposed against any changes. Nevertheless, it is usually possible to reconcile linguistic and subject-matter aspects of evaluating a term, although compromises on both sides are sometimes needed.

People who use the Terminų bankas sometimes mistakenly imagine that the bank is like a single terminological dictionary. It is not. The bank is a large database containing various materials. Of course, apart from approved terms and those published in the recommendations of the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language, only terminological dictionaries evaluated by that commission are added to the bank; nevertheless, inconsistencies are inevitable in such a large body of data. The same concepts are sometimes presented in different dictionaries but defined—and at times even named—somewhat differently. There are also cases where the oppos-

118

Alvydas Umbrasas

Lietuvos Respublikos terminų bankas: 10 metų po įstatymo priėmimo

ite is true: some terms and their definitions are identical across different dictionaries. Of course, terminological dictionaries also contain errors and misprints, and many terms that are needed are simply absent. They are not absent because the Language Commission failed to add them to the Terminų bankas (as some people sometimes imagine), but because they do not appear in the dictionaries or other sources added to the Terminų bankas. Thus, when users search for a term in the Terminų bankas, they will not always get a straightforward answer; sometimes they may have to choose among several terms and assess them in light of the field, source, date of publication, and other factors. Although not without shortcomings, the Terminų bankas is the most reliable large and continually expanding source of Lithuanian terms from various fields.

CONCLUSIONS

1. Ten years ago, following the adoption of the Law on the Term Bank of the Republic of Lithuania, a state information system was created to meet terminology management needs, and a terminology database began to be compiled. It serves as a source both for legal acts and for scientific terminology. The Term Bank of the Republic of Lithuania primarily operates as a shared system for state institutions that have established terminology commissions. Its development is coordinated by the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language on the basis of the aforementioned law and the legal acts implementing it.

2. From the beginning of 2005, when terms began to be entered into the Term Bank, to the present, more than 210,000 terminology records have gradually been accumulated there. Most are drawn from 36 terminology dictionaries covering various fields, but the number of terms from legal acts that have been assessed linguistically and substantively continues to grow—there are now more than 9,000 (status aprobuotas). One third of the approved terms are in agriculture, fisheries and food, fields for which the most active work is carried out by the terminology commission of the Ministry of Agriculture. Thirty-five institutions have submitted terms for approval, but their contributions to the Term Bank vary considerably in quantity.

3. As the Term Bank’s data grow, so does its user base, and terms are searched for there increasingly often. In 2012, approximately 700,000 queries were recorded, while the total number of queries since the Bank’s creation has already exceeded 3 million.

4. Query data for 2012 show that Lithuanian and English terms are searched for most often, with the latter even more frequently. This is a sign to the representatives of institutional terminology commissions that appropriate attention should be paid to English equivalents, especially since about 30% of approved terminology records currently

Terminologija | 2013 | 20

119

have no equivalents at all, and therefore those terms may be difficult for translators of European Union legal acts to find or to link to equivalents in other languages.

5. Analysis of the approved terms showed that more than half of them (about 57%) consist of three or more words, and a relatively large proportion—about 7%—even consist of seven or more words. Single-word terms make up only about 10%. This shows that legal acts often define specific subcategories of concepts. At the same time, efforts are evident to achieve the greatest possible precision in terminology. Unfortunately, long terms are unwieldy, so their shortened forms are often used in documents.

6. The establishment of the Term Bank undoubtedly contributes to improving the quality of terminology in legal acts. During the first stage—inventorying the terminology of legal acts—a considerable amount of terminology in force in legal acts was standardized: approximately one fifth of approved terminology records contain notes that the term and/or definition in the Term Bank has been changed, clarified, edited, and so on. This is taken into account when preparing new versions of older documents. Now, with most attention focused on reviewing terminology in draft legal acts, terminologists’ proposals are generally implemented in legal acts immediately.

7. Despite occasional inconsistencies and other shortcomings, the Term Bank is currently the most comprehensive and reliable large-scale source of Lithuanian terms freely available online, and can be useful to scholars, editors, translators and others who work with or are interested in terminology.

LEGAL ACTS⁷

Lietuvos Respublikos terminų banko įstatymas (Žin., 2004, Nr. 7-129).

Resolution No. N-1 (90) of the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language of 2 February 2004 “On Approval of the Methodology of the Terminology Bank of the Republic of Lithuania” (Official Gazette, 2004, No. 26-842).

Resolution No. 881 of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania of 12 July 2004 “On Granting Powers for the Implementation of the Law on the Terminology Bank of the Republic of Lithuania” (Official Gazette, 2004, No. 109-4089).

Resolution No. X-245 of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania of 14 June 2005 “On the 2004 Activity Report of the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language” (Official Gazette, 2005, No. 78-2811).

Resolution No. 537 of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania of 28 May 2008 “On Amending Resolution No. 881 of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania of 12 July 2004 ‘On Granting Powers for the Implementation of the Law on the Terminology Bank of the Republic of Lithuania’” (Official Gazette, 2008, No. 67-2530).

Statute No. XI-415 of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania of 17 September 2009 “On Supplementing and Amending Article 135 of the Statute of the Seimas” (Official Gazette, 2009, No. 112-4751).

Resolution No. 337 of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania of 17 April 2013 “On Amending Resolution No. 728 of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania of 11 August 1994 ‘On Approval of the Rules of Procedure of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania’” (Official Gazette, 2013, No. 43-2112).

⁷ Provided in chronological order.

120 Alvydas Umbrasas │ Lietuvos Respublikos terminų bankas: 10 metų po įstatymo priėmimo

LITERATŪRA

AKSTŽ 2008: Aiškinamasis kvalifikacijų sistemos terminų žodynas. Rengėjai R. Gatautis, R. Gudauskas, O. Gurskienė ir kt., Vilnius: Lietuvos darbo rinkos mokymo tarnyba prie Socialinės apsaugos ir darbo ministerijos.

Andžius R., Dagienė V., Meškauskienė S. 2005: Lietuvių kalbos terminų bazės projektavimas ir kūrimas. – Informacijos mokslai 34, 201–207.

Babickienė Z. 2012: Ekonomikos terminų gramatinių ir leksinių variantų sklaida: norma ir realybė. – Specialybės kalba: gramatika ir logika. Mokslinių straipsnių rinkinys, Vilnius: Mykolo Romerio universitetas, 51–64.

Džežulskienė J. 2010: Prepozicinė ir postpozicinė modifikacija: trijųžodžių angliškų ir lietuviškų terminų gretinamoji analizė. – Kalbotyra 62(3), 7–21.

ETŽ 1999: Elektrotechnikos terminų žodynas. Rengimo grupė: R. J. Mukulys, V. Aleksa, R. Balsys ir kt. Moksl. red. A. Smilgevičius, S. Žebrauskas, Kaunas: Technologija.

Ivanauskienė A. 2005: Lietuvos Respublikos terminų bankas. – Gimtoji kalba 3, 3–6.

Ivanauskienė A. 2008: Lietuvos Respublikos terminų bankas: terminijos tvarkybos galimybės ir problemos. – Specialybės kalba: terminija ir studijos. Mokslinių straipsnių rinkinys, Vilnius: Mykolo Romerio universiteto Leidybos centras, 45–49.

LST ISO 1087-2:2005 Terminologijos darbas. Aiškinamasis žodynas. 2 dalis. Kompiuterių taikymas (tapatus ISO 1087-2:2000).

Meškauskienė S. 2005: Matematikos ir informatikos instituto lietuvių kalbos terminų bazė (Lietuvių kalbos terminynas). – Pabaltijo tautų terminologijos problemos ir Europos Sąjunga. Ats. red., sud. A. Auksoriūtė, Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos instituto leidykla, 89–96.

Umbrasas A. 2010: Lietuvių teisės terminija 1918–1940 metais: pagrindinių kodeksų terminai, Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos institutas.

Urnežiūtė R. 2002: Rengiamas kompiuterinis terminų bankas [pokalbis su dr. V. Černiausku]. – Gimtoji kalba 7–8, 20–24.

TERM BANK OF THE REPUBLIC OF LITHUANIA: 10 YEARS AFTER PASSING THE LAW

Ten years ago for the first time in the history of Lithuanian terminology the ordering of terminology was regulated by law – at the end of 2013 will be the 10^th anniversary of the Law of Term Bank. The Term Bank of the Republic of Lithuania (hereinafter “the Term Bank”) created on the basis of this Law is already well known to society as a terminology source which can be freely accessed on the internet (http://terminai.vlkk.lt). The Term Bank provides terminology evaluated in respect of language and subject. First of all the Term Bank functions as a common system for state institutions which have terminology commissions. The creation of such a system on the basis of the above mentioned law and other related legal acts is co-ordinated by the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language.

The article reviews the conception of the Term Bank, its legal basis, analyses its structure, content, statistics of queries, etc.

From the beginning of 2005 when the input of terms was started until now over 210 000 term entries were gradually accumulated. The majority of them were taken from 36 dictionaries of various fields, though the number of terms from legal acts is constantly increasing – the Term Bank already contains 9000 of such terms (with the status mark aprobuotas (approved)). A third of the terms from legal acts were provided by the Terminology Commission of the Ministry of Agriculture which works most actively. With the number of terms in the Term Bank increasing the number of its users is also growing. In 2012 there were 700 000 queries recorded and the total

Terminologija | 2013 | 20

121

number of queries already exceeded 3 million. The data from 2012 shows that users most frequently look for Lithuanian and English terms, for the latter even more frequently. This is a sign for terminology commissions at various institutions that English equivalents should be given proper attention. Currently about 30% of approved term entries from legal acts do not have any foreign language equivalents, therefore the translators of European Union legal acts might have difficulties finding the right terms.

The analysis of approved terms from legal acts shows that more than a half of those terms consist of three or more words and about 7% – of seven or more words. One-word terms make up only 10%. This shows that legal acts frequently define specific concepts. At the same time it shows attempts of terminologists to seek greater accuracy which determines the length of terms. Unfortunately, long terms are not comfortable to use, therefore in documents their shorter variants are frequently used.

The Term Bank undoubtedly contributes to the improvement of the quality of terminology in legal acts. Quite a lot of terms from legal acts in force have been improved at meetings of the Terminology Sub-commission of the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language – one fifth of the approved term entries have comments that a term and (or) its definition in the Term Bank has been modified, made more accurate, edited, etc.

Despite certain inconsistencies the Term Bank is currently the most reliable and universal source of Lithuanian terminology available on the internet which can be useful for scientists, editors, translators and other specialists working with terminology or interested in terminology.

Gauta 2013-10-02

Alvydas Umbrasas Lietuvių kalbos institutas P. Vileišio g. 5, LT-10308 Vilnius E. paštas [email protected]

122

Alvydas Umbrasas | Lietuvos Respublikos terminų bankas: 10 metų po įstatymo priėmimo

The Terminology Bank of the Republic of Lithuania: 10 Years After the Adoption of the Law

CONCLUSIONS

LEGAL ACTS7

LITERATŪRA

TERM BANK OF THE REPUBLIC OF LITHUANIA: 10 YEARS AFTER PASSING THE LAW

Document details

LEGAL ACTS⁷