Terminologijos renginiai Lietuvių kalbos institute

Terminology Events at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language JOLANTA GAIVENYTĖ-BUTLER, DIANA ŠILOBRITAITĖ Institute of the Lithuanian Language In October 2011, two terminology events were held at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language. The international scientific conference Methodology of Terminology: Its Present and Future Applications was organized by the Terminology Centre of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language together with the international terminology information centre Infoterm. The event, held on October 12–13, was dedicated to the 90th anniversary of the establishment of the Terminology Commission. Many prominent scholars and public figures of the time participated in the work of this Commission, established under the Ministry of Education: Kazimieras Būga, Jonas Jablonskis, Pranas Mašiotas, Antanas Smetona, Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas, Antanas Vireliūnas, and others. During its five years of activity, the Commission considered and approved numerous terms from various fields, some of which were included in the dictionary published in 1924, Įvardai, arba terminai, priimti Terminologijos komisijos. Although the Commission’s work received mixed assessments, it was the first attempt to organize the standardization of Lithuanian terminology. The conference was attended by speakers from Ireland, Austria, Belarus, Latvia, Poland, Lithuania, Russia, Hungary, and Germany. On the first day of the conference, the presentations were delivered in English. Most attention was devoted to the development of terminology science, the expansion of terminology, the development and application of information and communication technologies in terminology work, and issues concerning the teaching of terminology and language for special purposes. The first two presentations focused on the development of terminology science. Invited speaker Heribert Picht surveyed the reasons and prerequisites for the emergence of terminology as a separate discipline, as well as the influence on its development of standardization, the Wirtschaftslinguistik movement that emerged in German-speaking countries, the work of E. Wüster, E. Drezen, and D. S. Lotte, and the model proposed by L. Hoffmann. In his overview of terminology schools, the speaker noted that the main approaches of these schools to 198 J. Gaivenytė-Butler, D. Šilobritaitė Terminologijos renginiai Lietuvių kalbos institute does not differ from terminology theory. In H. Picht’s view, terminology is an independent discipline of modern linguistics, characterized by a metadisciplinary nature. Sergiusz Grinev-Griniewicz (University of Białystok, Moscow Humanitarian Pedagogical Institute) observed that the history of terminology as a field of study can be viewed as the history of the development of methods for investigating special vocabulary. He discussed the systematic, typological, semiotic, and parametric approaches applied in different periods, methods of analyzing term formation and defining terms, as well as the anthropolinguistic approach proposed by the speaker himself. Ágota Fóris (Károli Gáspár University, Budapest) spoke about the links between terminology and text linguistics. Of the seven characteristics of a text, the speaker paid particular attention to coherence and discussed the role of terminology in encoding knowledge in a text and decoding it. The presentation by Brian Ó Raghallaigh and Gearóid Ó Cleircín, staff members of Fiontar, the Irish-language unit at Dublin City University, focused on Irish-language terms in IATE, the multilingual terminology database of the European Union institutions. With Irish becoming an official language of the European Union, the need for Irish terminology has grown. The speakers shared their experience of creating and managing terminology, and introduced the Irish institutions engaged in this work and the terminology bank. Valentīna Skujiņa of the Institute of Latvian Language at the University of Latvia and Ilze Irēna Ilziņa of the university’s Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science spoke about the influence of translation on the development of Latvian terminology and the importance of international terminology standards for harmonizing terminology. In the presentation by Christian Galinski, director of Infoterm, the next invited speaker who opened the afternoon session, the main focus was on the importance of content interoperability and the significance of international standards in achieving it. Klaus-Dirk Schmitz of the Cologne University of Applied Sciences continued the discussion of standardization, speaking about the benefits of international standards in exchanging terminological data. Liudmila Ryčkova (Yanka Kupala State University of Grodno) delivered a presentation on teaching languages for special purposes. The speaker observed that, as a knowledge society develops, terminology is becoming increasingly important not only to specialists in a particular field but also in a broader sociocultural context. The presentation by Sergei Shelov of the V. V. Vinogradov Russian Language Institute (Moscow) focused on implicit information in a terminology knowledge base. The second day of the conference was devoted to Lithuanian terminology. The presentations were delivered in Lithuanian. The morning session discussed the development of terminology in various fields of Lithu- Terminologija | 2011 | 18 1 9 9 anian, the activities of the Terminology Commission, and its role in the history of Lithuanian terminology. Albina Auksoriūtė, head of the Terminology Centre of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language, reviewed the work of the Terminology Commission (1921–1926), discussing the Commission’s tasks and achievements and assessing their significance for the subsequent development of terminology in Lithuania. Vincentas Drotvinas of Vilnius University of Educational Sciences introduced the audience to the nomenclature of craftspeople in old writings and in bilingual lexicographic works of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The material was discussed from several perspectives: the speaker analyzed the presentation of terms in dictionaries, the specialization of craftspeople, the origins of East Aukštaitian and West Aukštaitian dictionaries, the history of name usage, and more. Staff of the Terminology Centre of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language discussed aspects of the history of terminology in particular fields of science. Palmira Zemlevičiūtė reviewed the origin and synonymy of terms relating to health in articles published in the newspaper Keleivis (1849–1880), drawing attention to words that did not become medical terms. Robertas Stunžinas spoke about folk terms for types of construction, emphasizing that analyzing terms in terms of genus and species is an important task of terminology. Solvita Labanauskienė discussed the origins of Lithuanian and Latvian plant genus names used in Baltic Flora (1993–2003). The speaker compared several groups of plant genus names in the Baltic languages and highlighted similarities and differences between Lithuanian and Latvian plant genus names. Diana Šilobritaitė analyzed the methods and means of term formation used in the arithmetic textbook Keturi svarbiausieji veikalai aritmetikos (1886) by Petras Vileišis, a Lithuanian public figure of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and compared them with current mathematical terms. Asta Mitkevičienė spoke about the role of the Terminology Commission in the history of literary studies terminology in Lithuanian and reviewed which literary studies terms had been considered by the Commission. The speaker separately discussed synonymy among literary terms. Alvydas Umbrasas examined the structure of a handwritten Russian–Lithuanian legal terminology dictionary (1920). According to the speaker, the structure of the dictionary in question is not typical of terminology dictionaries. The afternoon session considered contemporary problems in Lithuanian terminology. Audra Ivanauskienė (State Commission of the Lithuanian Language) presented the Commission’s terminology work. She emphasized the aim of ensuring the dissemination of correct terminology and also drew attention to cooperation between Lithuanian and European 200 J. Gaivenytė-Butler, D. Šilobritaitė Terminologijos renginiai Lietuvių kalbos institute Union institutions and specialists on matters relating to the use of terms. Egidijus Zaikauskas of the Lithuanian Language Department, Directorate-General for Translation of the European Commission, spoke about Lithuanian terminology in European Union institutions: he discussed translation and text terminology, legal consistency, the time required to translate documents, and more. The aim of Regina Kvašytė’s presentation from Šiauliai University was to identify the characteristics of the metalanguage of terminology in Lithuanian and Latvian, based on scholarly works and dictionaries. She examined the microsystem of terms formed with the root termin- in Lithuanian and Latvian. A presentation prepared by a team of authors—Erika Rimkutė, Gintarė Grigonytė, Andrius Utka, and Loic Boizou—from Vytautas Magnus University presented attempts to identify Lithuanian terms automatically using a linguistic method. The presentation highlighted how certain computer programs can speed up the process of identifying potential terms. Gintautas Grigas and Tatjana Jevsikova of the Informatics Methodology Department at the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics of Vilnius University presented on English–Lithuanian computing phrasebooks. Particular attention was paid to tools that could speed up the localization of software into Lithuanian and improve the quality of term translation. Markas Paura of Vilnius University’s Department of Translation Studies spoke about the concept of computer virus and its interdisciplinary nature. Vilija Cielienė of Kaunas University of Technology reviewed the structure of Lithuanian computing terms with different origins that are synonymous, examined which terms students tend to use, and discussed the factors influencing their choices. Eglė Dumšienė of Šiauliai State College analyzed the use of computing terms in final projects for the Information Systems Technology degree program. The speaker identified groups of errors in these terms, including foreignisms and errors in term formation and form. Vilnius University student Agnė Strelkauskytė examined the vocabulary and terminology of the social networking site Facebook, comparing it with the websites of other social networks. The conference proceedings were summarized by Alvydas Umbrasas, a staff member of the Terminology Centre. The conference program and abstracts can be found on the website of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language. Articles prepared on the basis of some of the conference presentations are published in this issue of Terminologija; several more articles will be published in the journal’s nineteenth issue. Terminologija | 2011 | 18 201 On 17–18 October, at the terminology seminar organized by the Terminology Centre, lectures were given by one of Europe’s most distinguished terminologists, Professor Emeritus Heribert Picht. As a lecturer, he has participated in terminology training courses held in sixteen countries; as a visiting professor, he taught at the Norwegian School of Economics (Norges Handelshøyskole), and for many years worked at Copenhagen Business School (Copenhagen Business School (Handelshøjskolen)). His research areas include theoretical and applied terminology, language for special purposes (LSP), knowledge management and terminology banks, language and terminology planning, terminology teaching, and professional communication. Professor Heribert Picht was the first terminologist to receive the Eugen Wüster Prize, awarded since 1997 by the International Information Centre for Terminology, Infoterm, for achievements in the field of terminology. In 2007, John Benjamins published a collection of articles on terminology in his honour, Indeterminacy in Terminology and LSP (ed. Bassey Edem Antia). On the first day of the seminar, Professor H. Picht gave three lectures. The lecture Terminology, LSP and professional communication (Terminology, Language for Special Purposes and Professional Communication) addressed the development of terminology as a discipline, its place among other linguistic disciplines, the relationship between terminology and language for special purposes, and their importance for professional communication and knowledge transfer in general. The lecture Object, concept and their representational forms (Object, Concept and Their Representational Forms) was devoted to fundamental concepts and terms in terminology. The professor discussed the notions of object, concept, and term; classifications of objects; the extension and intension of concepts; linguistic, sociolinguistic, and methodological principles of term formation; term definitions; terminological compounds; non-verbal forms of representing concepts and the importance of incorporating them into terminological databases. He surveyed the definitions of fundamental terminology terms in international standards and drew the audience’s attention to inconsistencies in those definitions. The lecture Knowledge ordering at conceptual level (Knowledge Management at the Conceptual Level) discussed the relationships between objects, between concepts, and between concepts and terms. Two topics were considered on the second day of the seminar. The lecture Language planning and terminology planning (Language and Terminology Planning) addressed the goals, means, and institutions of language planning; levels and methods of terminology planning; the standardization of terminology; and language relations in various fields of activity. In the lecture Indeterminacy, the 202 J. Gaivenytė-Butler, D. Šilobritaitė Terminologijos renginiai Lietuvių kalbos institute sciences and professional communication (Indeterminacy, Sciences, and Professional Communication) H. Picht raised the question of whether indeterminacy and determinacy are a true dichotomy, proposed definitions of concept as a unit of thought, concept as a unit of knowledge, and concept as a unit of cognition, drew attention to the need to distinguish epistemological indeterminacy from indeterminacy resulting from the term (the representation of a concept) used in a text, and showed how terminological methods can be applied to achieve determinacy in a terminological unit. Certificates were presented to the seminar participants. Received 2011-12-05 Jolanta Gaivenytė-Butler Lithuanian Language Institute P. Vileišio St. 5, LT-10308 Vilnius E-mail [email protected] Diana Šilobritaitė Lithuanian Language Institute P. Vileišio St. 5, LT-10308 Vilnius E-mail [email protected] Terminologija | 2011 | 18 2 0 3