Kalbos kultūros ir terminologijos konferencija Taline

Conference on Language Culture and Terminology in Tallinn Lietuvių kalbos institutas ALBINA AUKSORIŪTĖ On 9-10 November 2006 the international conference on language culture and terminology Uldja oskuskeelekorralduse konverents 2006 was held in Tallinn. It was organized by the Estonian Language Institute (www.eki.- ee), the Estonian Terminology Society and the Estonian Ministry of Defence (www.mod- .gov.ee). Presentations were given by linguists and specialists from Estonia, Lithuania, Finland and Sweden in Estonian, English and Russian. Urmas Sutrop, Director of the Estonian Language Institute, opened the conference and made a welcome speech. The first day of the conference was devoted to the problems of language culture, language policy and planning, codified language norms, the recently published normative dictionary of the Estonian language. Inkaliisa Vihonen from the Finnish Language Research Institute spoke about the difficulties and problems faced by the Finnish language after Finland joined the European Union, of which it has been a member for more than a decade. Finland has a long tradition of managing its administrative language, and there is concern about the fate of Finnish after accession to the European Union. Many people were concerned about the continuation of the Finnish as an administrative language. In the rapporteur's opinion, it can be concluded that, after ten years of membership, the Finnish language has made progress. She emphasised that it is very important that European Union texts are understandable to people, at the same time they help the European Union to gain greater confidence of citizens in it. In her presentation “Changing the Codified Norm: For and Lietuvių kalbos instituto Kalbos kultūros skyriaus vyresnioji mokslo darAgainst”, Rita Miliūnaitė examined the problem of changing the codified norms from two aspects: linguistic and sociolinguistic. According to her, the linguistic aspect of codification is mainly related to the variantity of the language phenomenon and the functioning of the variant norm. The speaker drew attention to the peculiarities of codification changes, the stages of variant competition and the codification mechanism, explained in detail how it works in Lithuania. [1 [551 Albina x Auksoriūtė | Conference on Language Culture and Terminology.. On the first day of the conference, as many as four presentations by Estonian Language Institute staff were devoted to the new normative edition of the Estonian language dictionary. One of the main editors of the dictionary, Tiiu Erelt, spoke about the rights and obligations of dictionary editors. Researcher at the Estonian Language Institute In her presentation Tiina Leecmets discussed the stylistic notes of the dictionary and their changes, while Argo Mund and Tuuli Rehemaa discussed the new words added to the dictionary. In the latter’s report it was mentioned that the dictionary was supplemented with as many as 5000 new word forms. Sirje Mūearu compared the new 2006 edition of the Esty language dictionary with the 1999 edition and discussed the abbreviations used in the dictionary. Silva Tomingas and Ruth Magi from the Publishers’ Language Centre (www.tea.- ee) presented an English-Estonian dictionary for schools. In their opinion, this dictionary is not only a modern learning tool for students, but also a great aid for teachers. The dictionary is available on CD. Two Estonian speakers spoke about language planning: Estonian Language Institute Head of the Grammar Department Pveter Pallis and Peep Nemvalts from Tallinn University. Rasuolė Vladarskienė examined the Lietuvių kalbos instituto Kalbos kultūros skyriaus vyresnioji mokslo dardevelopment and prospects of the Lithuanian administrative language. She noted that the history and development of the Lithuanian administrative language is very closely linked to the history of Lithuania and briefly reviewed all stages of its formation. The report highlights new trends in administrative language after Lithuania joined the European Union. It was pointed out that the English language has a great impact, the poor quality of translation of European Union documents also damages the administrative language. As a result, new features of the Lithuanian administrative language emerge: new terms and names, international and borrowed words are increasing, English syntactic constructions are translated literally, the formerly clear and specific written language becomes polyword, and sentences are very long and complex. Three reports were devoted to terminology issues. Margus Kolga examined the development of war terminology in Estonia. He presented a term base containing about 4,000 terms in the field of war and related fields (website address http://mt.legaltext.ce/- militerm). Jūri Valge spoke about the standardization of Estonian language terms. Aušra Rimkutė and Albina Auksoriūtė, employees of the Terminology Centre of the Lithuanian Language Institute, presented the report “Terminology work in Lithuania- ”. This paper briefly reviews the development stages of Lithuanian terminolo- gy and terminography. The terminology work at the Lithuanian Language Institute is presented in a broader way, and the activities of the Terminology Centre and other Lithuanian institutions where terminology work is carried out are reviewed. On the second day of the conference, terminology reports were read. Lena Jolkkonen, Director of the Finnish Terminology Centre, and Sirpa Suhonen, a terminologist, presented the work of the Finnish Terminology Centre and Finland in general in the presentation “Terminology work at the Finnish Terminology Centre”. The Finnish Terminology Centre was founded in 1974. It is an association that now has about 80 members — organizations and private individuals. The Centre employs five terminologists, mostly linguists with a master’s degree. As the rapporteur Lena Jolkkonen emphasised, the main objectives of the Finnish Terminology Centre are to produce high-quality dictionaries, develop terminology working methods and disseminate good practices in terminology work. The Centre provides information and expert services related to terminology work, participates in and prepares various terminology projects, develops the TEPA database, publishes the quarterly newsletter Terminfo, organizes terminology training and consulting, develops international cooperation, etc. The terminology projects carried out by the Centre usually last two years and include the preparation of dictionaries of terms in various fields, on which terminologists and specialists in those fields work together. The multilingual database TEPA has been freely available on the Internet since 1997 (website address: www.tsk.- fi/tepa). it contains about 100 000 term entries. Lena Jolkkonen also introduced the NORDTERM organisation (www.nordterm.net). It has been a Nordic association of terminology organisations and societies since 1976. Its aim is to be a forum and network for terminology work in Northern Europe. NORDTERM assemblies are held every two years. Terminologist Sirpa Suhonen spoke about one of the Centre’s specific projects – the electronic television dictionary. She explained in detail how this dictionary is being prepared and discussed all the stages of its preparation. Anna-Lena Bucher and Asa Holmer from the Swedish Terminology Centre (www.tnc- .se) spoke about the cooperation between the Swedish Terminology Centre and other language organisations in Sweden. Anna-Lena Bucher, Director of the Centre, gave a brief overview of the history of the Centre’s establishment and presented its activities. The Swedish Technical Terminology Centre was founded in 1936, when a nomenclature committee was established at the Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, and in 1941 it was replaced by a permanent technical terminology centre, the Swedish Technical Terminology Centre, which was renamed the Swedish Terminology Centre (TNC) in 2000. There are currently 13 employees in the centre. Anna230 Albina Auksoriūtė | Conference on Language Culture and Terminology... Lena Bucher outlined the new important areas of terminology work: Quality assurance; clarification of concepts related to content management; systematization and processing of knowledge; systematization of information; automatic processing of large amounts of information; re-use of electronically processed information, etc. The speaker introduced the peculiarities of terminology teaching in Sweden. Terminology is included in the training programmes for translators and linguists, and close cooperation is maintained with the Institute of Interpretation and Translation. In 2002 and 2003 separate terminology courses were held, in 2005 — online terminology courses, terminology courses are being prepared on demand for different groups of users. Asa Holmer introduced other organisations and groups that work on terminology, e.g. : Swedish Computer Terminology Joint Group; Language Development and Planning Network, etc. Aime Vettik examined the development of the legal language in Estonia, and Elvine Uverskaja from the University of Tallinn — the development of library science and computer science and the terminology in these fields. Other papers dealt with language culture and language planning. Salli Kankaanpda from the Finnish Language Research Institute discussed the language of administrative press releases and how it has changed over the past decades, and Tiiu Erelt from the Estonian Language Institute analyzed Estonian word formation and discussed hybrid derivatives in detail. Anastassia Zabrodskaja from the University of Tallinn presented the results of a study on which language – Estonian or English – was used for writing theses and publishing various publications. The reporter conducted the research in various faculties of the university and found that publications are printed and lectures are given mostly in Estonian, while the publications of the Faculties of Mathematics and Science are more frequently in English. The conference in Tallinn not only examined the current issues and problems of language culture, language planning and terminology, but also acquainted with the situation of language planning and terminology in neighboring countries, sharing experience in these areas. Retrieved 2006-12-11. Albina Auksoriūtė Lietuvių kalbos institutas P. Vileišio g. 5, LT-10308 Vilnius, Lithuania E-mail: albinaagėlki.lt Terminology | 2006 | 13 231