Terminologija ir vertimų technologija daugiakalbėje informacinėje visuomenėje

TERMINOLOGY AND TRANSLATION TECHNOLOGY IN A MULTILANGUAGE INFORMATION SOCIETY On 17-19 August 1992, the international terminology conference “Terminology: State and Perspectives”, dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of E. Drezen, was held in the Latvian resort town of Jurmala. Ernest Drezen (1892-1937) was born in Liepaja, but lived and worked in Moscow. He was a military engineer, a man of wide erudition, engaged in various scientific activities, was very interested in terminology, especially in the standardization of terms. The subjects of terminology and standardization were discussed by E. Drezen in his books (Cranmaprusamus HAYYHO-TEXHUYECKUX INOHSTHHŪ, OO03HaueHHHŪ H TepMHUHOB, 1934; VnrepHanmuOHaJIH3alĮHA HAyYHO-TEXHUYECKOU TEDMHHOJIOTHH, 1936) and articles. The conference was attended by scientists from 13 countries: Austria, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, France, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Ukraine, United States of America. On 21-25 October 2002, the second international terminology conference “Terminology and translation technology in the multilingual information society” was held in Riga, dedicated to the 110th anniversary of the birth of E. Drezen. The conference was organized by the Latvian Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Latvian Language, the State Language Centre, the International Institute for Terminology Research (IITF), the International Terminology Information Centre (INFOTERM- ), the European Terminology Association (EAFT). The organizational committee was headed by Valentina Skujina, full member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences and chair of the Terminology Commission of the Latvian Academy of Sciences, and by Juris Ekman. At the Second International Terminology Conference, researchers from Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia and the United States of America presented their papers in English or Latvian. The conference was opened and welcomed by the President of the Latvian 122 Academy of Sciences Janis Stradinis (Stradinš). Prof. Heribert Picht from Copenhagen in his presentation “Theories of terminology – a critical review of their last decades” first briefly discussed the main goals of terminology, formulated by the scholars of Dresden, Würzburg and the Russian school. He examined the changes and new directions in the terminology of Central Europe, the Nordic countries, Canada, France and Spain. H. Picht gave a critical overview of the main goals of the new movements towards a new terminology theory and discussed the collision of these goals with the research of the Woester era and especially the post-Woester period. Stasys Keinys, Solvita Labanauskienė and Albina Auksoriūtė, terminologists of the Lithuanian Language Institute, spoke about Lithuanian terminology at the turn of the century, its achievements and problems. They highlighted three areas of current work — 1) the preparation and publication of terminology dictionaries, encyclopedias and standards, 2) the creation of electronic term banks (databases) and 3) theoretical research on terminology. The report highlights that, especially since 1990, the production of glossaries has revived, with about 150 dictionaries and glossaries of various sizes and purposes, both explanatory and translational, being published. Universal and standardized term banks are being created. The theoretical works are published in the annual Lithuanian Language Institute publication “Terminologija”, in other Lithuanian and foreign publications, published monographs. In his presentation, a scientist from Moscow, Prof. Sergei Shelov, discussed the new perspectives of terminology theory in the 21st century. He distinguished two main aspects of his terminology theory: 1) a term is separated from the (general) concept of the word or combination of words that it denotes; 2) this feature of the term is completely relative in comparison with general concepts, which are expressed by words or combinations of words of common language. S. Šelovas emphasized that the publications of terminology research show a great and constantly growing interest in the problem of analysis of the definition of the term. Prof. Valentina Skujina of the Institute of Latvian Language read the presentation “Ernest Drezen and the current theory and practice of terminology”. She raised internationalization as one of the urgent terminology problems and pointed out how it was solved by E. Drezen in his book 123 Internationalization of Science and Technology Terminology. V. Skujina emphasized E. Drezen’s idea that from an international point of view, the level of terminology should be standardized, but the level of terminology expression depends on the specificity of each national language, so attempting to standardize the expression of all language terms would be an unnatural pressure on national language systems. The speaker noted that the ideas raised by E. Drezens are relevant for solving urgent terminology problems at the international level, and they also show the huge role of national terminology in achieving successful unambiguous international communication. Arvis Tavastas from the Estonian Terminology Society discussed the proposed infrastructure for descriptive terminology management. Prof. Valentina Novodranova from Moscow in her presentation “Semantics of Composite Terms” examined the semantics of composite medical terms, and guest from China Oing Liu spoke about the problems of standardization of term symbols. Lithuanian terminologists Angelė Kaulakienė and Jolanta Gaivenytė read the report “Theoretical justification of the term and practical use”, in which they analyzed the inconsistencies of the presentation in the dictionaries of terms in physics and related fields, and discussed why the terms adopted by terminology commissions of various scientific fields are not always used by specialists. This is due to extralinguistic phenomena: the authority of specialists, the unwillingness to use, the incompatibility of the activities of specialist organizations, etc. Another speaker from Lithuania, Kastytis Beitas, spoke about the systemic nature of term systems. Tellervo Hyttinen from the Finnish Government Terminology Service gave an overview of the terminology work in the Finnish Government Administration. In Finland, Finnish is the national language, and all official documents are written in both Finnish and Swedish. The speaker explained that the Government Terminology Service has been working on terminology for twenty years. ir Ši The service handles translations of acts of various ir official documents, provides telephone consultation services, participates in terminology harmonization projects of the government administration. All terminology work is done in cooperation with experts in the subject. The Finnish Government Terminology Service publishes multilingual dictionaries containing terms, su their definitions and equivalents in several languages. She has published more than ten such dictionaries. Prof. Ina Druvietė (Riga) read a presentation on the terminology of bilingualism and 124 bilingual education. The concept of bilingualism has been known in Latvia for many decades, but the term bilingualism has become widely used only in the last decade and there is no consensus on its form and usage, so the author has made several proposals on these matters. Latvian terminologist Iveta Pūtelė discussed the influence of linguistic and extralinguistic factors on the formation of profession names. She pointed out that particularly many difficulties arise when harmonizing the classifications of professions of different countries and creating dictionaries of terms, because it is necessary to observe the principles of terminology of one’s own language, as well as the traditions of creating terms in each language. Latvian philologist Ojars Bušs in his report “On translation of actual nouns” referred to the opinion that translation of actual nouns is unnecessary, which is often heard and found in literature. In turn, according to the rapporteur, this is contradicted by the following examples: Black Mountain - Russian. Yepnozopus —it. Montenegro — alb. Mali i Zi - Turkish. Karadag song. Montenegro — latv. Montenegro. However, appropriate theoretical analysis of the linguistic process is necessary to ensure the accuracy of such translations. It is often the case that the semantic structure of the actual noun in the original language is richer than in the eventual translation. Janis Rozenbergas in his presentation raised some still relevant terminology problems related to the development of science. He emphasized that: 1) neglected areas of terminology related to man, his being, the spiritual world, 2) terms are essentially inventories of mankind’s decisions, achievements, 3) terminology records the existence of human life and the development of civilization or what is foreseen. János Pusztayus from Hungary presented his researches on terminology of Russian Finno-Ugric languages (Komi, Mari, Mordvin, etc.). Several reports analyse the problems of translation. Ieva Zauberga (Riga) spoke about the influence of translators on the establishment and development of new terminology. Prof. Andrejs Veisbergs from Riga discussed the use of computers in translation and the training of translators, while Juris Baldunčiks from Ventspils spoke 125 about the problems of business terminology encountered in the training of translators in this field. Prof. Larisa Alekseeva (Perm) presented a cognitive approach to scientific translation. Christian Galinskis, Director of the International Terminology Information Centre from Vienna, presented a presentation entitled “The Economy of Terminology in the Age of the Multilingual Information Society”. He emphasised that our modern society is influenced by science and technology, the development of which today is particularly accelerated by information and communication technologies. According to him, these technologies have given us the Internet and are accelerating globalization. They promote the transition to a global information society, in which language(s) will remain the most important means of communication between people. However, the development of information and communication technologies also affects the nature and use of both general and special language. Zaiga Ikerė, professor of Daugavpils University, spoke about the relationship of national and international terms of philosophy in contemporary society. She noted that one of the main tasks of contemporary philosophy is the creation of a new meaning of the human world and the unveiling of new horizons. All this can be achieved by thinking in each person’s native language. This explains the emergence of new concepts and new terms in the native language. The hermeneutic processes of the human mind are one of the reasons for the synonymous use of native language and international terms. Maire Raadik from Estonia presented an overview of the development of Estonian banking terminology in the past decade and discussed published dictionaries in this field. The speaker emphasized that since the 1990s, English has had a huge influence on Estonian banking terminology. Several Latvian papers were presented at the conference, in which the terminology of individual fields was examined. Viktorija Kuzina (Riga), speaking about firefighting terms, emphasized that a serious problem of terminology is the definition of the boundaries of scientific and professional terminology. According to Uldis Švinkas, sports terminology facilitates training of sports specialists, allows to systematize the versatile activities of coaches, referees, athletes, names of sports equipment. Latvian nationality 126 Latvian has been used in physical education classes and training in minority schools since 1996. Latvian sports vocabulary not only allows professionals to acquire the necessary knowledge, but also helps to successfully learn the Latvian language. Velga Laugalė read the report “Terms of pedagogy and their use”, in which she compared the results of the study of the use of pedagogical terms in the specialized literature and in the Explanatory Dictionary of Pedagogy Terms of 2000. : Juris Gunars Pommer analyzed the international terms of motor vehicles. Approximately 30% of the terms used in this field are international words. They are recognised as terms if they are used in at least three of the four or five languages considered decisive in the field concerned. Maris Baltinis (Baltinš) examined the fundamental trends in Latvian medical terminology over the last ten years. In Latvian medical terminology, English has become the dominant language instead of Russian. Along with the advances in medical science, since 1988 the problems of Latvian medical terminology have also increased: unjustified abandonment of the previously used terminology, enthusiasm for inconsistent use of abbreviations, acquisition of English terms, etc. Andrei Bankav discussed the creation of lexicographic terms. He spoke about emerging theoretical lexicography. In order to better understand its terminology, a trilingual (French-Latvian—English) dictionary of lexicographic terms appeared for the first time in Latvian terminology, which was compiled using monographic studies of French and Latvian languages, data from periodicals and other material. Two papers compared Latvian and Lithuanian terms. Regina Kvašytė compared the origin, structure and usage of Latvian and Lithuanian economic, financial, accounting and legal terms in the Latvian-Lithuanian Dictionary and the Lithuanian- -Latvian Dictionary. In the presentation of Lithuanian terminologists Stasys Keinis and Solvita Labanauskienė “Latvian plant names in the Lithuanian dictionary of botany” they talked about Latvian terms that have entered the very first Lithuanian dictionaries of terms prepared by J. A. Pabrėža at the beginning of the 19th century. It has been noted that Latvian names are no longer included in the new Lithuanian plant nomenclatures. 127 In the closing session of the conference were presented papers on the topics of terminology databases, computing and information technology terminology. Sergei Shelov spoke about the transition from the creation of a term bank to the creation of a scientific base of terminology. Inguna Skadina referred on the use of computer technology in translations and dictionaries, Ilze Vancanė and Valērijs Kruglevskis explained the structure of contemporary terms and computerized search in texts. Valentina Dagienė spoke about the literature and terminology used in Lithuanian schools. One day of the conference was dedicated to a seminar and colloquium. The seminar “Computerized Terminology in the Internet Age: Problems and Solutions” was conducted by Prof. Sue Ellena Wright from the USA and Prof. Klaus Dirk Schmitz from Germany. They discussed the basic principles of terminology management, introduced terminology databases and computer programs for creating databases, reviewed and demonstrated other computer programs: spell checking, dictionaries, etc. The colloquium “Activating cooperation between Eastern and Central European countries in the field of terminology” was organized by the International Terminology Research Centre, the International Terminology Information Centre and the Latvian State Language Commission, and was moderated by Prof. Heriberts Pichts. Prof. Valentina Skujina discussed the terminology work of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. INFOTERM Director Christian Galinskis spoke about the Central European terminology organizations and their work, while Prof. Sue Ellen Wright presented the directions of terminology theory in the region. A fairly extensive overview of Eastern European terminology centres was presented by Prof. Sergejus Šelovas. The development of applied terminology and terminography in Central Europe was discussed by K. D. Schmitz, and in the Baltic States by A. Vasilyev. The participants of the conference discussed how to activate and make closer cooperation between Eastern and Western European terminologists. Albina AUKSORIŪTĖ Solvita LABANAUSKIENĖ Received 2002-11-22 Lithuanian Language Institute Lithuanian Language Institute P. Vileišio g. 5, LT-2055 Vilnius P. Vileišio g. 5, LT-2055 Vilnius E. mail albinaa(dlki.lt E. mail solvital @one.lt 128