Directorate-General for Translation

EUROPEAN COMMISSION

IATE

EU tool for translation-oriented terminology work

Christine HerwigTerminology Coordination

DGT-D.3.2European Commission

Vienna, April 2011

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8.6 million terms

23 EU languages + others

CAT tool for over 4 400 EU translators

Unique?

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History

IATE = “Inter-Active Terminology for Europe”

Objective: creation of an interactive terminology database for the consultation, storage and joint management of terminological data

IATE partners: European Parliament, Council, Commission, Court of Justice, Court of Auditors, European Economic and Social Committee, Committee of the Regions, European Investment Bank, European Central Bank, Translation Centre

Development work started in January 2000.

Internally IATE became operational at the beginning of 2005.

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Interactive tool serving translators

European Commission1750

EuropeanParliament

760

Councilof the EU

650

Court of Justice620

100

350

110

70

Lawyer-linguists

Translation Centre

Committee of the Regions and European Economic and Social CommitteeEuropean Central Bank

30European Investment Bank

Court of Auditors

Interpretation services

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Interinstitutional management

IATE Management Group - IMG(one official representative per IATE partner)

Common rules and procedures(“Best Practice”, “Input Manual”)

Coordination of consolidation efforts Coordination of terminology work for the “new languages”

Decisions on technical development

Technical support, maintenance and development

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How DGT organises terminology work

Terminologists Terminologists Terminologists Terminologists Terminologists Terminologists

“Terminology Coordination”Terminology services

andorganisations

Terminology projects

IATE

Translators

Other EU institutions and bodies

Terminology Board

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How multilingual work is planned

• Terminologists ask translators about their needs

Needs

• Terminology Coordination Team + “WP Advisory Committee”

Draft

• “Terminology Board”

Work programme

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Translation-oriented work

systematic + ad hoc

subject-driven + text-driven

prescriptive + descriptive

multilingual + language-specific

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European Commission - Right of initiative

The Commission’s ‘right of initiative’ means it is the main source of draft legislation.

It drafts and then implements acts adopted by the Council and the European Parliament.

New subject fields

New terminology

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IATE - Present situation

7 March 2011

  Total Commission

Concepts 1.5 million 0.9 million

approx.60 %

Terms 8.6 million 5.7 million

Abbreviations 0.5 million > 0.2 million

Phrases 0.15 million < 0.1 million

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Language coverage

1958 German, French, Italian and Dutch 4 official languages

1973 English and Danish 6 official languages

1981 Greek 7 official languages

1986 Spanish and Portuguese 9 official languages

1995 Finnish and Swedish 11 official languages

2004 Czech, Estonian, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Maltese, Polish, Slovak, Slovenian 20 official languages

2007 Bulgarian, Irish, Romanian 23 EU official languages

Languages of candidate and potential candidate countries: e.g. Croatian, Turkish

Languages relevant to the European External Action Service:e.g. Russian, Chinese, Arabic

++

+

Latin

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Terms per language

Language Number of terms Language Number of terms

BG 22 092 LA 64 623

CS 31 316 LT 43 652

DA 604 572 LV 25 491

DE 1 039 010 MT 23 239

EL 522 877 NL 695 772

EN 1 416 823 PL 48 850

ES 616 088 PT 530 230

ET 28 293 RO 22 986

FI 327 598 SK 28 626

FR 1 354 170 SL 30 531

GA 37 030 SV 314 086

HU 37 341 Others 24 661

IT 705 681

7 March 2011

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Number of potential duplicates in IATE (Jan. 2011)

Language TermsPotential duplicates

%

mt 21590 755 3,50%ro 22304 862 3,86%bg 18649 751 4,03%ga 34832 1739 4,99%et 27140 1473 5,43%sl 30110 1722 5,72%sk 27744 1599 5,76%pl 37360 2230 5,97%lv 25106 1540 6,13%hu 36955 2301 6,23%cs 30841 2112 6,85%lt 42502 3104 7,30%el 522636 48171 9,22%sv 314176 33634 10,71%pt 530255 56895 10,73%it 705697 81253 11,51%da 604706 70353 11,63%es 615304 72071 11,71%

nl 696000 82019 11,78%fi 327456 38836 11,86%de 1036177 123203 11,89%fr 1350127 172739 12,79%en 1446004 186961 12,93%Total 8503671 986323 11,60%

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Main challenges for DGT terminology

Identify the most efficient way of incorporating data for the “new languages”

Respond to upcoming terminology needs(in relation to the Commission’s right of initiative)

Reduce the number of duplicates in the legacy data (consolidating IATE content)

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Structure of IATE records

E.g.: Domain, Domain note, Origin, Problem language, Cross reference

E.g.: Definition, Reference, Note

E.g.: Term, Reference, Term type, Context, Context reference, Grammatical information

Language-independentinformation

Term 1 Term 2 Term 1 Term 2

Language 1EN

Language 2FR

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“Language-independent level” and “Language level”

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“Term level”

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Subject field classification - EuroVoc

At generic level, the thesaurus EuroVoc has a two-tier hierarchical classification:

1. fields, identified by two-digit numbers and titles in words, e.g.:

10 EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES

2. microthesauri, identified by four-digit numbers — the first two digits being those for the field containing the microthesaurus — followed by titles in words, e.g.:

1011 European Union law

http://eurovoc.europa.eu

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In-house IATE

• Is password-protected

• Allows interactive use

• Has a “virtual antechamber”, Pre-IATE, for raw data and multilingual batch imports

Raw data

Pre-IATE

GlossariesCollections

...

GlossariesCollections

...

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Interactive Use

New entries and modifications• “Write” rights for translators and terminologists

Communication• A “mark” function allows users to add comments

to specific entries

Validation• Is mother-tongue-based to ensure data quality

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IATE Public: http://iate.europa.eu

Officially opened on 28 June 2007

Shares all validated EU terminology with the public

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Thank you for your attention.