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Translation at the Frontiers of the Lexicon:
The New Fields of Terminology

6^th Terminology Seminar in Brussels (TSIB 2013)

Organised by the CVC and Termisti

Institut supérieur de traducteurs et interprètes
Haute École de Bruxelles
May 31, 2013

Presentation

The Termisti research centre for applied linguistics, from the Institut supérieur de traducteurs et interprètes (Higher Institute for Translators and Interpreters, a member of the Haute École de Bruxelles) and the Centrum voor Vaktaal en Communicatie, from the Erasmushogeschool Brussel, are pleased to invite you to their 6^th terminology seminar, held on Friday, May 31, 2013, on the Higher Institute's premises.

This year's speakers will discuss how multilingual terminology should deal with lexical units that lexicographers are often hesitant to include into specialised dictionaries: names of official bodies, brand names, product names, company names, initialisms, acronyms, toponyms, anthroponyms, natural phenomena, molecules, culinary specialities, local products, hapax legomena, etc.

Traditionally, lexicographers have been reluctant to include into general dictionaries many lexical units that users will intuitively refer to as "words". For instance, toponyms and anthroponyms are excluded because they do not have a signified, but rather a single referent. An analysis of dictionaries reveals that this position quickly becomes untenable when it comes to antonomasias (un venturi [fr], een jan-van-gent [nl] or, conversely, The Pentagon [en], der Reich der aufgenhenden Sonne [de]), derived nouns (a nobelist [en], onusien [fr], zapatista [es], kafkaësk [nl]), wind names with or without a capital depending on the typographical standard of the relevant language (l’alizé [fr], der Zephyr [de], el mistral [es], de sirocco [nl]) or syntagmas that include a proper noun (el número de Avogadro [es], le principe de Bernoulli [fr]). This proper noun is not necessarily stable within a single language, nor across languages (Brandt's syndrome = Danbolt-Closs syndrome = enteropathic acrodermatitis [en] translates as acrodermatite entéropathique [fr]).

The argument of the untranslatability of proper nouns has long been dismissed, and linguistic engineering cannot do without a detailed description of their use in languages. They have been integrated into object classes, and semantics has acknowledged the possibility to establish semantic relations between seemingly unrelated units. The same goes for the specific meronymic relation between Alioth and Grote Beer [nl] or for the hyponymic relation between Leclerc and char de combat [fr], or between Saturn and Planet [nl]…

Names of brands or products, institutions, meteorological phenomena or molecules are often categorised as proper nouns by default. In any case, beyond issues related to onomastics, the varying degrees of specialisation of these terms exclude them from general language dictionaries in the first place. Still, the corporate, legal or scientific environments can create many new realities whose designations are relevant to linguistics and translation studies: Velaro® refers, in all languages, to a type of high-speed train developed by Siemens, while Xyzal®, Xazal™, Xozal™, Xusal™, Xuzal™, and Xyzall™ are all commercial names for levocetirizine developed by UCB Pharma; Hadopi 2 refers to a French legal concept; the ocean current El Niño has lent its name to a climatic phenomenon that seems to be consistently referred to under its Spanish name.

As they are tasked with switching content from one language to another, neither translators nor interpreters can always follow the lexicographers' reluctance. Faced with an unreferenced term, or one deemed unreferenceable, they must at the same time master the equivalent term – and therefore its meaning –, its pronunciation, grammatical gender, plural form, synonyms (including the brachygraphic forms), antonyms, possible derived terms, as well as know whether an article or a determiner must be used and be able to avoid the pitfalls of homonymy. Teachers of languages for specific purposes cannot either exclude these expressions, as they must comply with the needs of learners who are specialists in a certain field.

In order to compile databases that meet these requirements, must terminographers free themselves from lexicographical practice? In the tradition of the Vienna School and of ISO standards, the conceptual approach allows to refer to many types of designation as terms, as well as to identify unique concepts. From a terminological perspective, however, the inclusion of "marginal" lexemes raises a number of questions. Is the terminological record in its traditional form well suited to their comprehensive description? Should they be isolated in a separate database? Would a typology of such terms allow for the determination of inclusion criteria, and would these criteria be language-independent? To what extent can the wishes of the sponsor or the diversity in language use be taken into account without resulting in noise or confusion?

These questions, and many others, are likely to yield interesting debates and to be of interest to the traditional audience of the annual joint terminology seminars organised by Termisti and CVC, which gather professionals from institutions and companies, as well as teachers, researchers and students in terminology and translation studies.

Speakers

Guadalupe Aguado de Cea (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid), Dardo de Vecchi (Euromed-Management, Kedge Business School), Thierry Grass (Université de Strasbourg), John Humbley (Université Paris Diderot), Kira Peshkov (Université d’Aix-Marseille), Gérard Petit (Université de Paris 10), Dieter Rummel (Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union, Luxembourg), Ralf Steinberger (European Commission's Joint Research Centre, Ispra), Rita Temmerman (Erasmushogeschool Brussel – Vrije Universiteit Brussel).

Programme

Registration

If you wish to attend the event, please register before May 20^th, 2013, by sending an e-mail to . The participation fee is 30 euros (20 euros for students), which covers documentation, lunch and reception. This amount must be paid by bank transfer to the Haute École de Bruxelles’ account, and should include the note “séminaire Termisti-CVC: your name and forename”. Please note that payments should be made by May 25^th, 2013.

Account #: 068-2143700-27
IBAN: BE48 0682 1437 0027
BIC: GKCCBEBB
MCF Haute École de la Communauté française de Bruxelles
749, chaussée de Waterloo
B-1180 Brussels
Belgium

Address

Centre de recherche Termisti
Institut supérieur de traducteurs et interprètes
34, rue Joseph Hazard
B-1180 Brussels
Belgium
+32.2.340.12.87

Map

Call for Papers

The collection Proximités will devote a special volume to the theme of the seminar. The call for papers can be found at http://www.termisti.org/call2013.pdf. Submissions in French or English will be considered.

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Dernière mise à jour : 5 juillet 2013
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