Language standards as a cornerstone for business strategies Implications for the design of academic curricula Kara Warburton, City University of Hong Kong.

Language standards as a cornerstone for business strategies

Implications for the design of academic curricula

Kara Warburton, City University of Hong Kong

International Chair, ISO Technical Committee 37

Terminology and other language and content resources

The premise

The foremost aim of international standardization is to facilitate the exchange of goods and services through the elimination of technical barriers to trade.

To this end, standards are produced in all disciplines. Standards need to be implementable To be implementable, they need to be

understandable Standards are usually domain-specific, which contains

a lot of specialized terminology Therefore the terminology must be understandable

ISO/TC 37 Terminology and other language and content resources

The premise

Effective communication is essential for eliminating barriers to trade

Standards for language can make communication more effective


Language industry and language resources

The language industry includes translation and interpretation, authoring, content management, natural language processing (NLP), and so forth

Language resources include terminologies, lexical resources, translation memories, authoring memories, annotated corpora, thesauri, ontologies, etc.



Documenting terminology in ISO standards

According to the Directives, each standard: must document and normalize its terminology must use the normalized terminology consistently

Why? Because if the key concepts in a standard are not fully understood, and if variable and inconsistent terms are used, then the standard is not implementable

Terms are typically documented in a glossary section of the standard, called “Section 3 – Terms and definitions”

ISO has over 260 technical committees (TCs), which have produced 18,500 standards


ISO/IEC Directives Part 2 – Rules for the structure and drafting of international standards

“The objective of documents published by ISO and IEC is to define clear and unambiguous provisions in order to facilitate international trade and communication.”

To achieve this objective, “uniformity of terminology shall be maintained”.

Requirements for documenting terminology in ISO standards are laid out by ISO TC37: 10241-1 - Terminological entries in standards — Part 1:

General requirements and examples of presentation ISO 704, Terminology Work - Principles and methods

TC37 is one of only 9 “horizontal committees” in ISO


The requirements

“The standardization of terms and definitions is fundamental to all standardization activities.”

Provisions based on fundamental principles of ISO 704 All terms used in the body of a standard should be defined in the

glossary One designation corresponds to one concept (a term should only be

used with one meaning) One concept corresponds to one designation (a concept should be

denoted by only one term) Terms shall be used consistently The TC shall establish a concept system


Standards do not always adhere to the requirements

In just 7 standards, nearly 100 terms were never defined Standards cannot be effectively implemented if the

concepts they use are not perfectly clear. Failure to define the key terms in a standard can lead to

implementation errors that can have potentially serious consequences ranging from safety issues to unintended impediments to international trade.


Standards do not always adhere to the requirements

In a 48 page standard about hockey helmets, the term headform was used 120 times, yet this term was never defined.

In the same standard, the term face protector was used sometimes as a synonym for helmet, sometimes with its own unique meaning.

Without term definitions, phrases like the following are impossible to understand

“Whilst in operational mode, double functions of controls shall be avoided on such controls as for pan, vertical trim, field of view and other essential functions.”



ISO TC37 standards for language resources

Translation and interpretation services Computer-assisted translation and machine

translation Software localization Terminology resources of all kinds Language policies Annotation of corpora File formats Exchange formats Language codes Classification systems


Applications of TC37 standards

e-Government, e-health, e-business Leveraging content for reuse Content management systems All kinds of natural language processing systems Classification systems for products/services


How language standards support business

Safeguard investment Enable interoperability of resources Reduce costs Increase productivity


Incorporating language standards in academic curricula

Any program that touches upon international trade and economic development should include a component about standards

A key criteria for standards in any industry is language standards, particularly terminology standards


Curricula incorporating a component on language standards should include:

Linguistic requirements to address diverse linguistic communities

The importance of developing international standards that are implementable on a national level

The need to translate and adapt international standards to local environments, and the processes and challenges involved

The importance of standardized terminology in all standardization projects


Thank you!

[email protected]

Language standards as a cornerstone for business strategies Implications for the design of academic curricula Kara Warburton, City University of Hong Kong.

Documents

language standards

content resources standards

language resources translation

iso standards

language industry

iso slide

documenting terminology

international standards