BIK Terminology

Solving the terminology puzzle, one posting at a time

Jump List? Or what should we call it?

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Giving a new concept a name in a source language often leads directly to the question of what to do with it in another language. This seems like a problem for target terminologists and translators, right? It isn’t. Marketing, branding and content publishing folks listen up!

We have just created a new term or appellation according to best practices from ISO 704. Now, what do we call it in the target language? What do we do with new designations, such as Azure or jump list? Well, the same best practices apply for target language terms as well. But there is a difference for terms and appellations.

Terms represent generic concepts. They are the parent concept or superordinate to other concepts. The concept called “operating system” in English has many different subordinate concepts, e.g. Windows, Linux, or Mac OS. Many times generic concepts have native-language equivalents in other languages. Of course, a particular language may borrow a term from another language, a direct loan. But that should be a deliberate term formation method and it is just one of them, as discussed in What I like about ISO 704.

An appellation represents an individual concept, one that is unique. Like you and me. And just as our parents gave us names that should represent us to the world—some very common and transparent, others peculiar or extraordinary—products get names that represent them to buyers. The criteria for good formation are weighted slightly differently than they are when used during new term formation: An appellation might be deliberately not transparent or consistent with the rest of the subject field. After all, it is a new product that is supposed to stand out. And it might be deliberately in another language.

Windows Azure™ is the appellation for “a cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for the Windows Azure platform,” according to the official website. If we leave aside the trademark for a moment, nobody in their right mind would use the literal translations “Fenster ‘Azurblau’”, “Fenêtre bleu” or “Finestra azzurra”.

Once again, I find ISO 704 very helpful: “Technically, appellations are not translated but remain in their original language. However, an individual concept may have an appellation in different languages.” Good examples are international organizations which tend to have appellations in all languages of the member states, such as the European Union, die Europäische Union, or l’Union européenne.

ISO 704 goes on to say that “whether an individual concept has an appellation in more than one language depends on the following:

  • The language policy of a country;
  • How internationally well known the concept is;
  • The multilingual nature of the entity in question;
  • The need for international cooperation and relations.”

Based on this, it is pretty clear that an international organization would have an appellation in each of the languages of the member states. What about product names, such as Windows Azure? As terminologists for the target market, we should make recommendations in line with the above.

That is exactly what happened with a new feature for Windows 7, called Jump List in English. The message from the marketing department was that it was to remain in English even in the localized versions of Windows. But the problem wasn’t that simple.

There are actually two concepts hidden behind this name:

  • Jump List: The Windows feature that allows users to display jump lists.
    • A unique feature and therefore an individual concept.
    • An appellation.
  • jump list: A list associated with programs pinned to the taskbar or Start menu.
    • A generic concept that can happen multiple times even within one session
    • A technical term.
    • Erroneously capitalized in English.

Generally, when a new feature is introduced the feature gets a name and many times, the individual instances of the feature take on a term derived from the feature name. In this case, the feature was named Jump List and the instances were called Jump Lists. The later should not be uppercase and is in many instances not uppercase. But the two concepts were not differentiated, let alone defined up front.

So, when the German localizers got the instruction to keep the English term for all instances of the concept, they had a problem. They would have gotten away with leaving the appellation in English (e.g. Jump List-Funktion), but it would have been nearly impossible to get the meaning of the generic concept across or even just read the German text, had the term for the generic concept been the direct loan from the English. We could argue whether the literal translation Sprungliste represents the concept well to German users.

Naming is tricky, and those who name things must be very clear on what it is they are naming. Spelling is part of naming, and casing is part of spelling. Defining something upfront and then using it consistently supports clear communication and prevents errors in source and target texts.

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What is a term?

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A few years ago, my director at the time asked this seemingly innocent question. It isn’t a conundrum only to sponsors of terminology projects: Content publishers, localizers and other users of a terminology database are wondering as well. And while the more senior terminologists, who have heard this question before, may roll their eyes, it isn’t one that will go away. Since there is no one solution to this puzzle, it deserves some analysis.

The correct, yet to the director meaningless answer could have been “a verbal designation […] of a general concept […] in a specific subject field” (ISO 1087-1). Terminologists may be happy with a clear, concise definition – that’s what we are all about. But a director? Very likely he was looking for something else.

The form that question may take for a content publisher is: What term needs to be added to the terminology database to support the localization team? Even terminologists ask each other: Does this “thing” go in or not? And while localizers at the end of the workflow may be less selective–after all, they need answers, and they need them fast -, they, too, may wonder: Can I add this terminology question to the database or not? So, what the director and everyone else is interested in is the scope of a corporate terminology database; the range of stuff that is entitled to an entry; the definition of the corporate terminology.

ISO 704, for example, says “a terminology shall include lexical units that are adequately defined in general language dictionaries only when these lexical units are used to designate concepts that form part of the concept system.” Definition by exclusion–that is not a bad start.

Let’s assume that a software company doesn’t publish poetry or fiction. Rather just about anything that comes up in the company material, e.g. user interface, documentation, websites, etc., is technical language, and many of the lexical units used are technical terms. Almost all of the technical terms that could be excluded according to the above recommendation from ISO 704 are needed to clarify relationships to other lexical units. Or to standardize target-language equivalents. Or to clarify meaning. So, while defining the scope by excluding things, we need to look further.

In terminology work, three types of designations are distinguished: symbols, appellations and terms (ISO 1087-1). A well-known symbol, at least back when localization was first taught, was the mailbox. (It was used often in localization classes, because it was highly culture-specific and had little meaning for many people outside the United States; in many applications, it has been replaced by the icon of an envelope since). A good example for an appellation is the name of an organization (e.g. Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB)) or country (e.g. Serbia). Appellations designate or stand for individual concepts, things that exist just once in the world. Terms, on the other hand, represent general concepts, e.g. beer bottle or virtualization).

If all corporate language is technical language and many of the designators would qualify for an entry in a terminology database, which terms, symbols or appellations should not be included? What tends to be excluded are:

  • Symbols (e.g. icons)
  • Longer text (e.g. error messages)
  • Fictitious names (e.g. company names used as examples in demo data)
  • Examples (e.g. example data used to explain the functionality in an ERP application)

Often, there are other databases that house, categorize and standardize symbols and even fictitious names. Otherwise, they could be included in a terminology database as well. Longer text units and examples simply don’t have a good return on investment: Error messages, boilerplate texts, etc. don’t need to be defined and are better stored in translation memories; examples may be very culture-specific and might need to be adjusted or are not worthwhile defining and standardizing in a database.

So, include anything with a return on investment and exclude what is stored elsewhere or doesn’t pay off. Pragmatic guidelines like these will at least keep a team of terminologists aligned. Do we need a more concrete rule in addition? Not in my opinion. There are other questions that need to be asked, but they are for another time.

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