1. 34 www.iti.org.ukITI BULLETIN March-April 2010
A
few days ago, I pinned a little
badge featuring crossed British
and European Union flags to
my handbag. Every time I look at it,
it reminds me of a great opportunity
that ITI offered me. It also motivates
me to invest further in my
professional development as a
translator and interpreter.
I was kindly presented with the
badge at the offices of the European
Commission’s Representation in
the UK, and the great opportunity
constituted a half-day session on
EU terminology and EU reference
material that I was lucky enough to
participate in on 4 December 2009.
How exciting it was to again find
myself among a group of like-
minded colleagues who all shared
the same aim, ie who wanted to
expand their knowledge in the field
of EU terminology. I say again, as I
am in my final year of studying for an
MA in Translation and Interpreting at
the University of Westminster, and I
was among a few privileged students
who visited the Directorate-General
for Translation (DGT) in Luxembourg
last year. This was my first chance to
familiarise myself with the European
Commission’s translation tools
and workflow, and it was then that
I decided to gain an in-depth
understanding of these resources.
By participating in this workshop,
I hoped to consolidate my existing
knowledge of EU translation tools,
and learn about further resources
that would help me fulfil my
requirements as a 21st century
translator. These requirements
include access to the appropriate
terminology, reference documents,
and facilities enabling me to reuse
previously translated texts. I also
hoped to meet some fellow
translators with similar interests, who
perhaps, like me, were just starting
out in the field.
An introduction to terms
We were all warmly welcomed by
Fiona Harris, DGT’s Language
Officer in London, and introduced to
the first speaker – Margaret Rogers,
Director of the Centre for Translation
Studies at the University of Surrey
and founder of ITI’s Terminology
Network. Margaret’s presentation
on the inseparable relationship
between terminology and translation,
intriguingly entitled ‘Ill-matched
couple or star-crossed lovers?’, set
the scene. By asking us whether we
record the terms we encounter
during our translation work and
whether these are accompanied by
such ‘metadata’ as definition,
context, grammatical info, etc, she
illustrated the vulnerability of human
memory and the fact that we need
to ‘learn to love our terms’.
Otherwise, not only will the quality
of our translations suffer, but the
translation process will also take
much longer. Margaret also pointed
out that there exists a considerable
difference between terms and
phrases, and that the information
they convey is very often differently
packaged. Thus, we should be
aware of, for example, compounds
in English that cease to be
compounds when translated.
The second part of the workshop,
skilfully led by Tim Cooper, a former
translator and now senior English
terminologist at the European
Commission and chair of the
committee that maintains its English
Style Guide, was devoted to two
extremely useful DGT translation
tools: IATE and EUR-Lex.
Tim is one of the linguists who
maintain the content of IATE,
which stands for Inter Active
Terminology for Europe and is an
inter-institutional terminology
database. It combines the
terminological data of all the
European institutions and bodies,
amounting to over 8 million terms!
In March 2007 IATE was opened
to the public for testing purposes,
and it was officially launched in
June 2007.1
Tim offered practical
tips for making the most of this
translation resource and encouraged
us to use it in the workplace,
emphasising its importance as a
source of primary documents.
Practical tools
Before moving on to the presentation
of the second tool, the online
database of European legislation and
case law EUR-Lex, Tim presented
us with copies of the European
Commission’s English Style Guide.
This one-stop style shop for any
translator is divided into two parts,
Writing English and About the EU,
and is regularly updated online.
With such a linguistic treasure trove
at hand, confusion over how to
format a date or a measurement will
become a thing of the past. Tim
closed this part of his presentation
with a reminder of the importance of
clear writing, recommending the
DGT’s Fight the Fog guide.
Next, it was time for us to try out
EUR-Lex. This freely available
resource allows anyone to consult
the Official Journal of the European
Union. It constitutes a database of
treaties, secondary legislation and
preparatory acts in all official EU
languages. During the very well
Agnieszka
Witaszczyk
studied linguistics
and TEFL at
Jagiellonian
University, Poland,
before moving to
London to study
for a second
degree in English
Studies. She is
now in her last
year of an MA in
Translation and
Interpreting at the
University of
Westminster. She
works from English
into Polish and
vice versa. She is
currently working
for the Advanced
Institute of
Management (AIM)
Research,
sponsored by the
Economic & Social
Research Council.
Email:
a.witaszczyk@my.
westminster.ac.uk
Two translators – one highly experienced, the other
just starting out in the field – both find many benefits
in attending the recent ITI/EU terminology workshop
Knowledge base
‘This workshop was a
platform for the exchange
of profession-related
experiences, anecdotes and,
eventually, email addresses’

2. www.iti.org.uk 35ITI BULLETIN March-April 2010
workshop
designed interactive workshop on
terminology and style issues, each
of us was provided with a text from
the database, both in English and
in our mother tongue, to compare
and analyse.
We were divided into language
combination groups, and I had the
pleasure of working with a lovely
experienced translator called
Krystyna. The exercise was
designed in such a way as to make
us think about any possible shifts in
or repackaging of meaning, while
identifying the terms/expressions
that constituted equivalents to the
English terms/expressions selected
for us by the workshop leaders.
Tim closed this part of the
workshop with the comforting
assurance that the more automated
the translation process becomes,
the more demand there is for
human intervention, as it is
necessary to know what hidden
meaning lurks behind the words.
Ongoing benefits
I greatly enjoyed this ITI workshop
and it benefited me in many ways.
Most importantly, it was an
invaluable opportunity to meet
experienced translators and it
constituted a platform for the
exchange of profession-related
experiences, anecdotes and,
eventually, email addresses. It was
wonderful to receive a follow-up
email from an experienced
colleague in the field, who
welcomed my questions and offered
to help me get myself ‘out there’.
The ITI certificate of attendance and
accompanying CPD points only put
the icing on the cake.
I can wholeheartedly recommend
this workshop to those who know
very little of DGT translation tools,
as well as to those who just wish
to refresh their knowledge of the
resources discussed. You will gain
lots of enthusiasm for the coming
working months, which will hopefully
feature some exciting translation
jobs filled with EU terminology.
Finally, being Polish and having
this lucky badge pinned to my
handbag, it signifies to me that
we are all citizens of one united
Europe (that now more than ever
is in need of first-class translators/
terminologists!).
1
Office for Official Publications of the
European Communities (2008). Translation
tools and workflow. Office for Official
Publications of the European Communities.
February 2008.
Mike Hanson is a
freelance translator
based in the West
Midlands, working
from French to
English. He has
been a member of
the ITI French
Network and the
NWTN for many
years, but more
recently has found
a new lease of life
as Walks
Organiser for the
ITI West Midlands
Group.
T
ucked away down a side street
between Westminster Abbey
and the Institution of Mechanical
Engineers, where ITI held its 2009
Conference last May, are the offices
of the European Commission’s
Representation in the UK. Here, in
early December, the Commission
hosted another large gathering of
translators to look at the terminology
resources and reference material it
provides for external users. The
previous session last summer had
been a sell-out, and since there
was clearly a substantial demand for
this event, ITI had persuaded the
Commission to repeat it.
The first part of the afternoon
involved a conceptual look at the
subject of terminology and its
importance for translators, presented
by Margaret Rogers of the University
of Surrey. Terminology is a separate
discipline from translation (perhaps
it is a more scientific and less
subjective field?), and the relationship
between translators who want to
‘get on with other things’ and
terminologists, for whom this work
is an end in itself and part of an
ongoing research programme, is
sometimes an uneasy one, as
Margaret wryly pointed out. The
second part was a more concrete
presentation of EU terminology and
language resources, given by Tim
Cooper, a senior terminologist
working for the Commission. For
a detailed summary of what we
learned, I can do no better than refer
readers to the comprehensive article
on the previous session, written by
Karen Stokes and published in the
September 2009 issue of ITI Bulletin,
which is full of useful information.
Like Karen, I felt that this session
was extremely useful – perhaps every
would-be or practising translator
should attend it? The IATE database
is a vast terminology resource and
the first port of call for many
translators, myself included, and
therefore some training in how to use
it effectively is highly desirable.
The only disappointment was that
we ran out of time at the end of the
day, and the presentation on the
EUR-Lex online database of EU law
had to be somewhat curtailed. My
impression is that there is enough
material here (particularly if the group
terminology analysis exercise is
included) to fill a whole day. I would
actually be happy to attend this
course again and, if necessary, to
pay more than the current fee of £25
for half a day, if cost is a significant
factor for the Commission in deciding
whether to run it.
I would also like to thank the
Commission’s Fiona Harris and her
staff for organising it, Margaret and
Tim for delivering it, and Pamela
Mayorcas for arranging it.
The DGT’s terminology database IATE is open to all and an excellent free resource for translators