Terminology management and terminology quality assurance in the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Translation

Abstract

Correct and consistent terminology is crucial for high quality legal translation. Therefore, the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Translation (DGT) places great emphasis on terminology work and on integrating terminology in the translation process. At the central level, the Terminology Coordination Unit is tasked with extracting terms from texts intended for translation and clarifying the concepts, whereas at the level of departments, department terminologists search for adequate terms in their respective languages. The translators’ role is to apply this terminology and ensure its consistency. DGT has at its disposal a number of resources to assist translators and terminologists in these tasks, and has also developed several in-house tools for terminology extraction and for checking terminological consistency in ongoing translations.