The ECHA-term projectMultilingual REACH and CLP Terminology

Dieter Rummel, Translation Centre for the Bodies of the EULuxembourg

EAFT - Oslo, 11 October 2012

Before we start:The Translation Centre for the Bodies of the EU

• Translation service for the decentralised agencies of the EU

• Working for about 55 clients

• Translating legal, technical, scientific texts, Community trademarks – as well as lunch menus

• Rather small (110 translators) and young (17 years)

• Working with a vast network of freelancers

• A small central terminology unit coordinates between 3 and 9

projects per year;

• 1 translator per language is a terminology coordinator

• “Translation oriented” terminology;

• Occasionally terminology projects requested by Clients;

• Since 1999 involved in the IATE (“Inter-Active Terminology for

Europe”) project for a creation of a single terminology database

for the language services of the EU;

• Technical maintenance of the IATE is ensured by the Centre;

• Chair of the interinstitutional IATE Management Group.

Terminology at the Centre

´s Tasks

Background: • Translations are one of the ECHA‘s means to support the industry• 6500 pages published in 22 EU languages (leaflets, technical guidance, web

content, IT manuals, administrative documents and news items)• Challenge: complex and highly technical terminology

• The ECHA-term project was launched with the objective to provide ECHA and its stakeholders with a reliable, coherent, up-to-date source of terminology to harmonise the use of terminology in the REACH and CLP context, to enhance clear communication and ultimately to reduce costs for the stakeholders

• Launch to the public2011 April, at http://echa.cdt.europa.euManaged for ECHA by the Translation Centre in Luxembourg (CdT)

• Project developmentPhase I 2009 Phase II 2010Creation of REACH core terminology Building the IT systemDefinition of requirements Extending the contentProof-of-concept Tests by a user group

Content

• 1000 CLP and REACH terms, phrases and definitions in 22 EU languages

• 9 multilingual pictograms with images

• 53 substances of very high concern with EC and CAS numbers

• 100-150 new terms are added annually

• Definition of a relevant corpus in the source language (usually English);

• Semiautomatic extraction of concepts and completion with definition, reference, context, note etc. by terminologists;

• Validation by 2 or 3 translators at CdT to ensure pertinence;• Formal revision by English terminologist;• Validation by ECHA;• Multilingual phase: target equivalents and relevant information are

completed CdT terminologists;• Ideally target equivalents are validated by experts (ECHA);• Import of data in ECHA-term;• Maintenance of data following user feedback.

Content creation

IT system: Features

Look-up of translations

Look-up of definitions

On-line editing

Entry history

Consultation - Validation

User management

Download of terminology (Excel, TBX)

Feedback management

Statistics

Home page

Monolingual search

Bilingual search

Alphabetical index

Editing

Entry history

Consultation and validation

So far, so well....

• Over 800 registered users (translators and industry)• ca. 300 queries per day

ECHA-term user survey 2012

• ECHA-term makes my work more efficient

Strongly agree31%

Agree36%

Neither agree nor disagree

15%

Strongly disagree

5%

Cannot say13%

• The terms in the database are relevant to me

Strongly agree42%

Agree44%

Neither agree nor disagree

6%

Strongly disagree

3%

Cannot say6%

Outlook and questions

• Continuous extension of the glossary (next: biohazards)

• Does size matter? Are we ambitious enough?

• How can we improve usability of terminology in ECHA-term (terminology checking and highlighting of terminology in the ECHA’s web site and documentation)?

• Do we need an ECHA-term “app” for mobile computing?

• Creation of an active user community?

Thank you for your attention!

For more information see:

http://echa.cdt.europa.eu

http://echa.europa.eu

http://cdt.europa.eu