Overview
ISO 12616-1:2021, "Terminology work in support of multilingual communication - Part 1: Fundamentals of translation-oriented terminography," defines the fundamentals for producing reliable bilingual and multilingual terminology collections in translation contexts. The standard targets translation-oriented terminography practiced by terminology workers (e.g., translators, project managers, technical communicators) operating in low-complexity environments as part of non-terminological activities. It updates and replaces ISO 12616:2002 and focuses on practical steps, data management principles, tools and core competences needed to create and maintain terminological data collections (TDCs).
Key Topics and Requirements
- Scope and purpose: Requirements and recommendations for basic terminology work supporting multilingual communication, without covering sophisticated workflows or large-scale terminological management.
- Process steps and activities: Guidance on setting goals, basic workflows, creating a terminology database, collecting and assessing terminological data, researching, documenting, exchanging and maintaining data.
- Terminography best practices: Recommended text elements for term fields, handling designations (terms, proper names, symbols), context, definitions and notes.
- Data management principles: Emphasis on concept orientation, term autonomy, data elementarity, data granularity and repeatability; classification of open vs closed and mandatory vs optional data categories to support interoperability.
- Tools and formats: Practical advice on tooling and data exchange to ensure terminological data can be reused and integrated into translation processes.
- Skills and competences: Minimum competencies for terminology workers, including basic terminology methods, IT skills, term extraction techniques, language proficiency, subject-matter knowledge and research competence.
- Supporting material: Informative annexes listing data categories for translation-oriented TDCs and spreadsheet examples for simple implementations.
Practical Applications
- Creating compact, reliable bilingual glossaries during translation projects to ensure consistency across documents.
- Setting up a lightweight terminology database for in-house documentation or small language service providers.
- Documenting source and target language terms, contexts and definitions to support translators, reviewers and technical writers.
- Exchanging terminological data in interoperable formats to improve reuse in CAT tools and content management workflows.
Who should use this standard
- Translators and bilingual terminologists working in small or single-person environments
- Language service providers and project managers seeking consistent terminology management practices
- Technical communicators and in-house localization teams needing a pragmatic approach to terminography
- Organizations establishing basic terminological processes before scaling to larger terminology management systems
Related standards
- Developed by ISO/TC 37 (Language and terminology, SC 2). ISO 12616-1:2021 is the low-complexity counterpart to future ISO 12616-2, which will address more advanced terminological workflows and competencies.
Keywords: ISO 12616-1:2021, translation-oriented terminography, terminology work, terminological data collections, terminology database, multilingual communication, terminology management.