Abstract
The various occupations exercised by a language community result in the development of several occupational or professional languages called technolects or languages for special purposes (LSPs). Every occupation, academic, scientific, technical area, sport or domain, like art or music, develops its own LSP, and for each discipline a new LSP develops with a unique terminology (technical vocabulary). The source language and target language terminologies should be documented, systematised and disseminated to target users, i.e. laypeople, professionals, academics, scientists and experts in their fields. The terminology should also be standardised to ensure proper communication within the given subject area or domain. Standardisation is a process whereby the terminology becomes standardised through frequent usage and the resulting penetration of the terminology in the given subject areas and languages. Cooperation among the compilers of terminological lists and dictionaries is necessary, because a duplication of projects results in a proliferation of terms for a given concept in a specific subject area or language. The proliferation of terms for the same concept prevents the standardisation process since more than one term for a given concept results in miscommunication. LSPs form the basis of specialist communication because they contain the terminologies of various subject areas, domains and subdomains. The point of departure in terminology work is always conceptual. It is, therefore, important to work according to a subject-oriented approach to harvest terminology (i.e. the vocabulary of the given discipline or domain).
In South Africa this is the approach followed to document terminology. The language policy of a country has an influence on terminology development. During the previous bilingual dispensation of the country a language-planning approach to terminology development was also followed to ensure the development of Afrikaans to be on par with the global English language. During this period a translation-oriented approach was also followed by translators who had to translate English and Afrikaans documents, and while doing that they documented the source and target language terminology for future usage. They thereby developed and standardised Afrikaans terminology. The development of Afrikaans technical language enjoyed a boom period between 1925 and 1995 due to the then bilingual dispensation, and several technical dictionaries and term lists were compiled and published at the time by subject specialists, language practitioners and publishing houses. During the bilingual dispensation it was of the utmost importance to provide Afrikaans term equivalents to the English source language terms as quickly as possible. The aim was to provide Afrikaans target users with Afrikaans terms to ensure Afrikaans’s position in relation to the global English language, thereby making sure that it gained its rightful position as a language for special purposes in South Africa. Most of these dictionaries were bilingual bidirectional translation dictionaries. Definitions were not usually provided, since that would have been a time-consuming activity that would postpone the dissemination of terminology to target users. The terminologists worked in close collaboration with subject specialists who described the meaning of the concepts and assisted in creating Afrikaans term equivalents.
The current multilingual dispensation requires terminology development in all the official languages, and the development of signs in the South African Sign Language (SASL). There is a huge backlog in the development of the terminologies of the African languages and SASL, and the language-planning approach is again followed to develop the previously marginalised languages. Due to the backlog in terminology development in the African languages and SASL it is not always possible to develop the terminology of these official languages in the higher echelons of science and technology and therefore a community-oriented approach is often followed to ensure technical communication with and among the citizens of the country. The hegemony of English, however, prevents terminology development in the other official languages. Even Afrikaans, with its huge terminology heritage, is facing survival problems, and subject specialists, academics, language practitioners and even laypeople should participate in the process of creating Afrikaans terms and their documentation, standardisation, dissemination and utilisation to ensure its future position as a scientific and academic language.
Although a survey done in 2015 (Alberts 2015) indicated 365 published technical dictionaries and term lists with Afrikaans as one of the languages involved, most of these dictionaries and term lists are outdated, not generally available, and probably out of print. These dictionaries do, however, contain valuable terminological content which may still be very relevant in the various subject areas and domains, and should be revised and updated to ensure the future of Afrikaans as a scientific and academic language. The old English-Afrikaans / Afrikaans-English technical dictionaries should be digitised and made available to terminologists and subject specialists to provide African language term equivalents and signs in SASL.
The article focuses on the terminological principles and terminographical processes to be followed when an existing technical dictionary or term list is revised and updated. The Veeartsenykundige woordeboek / Veterinary science dictionary (1978) of the former Terminology Bureau, Department of National Education serves as an example of such a revision and updating process. This article aims to provide guidelines and to describe the relevant steps to be followed to revise and update technical dictionaries and term lists. The initial step to be taken is to appoint a subject committee consisting of specialists in the given subject area to plan and conduct the revision process. The subject committee should control the managerial aspects of the project, such as the appointment of subcommittees to revise and update the subdomains of the subject area. It should furthermore determine timelines and appeal for and obtain financial support. The article also deals with relevant terminographical issues such as the planning of the project, the demarcation of the subject area and subdomains, and the defining of core and generic concepts in source and target languages receiving attention. The printed dictionary to be revised should be digitised and the data captured in a terminology management system to enable the manipulation of the terminological data. The terminographical processes, i.e. methodology and practices to follow during the revision and updating process, are described, such as the development of a style guide, the excerption process to harvest new terms, dealing with source language and target language terms, editorial management, assessment and validation of terminological data and the finalisation of the project to be disseminated in hard copy or online format. Several examples are provided on issues such as typography and style guides that need to be followed. The proposed process also applies to other technical dictionary projects. The revision and updating process requires several terminographical processes, and various aspects described in the proposed process could also be utilised by anyone intending to compile new technical dictionaries and term lists. Subject-related communication could assist in promoting the official, provincial and local languages to become functional languages in all spheres of human activity. It is therefore important to secure, retrieve, revise, and update the terminology of various subject areas and domains in all registers to enable subject-related communication.
Keywords: defining; definition; explanation; global language; hegemony; language for special purposes (LSP); language planning; revision; source language; standardisation; target language; term creation; term equivalent; term list; terminography; terminology; updating
- This article’s featured image was created by Ikhwan Habib and obtained from Vecteezy.
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