Terminology

This project is to develop a multilingual Terminology Management System (TMS) to manage the terminology used in the healthcare community of Greater Toronto.

The system is intended to serve a dual purpose: a language tool to assist community interpreters and translators better serve the healthcare community as well as a pedagogical and research tool used in the teaching of language professionals.

Initially the multilingual terminology database will be developed by the students enrolled in the Terminology Management course of the MA Translation Program at York University in partnership with community interpreters from the Healthcare Interpretation Network (HIN). In future years, terminology students and interpreters will populate the database with the terminology of the various aspects of healthcare, beginning with the terminology of the human anatomy.

The development of the database is intended to assist in the delivery of interpretation services in the healthcare sector and to promote a greater understanding between healthcare professionals and patients. The database will be designed so as to include not only the technical healthcare and medical terminology used by professionals but also the corresponding terms used in plain language for the same concept in multiple languages. This common understanding of the terminology will assist multilingual interpreters and translators to better bridge not only the language but also the knowledge barriers between the healthcare professionals and the patient.

As a pedagogical tool the database and the project will be used in the teaching of terminology management and translation and in the research of language and cultural contact.The project will also serve to bridge university research with community needs. Compiling and researching quality terminology is an on-going and expensive activity. In order to make effective and efficient use of this project, we plan to develop a strategy for the re-use and re-purposing of the Terminology Management System.

During the first phase of development, the students in collaboration with the interpreters identified the data categories and customized the database application, i-Term, that was selected to store and manage the specialized terms Non Latin scripts, such as Chinese, Vietnamese, Russian and Arabic, were tested to ensure that the i-Term application could process and display them correctly. During the research phase, the students and interpreters compiled annotated lists of bibliographic, sources, both printed and electronic, in the field of Human Anatomy for each language. They also identified health and language professionals who were invited to vet the terminology for technical accuracy and linguistic correctness in each language. The class researched a small set of concepts designating the parts of the human skeleton and their corresponding specialized terms as well as common everyday word in each of the 10 languages.

Activities 2008-2009

The Terminology Committee of HIN, in partnership with York University, set up a multilingual terminology database in the field of Healthcare to assist community interpreters and to support the teaching of terminology management. The Terminology Project was launched with the beginning of the Fall 2007 Terminology Management course offered within the MA Program in Translation at York University.

During the winter semester of 2008 and 2009, the undergraduate classes in terminology contributed a small number of records dealing with human anatomy, more specifically terms naming muscles. Currently, the database contains over 200 records with approximately 1100 terms.

A pilot project to test the feasibility of including American Sign Language - ASL in the terminology database was carried out during the summer 2008. In collaboration with the Deaf Culture Centre and the Canadian Hearing Society a number of concepts already in the terminology database were prepared for signing. The signed terminology was recorded in 24 video clips, which were successfully added to the corresponding terminology record in the i-Term database.

Terminology Committee