The ATA Chronicle - September/October 2024 - 21

If done right, a properly designed termbase can
be quite a powerful tool that goes way beyond
what a simple bilingual glossary can do!
H
Thoughts on
MEDICAL
TERMINOLOGY
Termbase Mapping and
Term Storage
By Marion Lemari
ave you ever tried to translate a medical report that
includes handwritten notes by a doctor? If so, you may
have already experienced what it means when you have
the fear of the translation god put into you! Ultimately, patient
records translation is a world where precision meets chaos and
ancient wisdom finds its way into modern technology!
Medical translations generally require understanding
contextual clues and working out abbreviations and acronyms
or even just barely minimal codes from official classification and
nomenclature systems or healthcare software. It's a world of
prefixes and suffixes, of eponyms and toponyms, and the result
of a constant flow of re-translations or back translations over
the course of centuries.
Therefore, medical termbases (and really termbases for any
technical subject!) must provide options for terminologists to
handle the semantic features of a vast amount of challenging
terms for optimal organization and retrieval later on.
It's not surprising, then, that termbase users and creators,
such as language service providers and translators, understand
what a difference a well-constructed termbase can make when it
comes to consistency, accuracy, and overall translation quality.
They also know how complicated terminology work can get or
how quickly termbase management can become a significant
project on its own, requiring additional resources and expertise.
Then, there's always the human factor that determines
how terms are collected, stored, and used. Many, if not most,
translators are not trained terminologists and use an ad hoc
approach when collecting, storing, and managing terms.
This can result in vague or confusing entries or inconsistent
approaches, especially when multiple users are involved in the
term recording process.
If done right, however, a properly designed termbase can
be quite a powerful tool that goes way beyond what a simple
bilingual glossary can do! Using medical translation projects
as an example, a correctly thought-out termbase makes the
process of translating medical documents, with their many
acronyms, abbreviations, complex terms, and established
phrases, a lot easier, especially when the source texts include
content from different medical specialties, which is often the
case with patient medical records.
Creating Termbases: Getting Started!
A good starting point when thinking about term storage and
termbase mapping (termbase setup) is how the termbase can
be included in existing processes and systems and during the
translation and review steps. An evaluation of the systems
and processes currently in place and what different CAT tool
providers have to offer are two out of many options to consider.
(Note that this article refers to termbases that can be integrated
into CAT tools and translation processes and not necessarily
standalone terminology management products).
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American Translators Association 21
The ATA Chronicle - September/October 2024

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