ISOterminologian

ISOterminologian is a term used to describe the field concerned with terminology management in accordance with ISO standards and guidelines. It is not an official ISO designation, but a descriptive label for the study and practice of developing, maintaining, and applying standardized terminology across domains. The term emphasizes alignment with international norms while addressing the needs of multilingual communication, knowledge management, and technical documentation.

The field is interdisciplinary, drawing on linguistics, information science, translation studies, and knowledge management. Core concerns include the creation of concept systems, the establishment of term formation rules, the validation of definitions, and ensuring consistency of terminology across languages and contexts. Practitioners focus on accuracy, transparency, and traceability of terms, as well as the alignment of terminology with metadata and classification schemes.

Practices commonly associated with ISOterminology work include building termbases or terminology databases, developing controlled vocabularies, performing terminology extraction and normalization, and coordinating terminology governance across the lifecycle of a project. Multilingual alignment, synonym and polysemy management, and integration with ontologies and thesauri are typical challenges. Quality assurance processes, documentation of terminology decisions, and audit trails are regarded as essential components.

Organizations and roles: ISOterminologians may work within standards bodies, national standards organizations, or private sector teams such as technical writers, localization specialists, and knowledge managers. The practice is often guided by ISO/TC 37 (Terminology and other language resources) and related standards that address terminology management, language resources, and related metadata. The field supports clear communication, product documentation, and reliable translation across industries.