terminiologie

Terminologie, or terminology, is the systematic study and management of terms within a particular domain. It covers how terms are formed, defined, standardized, and organized to support clear communication, translation, and information retrieval. Terminology work is typically carried out by terminology specialists who work with domain experts to produce glossaries, nomenclatures, thesauri, and ontologies for use in documentation, databases, and software.

Core concepts include term and concept, synonymy and polysemy, disambiguation, scope, and language variants. A term is a linguistic label that denotes a concept; a concept is an abstract idea that may have several terms across languages. Relationships among terms can be hierarchical (broader/narrower), associative, or part-whole. Terminologies can be monolingual or multilingual and are used in specialized domains such as medicine, law, engineering, and information technology.

Structures commonly encountered in terminologies range from glossaries, which pair terms with definitions, to thesauri, which add structured relationships such as broader, narrower, and related terms. Ontologies provide formal representations of concepts and their interrelationships, enabling computational reasoning and semantic interoperability.

Processes involved in terminology work include term extraction from corpora, definition drafting, expert validation, normalization, and ongoing maintenance. Terminology management often relies on term banks or databases and may employ terminology management software to support versioning, provenance, and multilingual alignment.

Standards and guidelines for terminology work and controlled vocabularies exist to promote interoperability, consistency, and reuse across organizations and languages. Terminology is essential for clear documentation, accurate translation, effective information retrieval, and the harmonization of communication in multilingual and interdisciplinary contexts. Challenges include keeping up with new concepts, managing linguistic variation, and coordinating governance across domains.