Standardizing Terminology

Spanner or wrench, hard drive or hard disk – designating the same thing with the same words not only has a major impact on the external image of a company and its products, it is also a substantial cost factor. For example, if only 2 variants are used for 100 technical terms, translations into 10 languages would result in 2,000 terms instead of the needed 1,000 terms.

More than any other part of the translation process, terminology is a company-wide issue that not only concerns translators and correctors, but also sales/marketing, product development and documentation, as well as the management and secretariats.

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In line with its design as central platform for all corporate language resources, terminology components exist at diverse points of the Across Language Server.

Company-specific terminology is maintained in the terminology system crossTerm and can be enhanced with explanatory information or images. At the same time, the definition of so-called do-not-use words prevents the use of undesired wording.

General-language terminology can be seamlessly integrated in the Across work environment in the form of electronic dictionaries of specialized publishers. Terminology resources on the Internet can be used by means of the research tool crossSearch.

To ensure the consistent use of the defined terminology, the terminology is made available in various ways, e.g.:

For translation-oriented authoring via the crossConnect interface
For translating and correcting via the crossLAN, crossWAN, and crossWeb clients
For browser-based access by any department of the company via crossTerm Web

In this way, all terminology resources are utilized and made available to all involved. The standardization of terminology yields massive cost savings and establishes an efficient basis for consistent corporate communication.

Key components of the Across Language Server for the standardization of terminology: