Building Good Engineering Vocabulary: Adopting Technical Terminology in Non-

English Speaking Countries

Authors:
Hua-Li Jian, Dept. of Foreign Languages and Literature, National Cheng Kung University, No. 1, Ta Hsueh Road, Tainan
City 70101, Taiwan.
Frode Eika Sandnes, Oslo University College, Faculty of Engineering, Cort Adelers gate 30, N-0254 Oslo, Norway,
frodes@iu.hio.no

Abstract  Most engineering disciplines, such as computer engineering, are in constant and rapid change. Technology
and paradigm shifts take place every few years and every major change brings new vocabulary and terms. Apparently, these
changes also affect the engineering education establishments, its educators and its students. The changes do not impose any
serious language problems for the educational institutions of English speaking countries, because new inventions and
advancements are generally published in English-language journals, magazines, conference proceedings and eventually
textbooks. English is the de-facto international engineering language. However, many non-English speaking countries,
including most European, Asian, African and Latin American countries, struggle with these changes from a linguistic point-
of-view. It generally takes time for textbooks written in the local language to appear. More obscure engineering subjects may
never enjoy a textbook written in the local language at all. The low-budget textbooks that do appear frequently use ad-hoc
and poor translations of the new technical terms associated with the new technology, or they simply use the English terms or
some phonetically close adaptations. As a result, English textbooks are frequently used. Consequently, students may fall into
the habit of using an ad-hoc and anglofied terminology. For teachers authoring their own textbooks, lecture notes and
teaching materials, the term-translating job can be overwhelming as it takes time and requires inspiration to find fitting and
meaningful terms. In this paper we discuss how students can serve as an invaluable resource in the process of inventing good
local variations of technical terms - terms that enhance the correct associations founded in the local culture and language.
Experiences from Norwegian engineering education are described.

Index Terms  Vocabulary, language for specific purposes, technical writing, translation

FROM RESEARCH LABORATORY TO SYLLABUS

Subject areas such as electrical engineering and computer science are constantly advancing. New inventions and
technological breakthroughs are accompanied by new paradigms, practices, techniques, technology and terminology. The
curriculum in higher education is constantly revised to reflect the most recent technological advances. Technological and
scientific findings are usually first published as technical reports on a research group’s web site and subsequently appear in
the proceedings of international conferences. It generally takes about six months for a research result to first appear in print.
Conference proceedings usually reach a narrow audience. To reach a wider audience, the inventors and researchers publish
their results in renowned international journals with a high impact factor. This whole process can take up to a few years.
“Important” results also make their way into the textbooks, and the textbook is the main source of inspiration for most
educators. Once included in a textbook a topic is likely to be included into the syllabus of an undergraduate course. The
language of these forums is usually English. English has become the de-facto international language. New paradigms,
techniques and technologies are accompanied by new terminology, usually introduced by the authors and subsequently
altered by other researchers. Over time terminology usually converge onto a small set of generally accepted “standard” terms.

FROM ENGLISH TO FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Shifts in terminology are unproblematic in English speaking countries – at least from a linguistic point of view. However, the
majority of the countries in the world are non-English speaking. Also, the English abilities of the locals vary in these
countries. Teaching, especially at the undergraduate level, is often conducted in the local language. Local languages need
local terminology, which is problematic.
Educators have influence on the terminology when orally delivering the materials and when producing teaching material
such as lecture notes and textbooks. Students often adopt the terminology presented to them by the teacher. Simultaneously,

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the teachers have a moral and ethical obligation to introduce good terminology. But, how would one describe something one
has no name for? The obvious answer is to consult the textbooks. Unfortunately, many smaller non-English countries only
have textbooks covering the mainstream subjects where the publishers are guaranteed to profit from sales. Also it takes a long
time for new subjects to reach print in a foreign language. There are thus two solutions: (a) one adopts the English
terminology, or (b) one invents new terminology. General teaching fatigue and lack of inspiration and time leads to teachers’
often opting for alternative (a). Further, most engineering teachers have no theoretical background and training in translation
as translation is a profession in its own right. This paper discusses strategies for discovering terminology in the local
language.

WHY NOT ENGLISH?

It is an undisputed fact that any non-English engineering degree program should have some element of English in the
curriculum, as engineers often have to work in an international setting [12]. However, there are pedagogical, cultural and
practical reasons for not always using English terminology. Students’ English skills do not match their linguistic abilities in
their native language. It is unnecessary to complicate and obscure an already difficult degree course using an unfamiliar
language. One should expect that the students learn more and faster when taught in their native language?
The solution can be simple. This can be illustrated with an example: in mobile and wireless communication, there is
often talk of the Bluetooth technology. One often hears students talk of and read media articles about Bluetooth. However,
the Bluethooth technology is named after the scandinavian King Harald Blåtann who united Norway and Denmark from A.D.
911 to A.D. 985. Why not use the term “blåtann”? Another similar example is the term “stack”, used to describe a common
data-structure, as there is an old Norwegian word “stakk” with a similar meaning and pronunciation, but rarely used by
computer professionals.
Misguided translations come in other flavours too. Take for instance the web-technology term “cookie”. The term
“cookie” has no connection to what it is actually referring to and Callaway [13] claims that this term was chosen arbitrarily.
However, the official Norwegian term is “informasjonskapsel” (meaning “information capsule”) [9], which is more
informative than the original term. Still, many practitioners continue to use the term “cookie” both in spoken and written
Norwegian.
To illustrate that the official computing terms are not generally known, a list of common English computing terms (Table
2) were distributed via e-mail to the subjects comprising of faculty members from the computer science, electrical
engineering and mathematics departments at Oslo University College, as well as the computing service officers and a class of
undergraduate final-year computer science students. The subjects were asked to provide the official Norwegian equivalent for
each of the English terms without consulting any reference works. Further, the subjects were asked to use their imagination
and make suggestions if they were unfamiliar with the official Norwegian term. Table 2 shows both the English terms, their
Norwegian official translations (acquired from the Norwegian Language Council [9] and official Microsoft documentation)
and the non-official terminology suggested by the subjects. The results of the experiment are summarised in Table 3, showing
the percentage of subjects that knew the official translations. Interestingly, nobody knew the official term for “moderated
list”. Only a minority knew the Norwegian equivalents for the common computing terms “pop-up menu”, “session” and
“hub”. A larger proportion of the subjects were familiar with the Norwegian equivalents for the terms “form”, “checkbox”
and “FAQ” (approximately every fifth person). The differences across different groups were small. However, students
performed better than the teachers. Further, two of the respondents were negative to the investigation proclaiming the
unconditional use of English terminology. We can conclude from this investigation that the official equivalents for common
computing terms are not generally known and used by students and academic staff in this educational institution.
Efforts to use local terminology are not always appreciated by teachers and students. The co-existence of English and
other languages is constantly debated around the world and continues to be a multifaceted controversial issue [10]. The
purpose of this article is not to fuel this debate but rather to suggest constructive approaches for inventing meaningful and
useful local terminology.

PROFESSIONAL TRANSLATION
Translation is a profession in its own right [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Terminology is a sub-topic of translation involving the study and
the collection of terms for LSP (Language for Specific Purposes). It can be divided into three main topics: theory of
terminology, terminology mining and terminology management. The theory of terminology addresses the origin of
terminology, social aspects, evolution, control and standardisation. Terminology mining involves identifying the terminology
from text corpora and terminology management involves the cataloguing and classification of terminology – especially by the
means of computers and databases. The purpose is to assist professional translators, technical writers and information
specialists. These subjects place little emphasis on the creation of terminology. Further, few engineering and science scholars

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have formal translation training, but are still actively involved in technical writing and translation processes. Further, most
textbooks projects and teaching-material development projects lack sufficient budgets that allow for translation consultants.

TERMINOLOGY MINING
Authors of engineering textbooks must pay special attention to the vocabulary used. There are a number of methods that are
used interchangeably. Reference works are obvious and essential tools for authors. These include technical dictionaries and
encyclopaedias [11]. A problem with these works is that only the very established terminology is included, while terms
covering emerging terminologies are absent. These sources of information are therefore of limited value for authors
addressing current technology. Another source of information is governmental language institutes. In Norway, the Norwegian
Language Council [8] is responsible for overlooking the conservation and evolution of the Norwegian language, and subject-
specific wordlists are occasionally posted on their website. However, only very mainstream terms make their way into these
wordlists, and not all entries are useful. For example, the English term “tag”, referring to a mark-up tag as can be found in
HTML documents, is acceptable according to the Language Council. “Tag” is not a Norwegian word while the term
“markør” is a valid alternative.
A valuable source of information is timely published materials such as subject specific newspapers, magazines, and
reports. In particular the Microsoft corporation has done an excellent job in translating their documentation into foreign
languages. Microsoft product documentation is translated by translation experts. During the authoring of a web-technology
textbook in Norwegian [13] the reference documentation for Internet Explorer provided an invaluable source of information,
with ample excellent translated terms. Sadly, many of the technical terms used in this documentation are not known by the
computer experts.
If all this fails, one is forced to invent and introduce brand new terms. Sometimes this is easy, but often it is harder than
it seems. Co-workers and students can provide valuable input.

EVALUATING TERMINOLOGY QUALITY

According to the theory of terminology, there are a number of social, practical and even completely random reasons
terminology converges in particular directions. First, a term must be descriptive. The term should describe the object or
process in the best possible way being it a noun, verb or an adjective. If possible, it should be associative – when hearing or
reading the term the listener or reader should make the “correct” associations. Further, the term should be unambiguous and
distinctive reducing the chance of mistaking it for a different term. Also, the term must be practical in terms of length and
pronunciation. A long term can be hard to read, and if it is difficult to pronounce then the “users” of the terminology will
probably adopt a shorter term instead. The practicability of a term is also related to the context in which the term will be
used. A term should be memorable. A memorable term is more likely to survive and become “standard”. Finally, humorous
terms can be quite successful as demonstrated by many of the terms found in modern computer science.

USING STUDENTS TO INVENT TERMINOLOGY

In an effort to assemble suitable terminology for course textbooks, students have actively been involved in the terminology
mining process. Much can be learnt from listening to students and converse with students informally. Some students are
creative and will intuitively and naturally construct and use their own terms. The teacher should always be alert to new terms
and make notes of them as they are discovered. Teachers can also try out new terms with the students and get immediate
feedback. Our experience is that students are quick to complain when confronted with unsuitable terminology.
Good terminology can be discovered by inspecting coursework submitted by students. For example, at Oslo University
College, students have to do an extensive final-year group project developing some software system. Nearly every year we
discover creative and impressive translations invented by students. For example, in computing, the term “garbage collector”
refers to a mechanism of automatically recycling memory that is no longer in use so that it can be reused for new purposes.
The term “garbage collector” is also used in Norwegian as the direct translation “søppletømmer” sounds vulgar. But recently,
a group of students referred to the “garbage collector” as the “vaskemaskin” (meaning “washing machine”) – quite a fitting
and descriptive term that we now have adopted. The “washing machine” washes the memory “clean” of old “stuff”.
Both student interviews and inspection of written work are forms of passive terminology mining. Terminology mining
can also be performed actively both in writing and in class. We call our approach the “protocol contract”, where the students
and the teacher agree upon the valid terminology to be used (see Figure 1). This agreement is a contract stipulating the
protocol or the terms that are used during oral and written communication. The fact that students are involved in the
“negotiations” makes the students more interested in the subject and willing to accept the new terms.
There are several ways to establish the protocol contract. One approach is as follows: The teacher writes a list of English
terms on the blackboard or on a handout during a lecture. The students are organised into groups of 2-4 individuals and each

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group has to find translations and come to some consensus. After each group has settled for a set of terms, the groups’
suggestions are summarised in plenary on the blackboard by the teacher, and students vote for the most fitting terms.
The students must already be familiar with the concepts behind the terminology, i.e. have a working understanding of the
context and the meaning. Therefore, the protocol contract negotiations should typically take place after the introduction to the
subject but before reaching advanced levels building upon the fundamentals, so that the terminology can be used actively and
become part of the practice.
Terminology introduced by students can be reused and extended subsequent academic years, but students should be
allowed to renegotiate the protocol. The negotiations can also be performed in writing or even using a collaborative web-
based dictionary.

AN EXAMPLE
Table 1 summarises the results of one attempt at using the “protocol contract” technique in practice. During a lecture in the
course “mobile information systems”, a final-year optional computer science course, seven words were written on the
blackboard. The words in the first column of Table 1 are all central to the syllabus of the course. The terms are all relatively
new and there are no official Norwegian translations. The students were organised into groups of three and four depending on
their seating, and they were asked to discuss and agree upon a set of alternatives. Ten minutes later the results were
summarised in plenary by the teacher, and the students voted for the best alternatives. Column two in Table 1 shows the
suggestions and the terminology chosen by the student majority is underlined. The in-class atmosphere was friendly,
concentrated and the students seemed to enjoy the activity. Certain words were apparently more difficult than others. For
instance, “wearable computing” is originally an awkward and misleading term, and thus received numerous suggestions. The
term “Bluetooth” posed no difficulties, nonetheless some students were surprised to learn about its origin.

CONCLUSIONS
This paper has addressed some of the difficulties associated with technological paradigm shifts from a terminology-
translation point of view. Our experience is that the students are a valuable resource for discovering suitable terminology for
use in language for specific purposes. The fact that the students create their own terminology collectively means that they
also are more likely to accept, use and include the new terms into their own vocabulary.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors are grateful to the students and faculty at Oslo University College, Norway for participating in the experiments.

REFERENCES
[1] Baker, M. (ed), “The Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies”, London/New York: Routledge, 1998
[2] Draskau, J. and Picht, H. “Terminology:an introduction”, Guildford: University of Surrey, 1985
[3] Dubuc, R. “Terminology: A Practical Approach adapted by Elaine Kennedy”, Quebec: Linguatech, 1997
[4] Pearson, J., “Terms in Context”, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co, 1998
[5] Sager, J. “A practical course in terminology processing”, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co, 1990
[6] Sprung, R. (ed), “Translating into Success: Cutting-edge strategies for going multilingual in a global age”, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, John Benjamins
Publishing Co, 1990
[7] Callaway, D. R., “Inisde Servlets 2nd edition – Server Side Programming for the Java Platform”, Addison Wesley, 2001
[8] Norwegian Language Council, http://www.sprakrad.no/
[9] Short Norwegian Computer Science wordlist, Norwegian Language Council, http://www.sprakrad.no/dataord.htm
[10] Elbro, C., ”Snabel a”, Mål og Mæle, vol.20, no.2, 1997, pp. 20-22
[11] Parker, S. P., Licker, M. D.,”McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms 6 edition”, McGraw-Hill, 2002.
[12] Jian, H-L and Sandnes, F. E., “Written group assignments – experiences with collaborative web spaces“, Proceedings of the ICEE International
Conference on Engineering education, Manchester, United Kingdom, August, 2002, paper 0132.
[13] Sandnes, F. E., “Modern application development: thin clients and fat servers”, Tapir Academic Press, 2002.

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FIGURES AND TABLES
FIGURE 1
TECHNICAL TERMINOLOGY THEORY

English term Original global term

Suggestive Association
phase (individual) Translation
Logical deduction

Temporary term Converging

Suggested term
Suggested term Suggested term phase
Decisive
phase (collective) Ranking
filtering

Experience,
Foreign term Foreign term time, acceptance
Official local term

TABLE 1
STUDENTS’ TERMINOLOGY DISCOVERED IN-CLASS.

Term Student’s in-class suggestions

Wearable computing bekledningsbehandling, bærbar byte, bekledningsprosessering, kroppsprosessering, påtagbar maskinvare.
Voice portal stemmeportal, lydportal, taleportal
Location based service stedbasert tjeneste, nærværstjeneste, lokasjonsbaserte tjenester, tilstedetjeneste
MIDlet MIDlett, MIGlett
Bluetooth Blåtann, Bluetooth
Microbilling minifakturering, småbetaling, minimynt
Tilt-teknologi vippe-teknologi, vri teknologi, hellingsteknologi

TABLE 2
ENGLISH COMPUTING TERMINOLOGY, OFFICIAL NORWEGIAN TRANSLATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS THAT EMERGED DURING THE INVESTIGATION.

Term Official translation (source) Other viable suggestions

Checkbox Avkryssningsrute, avmerkingsrute (Norwegian Avkryssningsboks, ja-nei svar
language council)
Cookie Informasjonskapsel, kjeks (Norwegian language Merkelapp, småkake, kinesisk kake, kuruke, visittkort,
council) tilstandskapsel
Pop-up menu Flytende meny (Norwegian language council) Rullgardinmeny, meny, sprettopp meny, dukkopp
meny, popmenyer, rullemeny
Dead links Lenkeråte, døde lenker (Norwegian language council) Død peker, brutte lenker, uvirksomme forbindelser,
nullreferanser
Hub nettnav (Norwegian language council) Nav, Høbb, distribusjonsboks, forgreningspunkt,
knutepunkt, nettfordeler, stjernebuffer, linjedeler,
samlingspunkt, dings
FAQ OSS – ofte stilte spørsmål, SOS – spørsmål ofte stilt Vanlige spørsmål (VS), sentrale spørsmål, aktuelle
(Norwegian language council) spørsmål, OBS – ofte besvarte spørsmål
Moderated list Redigert postliste (Norwegian language council) Kontrollert liste, moderert liste, justert liste, overvåket
liste, endret liste
Form Skjema (Norwegian language council) Formular

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 Offline Frakoblet modus (Microsoft document) Passiv, ikke tilkoblet, avkoblet, utilkoblet
Session Økt (Microsoft document) Runde, sesjon, epoke, seanse
Spam Søppelpost (Norwegian language council) Spam, dritt, møkkaspreing, uønsket informasjon,
sludder, vås, forstyrrelse, uønsket mail, skinke, flesk,
kødd e-post

TABLE 3
STATISTICS SHOWING CORRECT RESPONSES. THE COLUMNS LIST THE NUMBER OF CORRECT RESPONSES FOR EACH GROUP (NAMELY DEPARTMENTS OF
COMPUTER SCIENCE, ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING, MATHEMATICS, SUPPORT AND ONE CLASS OF FINAL-YEAR STUDENTS), AND THE ROWS LIST THE RESULTS
FOR THE INDIVIDUAL TERMS. THE LAST COLUMN AND ROW LIST THE TRENDS FOR EACH GROUP AND EACH TERM RESPECTIVELY. THE NUMBER OF CORRECT
REPLIES ARE GIVEN IN PERCENTAGE IN THE PARANTESIS.

Term Comp. (8/16) Electro (10/15) Math. (6/12) Supp. (2/3) Stud. (10/34) Ovrall. (36/80)
(50%) (67%) (50%) (67%) (29%) (45%)
Checkbox 4(50%) 4(40%) 3(50%) 2(100%) 6(60%) 19(53%)
Cookie 3(37%) 1(10%) 2(33%) 2(100%) 5(50%) 13(36%)
Pop-up menu 0(0%) 0(0%) 0(0%) 0(0%) 1(10%) 1(2%)
Dead links 3(37%) 2(20%) 1(16%) 1(50%) 6(60%) 13(36%)
Hub 0(0%) 1(10%) 3(50%) 1(50%) 0(0%) 5(13%)
FAQ 5(62%) 3(30%) 3(50%) 2(100%) 9(90%) 22(61%)
Moderated list 0(0%) 0(0%) 0(0%) 0(0%) 0(0%) 0(0%)
Form 6(75%) 4(40%) 3(50%) 2(100%) 7(70%) 22(61%)
Offline 3(37%) 4(40%) 2(33%) 0(0%) 2(20%) 11(31%)
Session 1(13%) 1(10%) 0(0%) 1(50%) 3(30%) 6(16%)
Spam 2(25%) 3(30%) 4(66%) 0(0%) 4(40%) 13(36%)
Overall 27(30%) 23(23%) 21(31%) 11(55%) 43(43%) 125(32%)

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