What it is
Three things ordinary talk runs together and terminology work keeps apart: the object, whatever is out there in the world or in the mind; the concept, the unit of knowledge formed by abstracting properties from objects and combining them; and the designation, the linguistic or symbolic form standing for the concept in a subject field.
The standards are usefully unbothered about what an object is. ISO 704 counts as an object anything perceivable or conceivable, taking in the material, the immaterial and the imagined alike, and the 2022 edition says plainly that arguing about whether an object exists in reality is unproductive. A hypothesis and a unicorn are objects here, on the same footing as an engine. Suonuuti draws the arrangement as a pyramid, with objects, terms and definitions on the base plane as things of the world or of language, and the concept alone at the apex as a mental construct.
The distinction that does the most work is between general and individual concepts. A general concept corresponds to an open set of objects sharing properties, an individual concept to exactly one. Tower and planet are general; the Eiffel Tower and the planet Jupiter are individual. The two take different designations, and that is where the standards have recently moved.
Where the authorities stand
The framework is settled and the numbering is not. ISO 704's fourth edition of 2022 retitled its opening clause from Objects to Reality and language, following a foreword note that the structure was adapted to ISO 1087. Any citation here has to carry its edition, because the 2009 edition organizes the same ground differently.
The substantive change concerns the word appellation, and it is a reversal rather than a refinement. In the 2009 edition a general concept is designated by a term or a symbol and an individual concept by an appellation or a symbol, appellations being said to refer to individual concepts and to be distinguished from terms. United Nations is given there as an appellation. In ISO 1087:2019 and ISO 704:2022 the alignment differs: general concepts take terms, appellations included, or symbols, while individual concepts take proper names or symbols. ISO 1087:2019 sets out the typology in one place, at its entry for designation. The 2022 edition puts types of appellations inside its clause on terms, gives proper names a clause of their own, and retitles the annex on categories of appellations so that it now covers appellations and proper names.
The practical consequence is blunt. Any source written before 2019 will say appellations designate individual concepts, and the current standards say the opposite. Quoting one edition against the other's clause number produces a contradiction that looks like an error of reasoning rather than of citation.
Nomenclatures sit alongside these as designation sets whose forms are constrained by a naming authority rather than left to usage.
Consequences for translation
Equivalence lives at the concept corner. Suonuuti states the rule from the harmonization side and it holds in both directions: terms can only be harmonized after the concepts are, and the danger is being misled by the superficial similarity of designations.
- Two designations are equivalent when they name one concept, not when they resemble each other. No amount of formal similarity substitutes for the comparison, and no amount of formal difference rules an equivalent out.
- An individual concept has a designation belonging to whoever names it. For institutions the question is not what the name means but whether an official target-language form exists, and that is answered at the naming body.
- Nomenclature is where the translator has least freedom and should take it: where an authority constrains the form, the designation is generated by rule and an independent rendering is simply wrong.
Examples
TR>EN
- Source: Yargıtay
- Target: Court of Cassation
- Comment: An individual concept, and the designation is the court's own. The English form appears in the court's English-language code of judicial conduct, which settles it without appeal to usage. Nothing about the concept obliges this rendering rather than supreme court. What obliges it is that the body has named itself.
EN>FR
- Source: paracetamol
- Target: paracétamol
- Comment: A nomenclature, where the designation is constrained rather than chosen. The recommended international nonproprietary name is issued as one globally recognized name in public ownership, with the Latin form paracetamolum, so the differences across languages are morphological residue from a single stem rather than translation decisions. Nothing forces any resemblance between the institutional names elsewhere in this record.
EN>NL
- Source: European Chemicals Agency
- Target: Europees Agentschap voor chemische stoffen
- Comment: One individual concept, designated in each authentic language version of the instrument that created it. The equivalence is guaranteed by the act rather than established by a translator: the Dutch form is not a rendering of the English but a parallel designation of the same body.
References
- ISO 704:2009. Terminology work: Principles and methods, 3rd edition. Geneva: International Organization for Standardization, clause 4 and clauses 5.2, 5.3 and 7.3.
- ISO 704:2022. Terminology work: Principles and methods, 4th edition. Geneva: International Organization for Standardization, clause 4 and clauses 5.1 to 5.3, 7.3, 7.4 and Annex C.
- ISO 1087:2019. Terminology work and terminology science: Vocabulary. Geneva: International Organization for Standardization, entries 3.2.7 to 3.2.9 and 3.4.1 to 3.4.2.
- Suonuuti, H. (2001). Guide to Terminology, 2nd edition. Nordterm 8. Helsinki: Tekniikan Sanastokeskus, section 1.1, pp. 12 to 13, and section 4.2, p. 32.
- World Health Organization (2017). Guidance on the Use of International Nonproprietary Names (INNs) for Pharmaceutical Substances. Geneva: WHO.
- Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006, English and Dutch language versions.