What it is
The previous two records describe variation and explain it. This one is what a standardizing body does about it.
The ideal is mononymy plus monosemy: one concept designated by one term, and that term designating nothing else. Real terminologies fail it constantly, in both directions. Several designations for one concept is synonymy. One designation for several concepts is polysemy where the concepts are related and homonymy where they are not. Antonymy is the relation between designations for opposed concepts, and equivalence the relation between designations in different languages for one concept.
What follows from admitting the failure is the acceptability rating, the apparatus a body uses to rank competing designations rather than pretend they are not there. That is where the record earns its place, because a rating is an instruction and the four labels are not synonyms for good and bad.
Where the authorities stand
The apparatus is genuinely new, which is worth knowing before citing it. ISO 704's 2009 edition has no clause on relations between designations and concepts: its clause 7 runs from types of designations through terms, appellations, term formation and symbols, and stops. The 2022 edition adds clause 7.7, whose seven subclauses cover mononymy and monosemy, synonymy, equivalence, antonymy, polysemy and homonymy, harmonization, and acceptability rating. The apparatus was not renumbered between editions; it was introduced.
The four labels themselves belong to the vocabulary standard rather than to ISO 704, and the distinction matters when citing them. A preferred term is the primary term for the concept; an admitted term is a synonym for it, rated acceptable but not primary; a deprecated term is a synonym rated undesired; an obsolete term is one no longer in common use. ISO 704 supplies the heading and ISO 1087 the definitions.
The set is not closed, and the clearest demonstration is operational. The European Union's interinstitutional term base uses five, adding proposed for a designation put forward but not yet fully adopted, and runs a separate reliability scale alongside. Practice adds what the standard leaves out.
The other point the record must carry is that a rating is a claim about one language's inventory, never about the concept. Term banks differ on this by design: one national body rates only its own language and leaves the other's designations unrated, while an international one rates all of them.
Harmonization is the institutional counterpart, and its ordering constraint is the useful part. The standard on harmonizing concepts and terms is structured to take concepts and concept systems first, definitions second and terms third, and its introduction states that harmonization starts at the concept level and continues at the term level. Reversing that manufactures false equivalence: agreeing on a pair of terms before agreeing on the concept produces a term pair that documents nothing.
Consequences for translation
- A preferred term is an instruction, not a recommendation. Where a term record marks one designation preferred, reaching for a near-synonym to vary the text is an error rather than a stylistic choice, which is the clearest inversion between terminology and general revision practice.
- A deprecated term is not the same as an obsolete one. Deprecated means still in use and not to be used; obsolete means out of use. Confusing them turns a live problem into a historical note.
- Ratings are language-specific and body-specific. Check which body rated the entry and for which language before treating the rating as binding.
- Where the source text uses a deprecated designation, that is information about the source, not licence to use the deprecated target designation.
Examples
EN>FR
- Source: person with a disability
- Target: personne en situation de handicap
- Comment: One concept, and two inventories of different sizes. A Canadian term bank records two correct English designations and flags two others as to be avoided, while listing four correct French designations and flagging two. The rating is doing real work on both sides, and the sizes do not match, because each language has its own history of what has been proposed and withdrawn.
EN>ES
- Source: person with a disability
- Target: persona con discapacidad
- Comment: The same record's third language, and the sparsest of the three: one correct designation and one flagged to be avoided. A translator who inferred from the French entry that Spanish would offer a comparable range would be wrong, which is the practical form of the rule that a rating describes one language's inventory.
FR>EN
- Source: revêtement à relief
- Target: rough top
- Comment: The asymmetry running the other way, and with a geographical restriction attached. The French entry carries a single designation; the English side carries two, one of them marked as restricted to the United States. The restriction is part of the rating, and dropping it produces a term that is correct in one market and wrong in another.
References
- ISO 860:2007. Terminology work: Harmonization of concepts and terms. Geneva: International Organization for Standardization.
- ISO 10241-1:2011. Terminological entries in standards: Part 1, General requirements and examples of presentation. Geneva: International Organization for Standardization, clause 8.4.
- ISO 1087:2019. Terminology work and terminology science: Vocabulary. Geneva: International Organization for Standardization.
- ISO 704:2009. Terminology work: Principles and methods, 3rd edition. Geneva: International Organization for Standardization, clause 7.
- ISO 704:2022. Terminology work: Principles and methods, 4th edition. Geneva: International Organization for Standardization, clause 7.7.
- Stefaniak, K. "Terminology management and terminology quality assurance in the European Commission's Directorate-General for Translation." In Handbook of Terminology Online. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
- Interactive Terminology for Europe, term-level documentation on acceptability labels.
- Translation Bureau of Canada, TERMIUM Plus, and Office québécois de la langue française, editorial policy on the rating of French designations.