I have been a translator for six years, dealing mainly with German and English technical texts. I lived in Luxembourg for almost three years, where I began by attending a training programme in the Portuguese Translation Division, then worked as a freelance translator. I returned to Portugal in 1996 to open, along with some partners, a Lisbon branch of Linguist Services, a German translation agency. I currently work there as a translator and technical proofreader, and I am also responsible for terminology research and management.

My talk will reflect my perspective as a translator. For logistic reasons I have not been able to dedicate myself completely to fieldwork study in the area of terminology. I believe this situation is the general scenario in Portugal, despite the recent emergence of specialised terminology training at university level. Terminology, and particularly multilingual terminology, has inevitably provided a strong prop for translation work. The problem is that these reference tools, if we can refer to them in this manner, are not widely available in Portuguese. Those technical translators who regularly encounter a dense forest of vernacular vocabulary in highly complex technical texts are familiar with this problem. The documents that they have to decipher often contain neither definitions, explanatory illustrations, bibliographical references nor clarifying contexts. In addition, time it is often extremely difficult to track down the author of the text, whether owing to a lack of his/her contact details or because the translation has been sent through a third party.

Often the lack of reliable sources results in the translator using an explanatory phrase, or, in the worst case, a literal translation of the term. The result is highly undesirable: a text that is intended to sound like the original ends up sounding unfamiliar. Those who are more sophisticated will use a word such as "device", which often ends up making up part of the "consecrated denomination". Meanwhile, in informal conversation, translators will refer to this vague technical term as "the thingy".

Material dealing with terminology that can be of immediate and direct use in a wide range of sectors, especially that of translation, is a scarce commodity in Portugal. Being a country with a much weaker industrial fabric than that of Northern European countries, Portugal seems to be relegated to the status of a buyer. The dearth of local production in technical and technological areas is also reflected in the denomination of objects, techniques, and processes, i.e. terminology.

In my opinion horizons would be expanded in the area of terminology with the implementation of pacts or other kinds of agreements for promoting exchange between, on the one hand, entities that are concerned with the problem of terminology (whether already in existence or merely in the planning stages), and on the other hand, the regional, national and international standardisation bodies. Terminologists and translators would be granted access to the databases of these organisations, making the acquisition of norms unnecessary. The exorbitant cost of these documents, which, being normative and binding, should be in the public domain, is the reason both why they are not used and why they are regarded with a certain scepticism in terms of their effective usefulness for the translator. The result is the loss of precision in terminology and technical refinement; official denominations are not used, and harmonisation simply does not take place.

We must not forget that translators shape the production of a large proportion of technical literature that is circulated in our global village. In countries such as Portugal, where sources of technical terminology are few and far between, a multitude of unofficial synonyms are being created for terms that already have official designations; however, these are only known to the technical commissions that research or create them.

The question is, why duplicate work, as this will run the risk of making the research of these specialist commissions futile, and will endanger the standardisation of quality? This is one of the very aims that drives the bodies into which these commissions are integrated.

The standardisation and quality control organisations would not only be able to count on the linguistic knowledge of terminologists, they would also benefit from a global improvement in the quality of translated technical literature, following a major compliance with the officially designated terminology, as a greater number of companies would become aware of the question of quality and thus be prepared to get certification.

A related beneficial factor would be the establishment of contacts with the professional and/or industrial associations of the widest ranging economic sectors in each country, which would raise awareness with regard to terminology problems. The goal would be to encourage the inclusion of definitions and/or equivalent terms of other languages in manuals written by companies with the intention of reducing the risk of translation error. In addition, this would make it easier for those charged with the task of "creating" corresponding vocabulary for newly coined words or phrases. In many cases these "new terms" are not necessarily recent; they may already exist in the target language, but may be used by only a restricted group and may constitute just the tip of the iceberg of forgotten and clearly underused terminology.

This kind of collaboration with professional and/or industrial associations would give them a clearer view and would allow them to be active and decisive participants in the organisation and qualification of terminology. It would probably also provide a good opportunity for these associations to support more ambitious terminology research and management projects, involving similar international associations, in exchange for public recognition of their contribution to the joint effort to improve quality.