1.3.2. The Terminology Manager's Role

As the person responsible for managing all or part of your organization's terminology resources, you may find yourself performing both monolingual and comparative terminology work.

You may be responsible for ensuring that your organization uses its terminology consistently by reviewing its documents and Web sites, bringing problem cases to the attention of the organization's communication services, performing the necessary research to understand the problem fully, and proposing solutions.

Perhaps you will systematically study all of the terminology pertaining to the interests and activities of your organization in one or more languages and document your research findings in the form of a glossary, vocabulary or database for dissemination to all interested members of the organization.

Or perhaps you will participate in the work of a committee that is examining a selected group of concepts and terms with a view to harmonizing or standardizing usage for a particular audience.

You may also be asked to respond to individual requests for information about a concept, about a term's usage, or about a term's equivalent in a target language.

Depending on your particular interests and assignments, the activities and methods described in this tutorial may or may not apply to you at this time. Please feel free to focus on those that are most pertinent and adapt your learning to your particular situation.