Terminology management for an institution

: a case study of creating a term base for the embassy of the Republic of Korea in Portugal

Abstract

This project was inspired by the reinforced diplomatic relations between the Republic of Korea and the Portuguese Republic over 60 years. Translation work at the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Portugal has played a significant role in the diplomatic relations as it contributes to effective communication between the two countries, which are different in many ways, from the language to way of thinking. The purpose of the project is to establish a term base in the domain of Korean culture using MS Excel and MemoQ, and to apply the term base in the process of translation at the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Portugal. This thought stems from my personal experience as a staff member for five years at the embassy. As I translated various documents in the topic of politics, economy, and culture, I noticed that there were afew problems in the process of translation. I chose a case study of building a term base in the domain of Korean culture as the methodology, using a book published by the Embassy as a corpus. At the same time, I conducted a survey to other Korean staff in other embassies to determine whether they also have the same problems related to translation such as inconsistency of terms, repeated research for the same term, and uncertainty of translation. As a result of the survey, all of the respondents answered that, during translation assignments, they had problems such as inconsistent terms, repeated research on the same word, and uncertainty of translation in a specialized field such as law, economy, politics, or culture including history, arts, tradition, food, and music. After establishing a term base in two formats, I evaluated the two formats with a Portuguese staff member at the Embassy. We concluded that the term base made with MSExcel was more convenient for staff members to use and, therefore, adequate in the usage at the Embassy.

Date of Award	23 Nov 2022
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Ana Margarida Abrantes (Supervisor) & João Brogueira (Co-Supervisor)