Normes internacionals i metodologia terminològica

Resum

In view of the conceptual ambiguity of the term standardisation —the polysemic condition of which allow us to use it with the meaning of «making something to be Standard (usual)» and also meaning «to fix» a form— in a society such as the Catalan one, the synchronic, historical and linguistic characteristics of which are very well known, to standardize terminology means to fix certain words and certain contents decided by consensus between the specialists in a subject. In order to carry out this task, the groups, that freely decide to come to an agreement about the fixation of the naming forms (terms) of an special branch, usually establish a standardisation committee, in which three professional areas are represented: the corporate world, that manufactures and markets products; University and specialized schools, that spread the subject related to the product; and the administration that, through the appropriate legal formula, rules the legal steps to be taken about it. The more developed countries have one official standardisation institution, as a minimum, to which they have given the central power on the writing and the spread of their decisions, a spread that is carried out through the publication of norms. Nevertheless, there are two international institutions that act as catalysts of the joint decisions and that enclose the representatives of several state institutions: the iso (International Standardisation Association) and the CEI (Comission Electrotecnique Internationale). A terminological norm consists of an inventory of terms together with their corresponding definitions. A term is just one of the representatives of a very well-arranged system that describes a technique or a scientific field. Therefore, terminological unities are ensembles made up of a name and the concept it describes and they both have a certain value because they belong to the ensemble. Norms about terminological theory and methodology make easier for the specialists to work homogeneously on different subjects. To this effect, the iSO has a committee that establishes principies and guiding lines for those who write vocabularies, or else for those specialists that write norms for other subjects. The specialized terminology is one of the essential registers of the cultural languages. Without an appropriate terminology, a language can hardly develope itself in a modern society, specially if it is a technified society. A full terminological standardisation demands, thus, a double action: this of the specialists, who must «standardize» (to fix) the scientific and technical terminology, and tis of the administrative and political institutions, that must «standardize» the use of «standardized»  terms.