The WIPO-PCT MIIS Terminology Collaboration is an initiative in which practicum students develop terminology records for potential publication in the WIPO Pearl terminology database. If you have never before explored WIPO Pearl, you are in for a treat.
Introduction to WIPO Pearl
Visit this website: WIPO Pearl – WIPO’s Multilingual Terminology Portal. Click “Concept Map Search.”
Concept Maps
Next, make some literal linguistic fireworks happen. Click upon the circle labelled CHEM (for Chemical & Materials Technology). Then click upon the circle labelled “Chemical elements & compounds.”
There are those linguistic fireworks! The beautiful thing about WIPO Pearl concept maps is that the concepts within are ever shifting – as is language.
Terminology Records
Finally, take a look at an individual concept record within WIPO Pearl. Search the term “leonite” by inputting the term in the “From” dialogue box. The term “leonite” should now appear in red, though if you are having troubles finding the term, you can narrow your search by inputting another term that you see in the concept map in the “To” field. That type of search will show you the concept chain from leonite to whatever other term you searched. Now, click on “leonite” to produce the full record. Anything special you notice about this record?
WIPO-PCT Terminology Workflow
The process for the WIPO-PCT MIIS Terminology Collaboration is as follows:
- Appropriate documents are contributed to a specialized corpus in the original entry language (OEL) of English.
- Term extraction from the corpus is carried out, and terms to work with in the subject field are identified.
- A concept map that reflects the concept relations among the terms in the subject field are built.
- The English-language term blocks for the terms are written in SDL Multiterm following WIPO specifications.
- Equivalent terms are researched and target language term blocks are written within the terminology records too.
WIPO terminologists validate the submitted records. Terminology records that are rated as “Acceptable” are published in WIPO Pearl.
Learn more about the collaboration
During the Spring 2020 semester, Research Assistant Cong ‘Doreen’ Zuo made an awesome wiki for the WIPO-PCT MIIS Terminology Collaboration. Visit the wiki here: https://sites.miis.edu/wipoterms/
If you’d like to learn more about participating in this collaboration, contact Professor Alaina Brandt (abrandt@middlebury.edu).
