"One-stop-shop" system as the tool for the harmonization of Lithuanian terminology of draft EU legal acts with Lithuanian national bodies

The “one-stop-shop” system (VLS) was created more than 4 years ago and was designed for the harmonisation of terminology across the translation units of the Lithuanian language of the European Union institutions and with responsible national bodies of the Republic of Lithuania. In the EU institutions the system functions under the internal inter-institutional agreement and in Lithuania its functioning is regulated by Resolution of the Lithuanian Government No. 198. A terminology problem raised by a language unit of an EU institution is discussed at the inter-institutional level and then the query is sent to the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language (VLKK), which serves as a “one-stop-shop”. VLKK forwards the query to the ministries concerned, then collects their answers, discusses the issue at the meeting of the Terminology Sub-Commission and finally sends the term agreed at the national level to the EU institutions. If the institutions accept the proposal, the agreed term is used in the Lithuanian version of the draft EU legal act and entered in the IATE and ELISE systems. All documentation related to VLS queries is archived on the EU intranet portal “EurTerm”. Such procedures of the harmonization of terminology via VLS require considerable efforts and resources but the terms harmonised in this way are of the highest reliability and constitute the terminology of top quality. The demand for the harmonization of terms via the “one-stop-shop” system is determined by three main factors: 1) lack of terminology for new concepts, 2) erroneous terms, and 3) excess of terms naming the same concept (synonymy). All of the three are on a larger scale typical for any normative terminology process. The strong requirement to base queries on particular documents, namely on draft EU legal acts under translation, links the VLS system to text-based terminology. The background of a particular document gives some advantages: in most cases a domain is fixed and the attributes of the concept are easier to define. On the other hand, because of the peculiarities of the EU legislation drafting procedures such text-based terminology is less durable and more restricted in use. Closer analysis of terminology problems solved via the VLS system gives some clues as to the differences of attitudes toward terminology standardisation in the EU institutions vs. Lithuanian national bodies. It is obvious that EU translators rely more on the term equivalents in other languages, trying to follow their structure, mostly that of English terms, and even translating composite English terms word by word. In contrast, Lithuanian experts and terminologists of the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language concentrate more on concepts and try to design terms by naming concepts in a more precise way. Therefore, terms proposed by experts are often longer than those proposed by EU translators, though both are much longer than English equivalents. Despite some different approaches to terminology standardisation and some challenges and restrictions of its functioning, the VLS system constitutes a good example of successful cooperation between numerous institutions at both European and national levels. Its model and experience can be used as a pattern for the creation and elaboration of other terminology management systems