Terminology Exchange without Loss? Feasibilities and Limitations of Terminology Management Systems (TMS)

LDV FORUM – Band 21(1) – 2006 Abstract Th e present article gives an overview over exchange formats supported by Terminology Management Systems (TMS) available on the market. As translation is one of the eldest application domains for terminology work, most terminology tools analyzed here are components of computer-aided translation (CAT) tools. In big corporates as well as in the localization industry, linguistic data, fi rst of all terminology, have to be shared by diff erent departments using diff erent systems, a situation that can be best solved by standardized formats. Th e evaluation of seven widely used TMS shows, however, that formats other than the standards proposed by organizations like LISA currently dominate the picture. In many cases, the only way to share data is to pass through fl at structured data stored as tab-delimited text fi les.