Presentation of the New ISO-Standard for the Representation of Entries in Dictionaries: ISO 1951

Times have changed over the last ten years in terms of dictionary production. With the introduction of digital support and networking, the lifespan of dictionaries has been considerably extended. The dictionary manuscript has become a unique data-source that can be reused and manipulated many times by numerous in-house and external experts. The traditional relationship between author, publisher and user has now been extended to include other partners: data-providers – either other publishers or institutions or industry-partners , software developers, language-tool providers etc. All these dictionary experts need a basic common language to optimize their work flow and to be able to co-operate in developing new products while avoiding time-consuming and expensive data manipulations. In this paper we will first of all present the ISO standardization for Lexicography which takes these new market needs into account, and then go on to describe the new standard ISO 1951: “Presentation /Representation of entries in dictionaries” which was published in March 2007. In conclusion, we will outline the benefits of standardization for the dictionary publishing industry. 1. General points on ISO-Standardization Standardization is achieved on national, regional and international levels. Most countries in the world have their own national standardization body which is organized into technical committees according to the application fields and develop their own national standards. Most countries also contribute to the development of international standards which are accepted worldwide. Stakeholders from industry, academia and societies from all over the world are involved in creating international standards within the ISO (International Standardization Organisation). International standards aim to prevent national variations and give priority to describing performance requirements and interfaces. Products are not standardized. Standardization is achieved according to the following principles: a) Market adequacy: A project will only be launched if a need has been identified through a market survey in all member countries. b) Voluntary implementation: Experts work on standards on a voluntary and anonymous basis c) Consensus based: At each of the main stages of development, experts from all member countries have to give their comments and to vote for or against the circulated draft. d) One vote per country. e) Worldwide acceptance 2. The current situation in dictionary standardization International standardization in Terminography and Lexicography is the responsibility of the TC 37/SC2 (Technical Committee 37/Subcommittee 2). Only one ISO-standard for dictionaries has been published: the ISO 1951: “Lexicographical symbols and typographical conventions for use in terminography”. This appeared in 1973 and was revised in 1997. It mainly concerned the layout of print-dictionaries and did not address the actual needs of dictionary making. Now standards have to take into account the broadest variety of dictionary-products: monolingual, bilingual, multilingual, general language and specialist dictionaries, in print form or electronic, as isolated products or integrated into other language tools. With the introduction of digital support and networking, the lifespan of dictionaries has been considerably extended and the manuscript has become a unique data-source that can be reused and manipulated many times by editors and content management experts. Dictionary publishers are importing and accommodating more and more data from other sources, such as industry and other institutions or from other publishers when acquiring perhaps a new dictionary series or co-publishing a new dictionary. In many cases they have to deal with international partners. Dictionary publishers are also content-providers for other language tools such as translation software or translation memory systems or other internet products. In order to optimize their work flow and to avoid time-consuming and expensive data manipulations, all these different players need to be implementing the