Section 03: Equivalence

03.01 degree of equivalence - disallowed: use a transfer comment (03.05).

Description: The extent to which the intensions of two or more concepts overlap.

Typical degress of equivalence include:

  1. narrower
    Description: Qualifier assigned to a term that is associated with a smaller extension than the term with which it is judged to be equivalent or synonymous.
    Example: The English term "test" represents a smaller extension than the German term "Prüfung".
  2. equivalent
    Description: Qualifier assigned to equivalent terms.
    Example: The English term "living being" and the French term "être vivant" are equivalent terms.
  3. quasi-equivalent
    Admitted Name: near-equivalent
    Desciption: Qualifier assigned to a term whose concept includes either fewer or more characterisitics than a parallel concept in the second language.
    Example: de Prüfung includes en inspection and fr contrôle, but is broader than the French and English terms in that it also includes the concept of test, which is clearly excluded from the en and fr concepts.
  4. broader
    Description: Qualifier assigned to a term that is associated with a larger extention than the term with which it is judged to be equivalent or synonymous.
    Example: The extension of German "Prüfung" is larger than that of English "test".
  5. equivalent phrase
    Description: Qualifier assigned to a phraseological unit in one language that expresses the same semantic content as a phraseological unit in another language.
    Note: Equivalent phrases in one language can in many instances equate to single or multiword terms in other languages.
    Example:
    en technically equivalent
    fr équivalents sur le plan technique
    en third-party certification
    fr certification par tierce partie

    Note: Multilingual term pairs can be identified as equivalent or quasi-equivalent, depending on the degree of similarity in their underlying concepts, and they can also be qualified as bidirectional or monodirectional, depending on whether the equivalence relationship operates in one or both directions (see directionality 03.03). Nonequivalence is also frequently listed as a degree of equivalence, but nonequivalents require different treatment because they will not appear as equivalent terms in the same term (see false friend 03.02).

03.02 false friend

Admitted name: faux amis; nonequivalent

Description: A term in one language that only appears to have formal or semantic similarity with a term in another language, but that does not represent the same concept.

Note: False friends are frequently false cognates, i.e., terms that appear to be the same or very similar in etymological origin, but do not have the same meaning in both languages. They may also be false calques or false loan translations, i.e., literal translations that are incorrect or misleading, either because a proper equivalent already exists in the target language or because the term elements used in the translation are not themselves equivalent to those used in the source language. If an entry is present in the terminology collection for the term designated as a false friend, there should be a reference to this entry.

Example 1:

false cognate: In quality assurance environments (as opposed to accounting), French "contrôler", meaning "to check up on" or "to inspect" is a false cognate to the English term "control", which means "to have power over".

Example 2:

false calque: The term de "Schneidenscheibe" is a rectangular washer. If it is translated as en "knife-edge disk", the result is a false calque because the translation implies a round cutting wheel.

msc Representation:

03.03 directionality--Diallowed

Description: A property of equivalent terms indicating whether a similar degree of equivalence exists when moving from a first language to a second language as when moving from the second language to the first.

With respect to directionality, equivalence can be designated as:

  1. bidirectional
    Description: Qualifier used with multilingual equivalent terms to indicate that a similar degree of equivalence exists when moving from a first language to a second language as when moving from the sencond language to the first.
  2. monodirectional
    Description: Qualifier used with multilingual equivalent terms to indicate that equivalence exists only when moving from a first langauge to a second language and not when moving from the second langauge to the first.

    Example: Some equivalence relations are bidirectional, i.e., the equivalent in the first langauge is freely substitutable by the equivalent in the second language and vice versa, e.g., English "adhesive" and French "adhésif". This condition is most likely to occur in standardized, fully harmonized technical terminology.

    Frequently some restriction is placed on the equivalence relation, in which case the relation can be designated as monodirectional in one or the other directions, i.e., the term in the first langauge is equivalent to the term in the second language, but not necessarily vice versa, e.g. the deprecated English "glue" = French "adhésif", but French "adhésif" should be equated to the preferred English term "adhesive" for standardized texts. Hence the relation between "glue" and "adhésif" is monodirectional in this context. If used, the monodirectional designation should be accompanied by an explanitory transfer comment.

03.04 reliability code

Description: A code assigned to a data category or record indicating adjudged accuracy and completeness.

Note: Reliability codes are widely associated with equivalence and are viewed as subjective and therefore themselves unreliable.

DXLT representation: <termNote type='reliabilityCode'>...</termNote>

Picklist values: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Note: For purposes of blind interchange, all reliability codes should be mapped to a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the least reliable and 10 being the most reliable.

03.05 transfer comment

Description: Note included in a term entry providing more explicit information on the degree of equivalence, directionality or other special features affecting equivalence between a term in one language and another term in the same or a second language.

DXLT Representation:

<termNote type='transferComment' target='termId'>noteText<termNote>