Building Good Engineering Vocabulary: Adopting Technical Terminology in Non- English Speaking Countries

 Most engineering disciplines, such as computer engineering, are in constant and rapid change. Technology and paradigm shifts take place every few years and every major change brings new vocabulary and terms. Apparently, these changes also affect the engineering education establishments, its educators and its students. The changes do not impose any serious language problems for the educational institutions of English speaking countries, because new inventions and advancements are generally published in English-language journals, magazines, conference proceedings and eventually textbooks. English is the de-facto international engineering language. However, many non-English speaking countries, including most European, Asian, African and Latin American countries, struggle with these changes from a linguistic pointof-view. It generally takes time for textbooks written in the local language to appear. More obscure engineering subjects may never enjoy a textbook written in the local language at all. The low-budget textbooks that do appear frequently use ad-hoc and poor translations of the new technical terms associated with the new technology, or they simply use the English terms or some phonetically close adaptations. As a result, English textbooks are frequently used. Consequently, students may fall into the habit of using an ad-hoc and anglofied terminology. For teachers authoring their own textbooks, lecture notes and teaching materials, the term-translating job can be overwhelming as it takes time and requires inspiration to find fitting and meaningful terms. In this paper we discuss how students can serve as an invaluable resource in the process of inventing good local variations of technical terms terms that enhance the correct associations founded in the local culture and language. Experiences from Norwegian engineering education are described. Index Terms  Vocabulary, language for specific purposes, technical writing, translation FROM RESEARCH LABORATORY TO SYLLABUS Subject areas such as electrical engineering and computer science are constantly advancing. New inventions and technological breakthroughs are accompanied by new paradigms, practices, techniques, technology and terminology. The curriculum in higher education is constantly revised to reflect the most recent technological advances. Technological and scientific findings are usually first published as technical reports on a research group’s web site and subsequently appear in the proceedings of international conferences. It generally takes about six months for a research result to first appear in print. Conference proceedings usually reach a narrow audience. To reach a wider audience, the inventors and researchers publish their results in renowned international journals with a high impact factor. This whole process can take up to a few years. “Important” results also make their way into the textbooks, and the textbook is the main source of inspiration for most educators. Once included in a textbook a topic is likely to be included into the syllabus of an undergraduate course. The language of these forums is usually English. English has become the de-facto international language. New paradigms, techniques and technologies are accompanied by new terminology, usually introduced by the authors and subsequently altered by other researchers. Over time terminology usually converge onto a small set of generally accepted “standard” terms. FROM ENGLISH TO FOREIGN LANGUAGE Shifts in terminology are unproblematic in English speaking countries – at least from a linguistic point of view. However, the majority of the countries in the world are non-English speaking. Also, the English abilities of the locals vary in these countries. Teaching, especially at the undergraduate level, is often conducted in the local language. Local languages need local terminology, which is problematic. Educators have influence on the terminology when orally delivering the materials and when producing teaching material such as lecture notes and textbooks. Students often adopt the terminology presented to them by the teacher. Simultaneously,