Abstract:

At the end of the twentieth Century, in Europe, there appeared the requirements for standardization in the field of trade and in other occupations, which provided some realistic conditions for terminology standardization. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) kept pace with the time and issued a series of standards, which provided guidelines for terminology standardization work and also provided practical guide for the terminology standardization work implemented by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). After nearly 20 years’ efforts, the terminology standardization work of NATO has transferred from “amateurs” to professional. At present, NATO not only owns a professional team for carrying out the terminology standardization work, but also has a first-class terminology database. NATO also shares its excellent web portal and its high-quality terminology resources with other important international organizations. This paper follows the historical evolution of NATO terminology standardization work, and tries to introduce its terminology standardization work in the past and at present, in order to provide the readers with a good channel to understand terminology standardization work happening outside China. Meanwhile, the author also hopes to provide some useful references for terminology standardization work in China.

Key words: North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), military standardization agencies, terminology conference, terminology standards of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), terminology database, terminology global work platform