Terminology practice in a non-standardized environment: a case study

Terminology as independent discipline, as well as its practical applications is not yet well established for the South African Bantu languages. The aim of this paper is to illustrate some strategies that are currently employed to ensure sound terminology practice in a non-standardized environment, and at the same time contribute to terminology and language standardization of Northern Sotho, a language of lesser diffusion spoken by approximately 4 million people in the Republic of South Africa. Within the South African context, standardization of terminology needs to contribute to the elevation of the status of a previously disadvantaged language to that of fullyfledged official language. In the case of Northern Sotho, apart from its direct impact on terminological development, any form of terminological activity therefore must contribute to terminological standardization, and within the broader sociolinguistic context, to language standardization, since Northern Sotho has not yet been fully standardized. This paper presents the results of a case study based on the compilation of a quadrilingual explanatory LSP dictionary for chemistry in order to illustrate that sound terminology practice is indeed possible in an environment where the terminological infrastructure is not ideal, and that it can contribute not only to terminology development and standardization as such, but also over a wider spectrum to standardization of an as yet only partially standardized language.