Online Multilingual Technical and Scientific Terminology Portals: Tools for Arabic Language Learners and Experts

Stemming from the necessity of having an up-to-date survey of the available multilingual online technical and scientific terminology banks that include the Arabic language, the present descriptive study aims to analyze five digital technical terminology portals that display term search results simultaneously in different languages, among which Arabic, in different fields of knowledge and that are available online for free to language learners and experts all over the world. The five terminology portals analyzed are UNTERM, FAO term portal, WIPO Pearl, the Unified Term Bank and ARABTERM. An introduction to the concept of terminology and its role in foreign language learning is provided in the first part. Subsequently, each portal is examined in regard to its term search features, the methodology adopted to include new terms, and its didactic potential in the language learning process. Next, a practical example of term search for “enclosure” in each term portal is provided. The main results are compared in a resumptive table. In the final part, two other term banks are introduced: Microsoft Language Portal and Proz.com. Although they do not show multilingual term search results simultaneously, they have been included in the present study to provide a complete picture of the online multilingual terminological resources available for Arabic language experts and learners.