Termbases and style guides provide acceptance criteria

What it is

Versioned linguistic acceptance assets turn a termbase, translation memory (TM), and style guide into referenceable, testable delivery criteria. A termbase defines concepts and their approved, prohibited, or context-specific terms. TM stores translated source–target segments for retrieval and reuse, but does not prove that a segment remains correct. A style guide defines locale-specific voice, grammar, punctuation, formatting, and expression. They serve different functions and cannot be collapsed into one unversioned “glossary.”

Why it happens

Without shared criteria, translators, vendors, and channels judge consistency from separate memories. Assets without locale, domain, status, and version instead spread an old term or a segment from the wrong context. Term rules apply to concepts, TM matching to similar strings, and style rules to clauses and touchpoints; conflicts need explicit precedence, ownership, and exception handling. A valid exception can arise from mandated wording, a product name, distinct domain meaning, constrained space, or user-authored text, but it needs scope, rationale, and expiry rather than becoming a free-text bypass.

Studying it

Pin one linguistic-asset bundle to a release build and sample term hits, prohibited terms, TM reuse, voice, and formatting. Classify findings as true violations, stale assets, justified exceptions, or automated false positives. Compare terminology consistency, comprehension failures, review rework, and lint precision before and after rules rather than reporting hit counts alone. For conflicts, retain source, concept, message context, candidate rules, decision owner, and outcome to distinguish unclear precedence from coverage gaps and ambiguous source concepts. Native-language review determines contextual fit; a 100% TM match never replaces acceptance in the running interface.

Where it stops holding

Terminology consistency does not require one surface form everywhere. Inflection, abbreviation, familiar user wording, and separate domain senses can require controlled variants. TM is historical evidence, not a normative source; it can contain retired branding, wrong context, or withdrawn language. A style guide cannot govern mandated text, verbatim quotations, and user-generated content, or force a target language to reproduce a distinction it lacks. Automated lint covers encodable rules; pragmatics, ambiguity, and novel context still require human judgment.

Applying it

• Govern termbase, TM, and style guide separately. A term record includes concept ID, definition, approved/prohibited/allowed variants, part of speech, domain, locale, examples, provenance, owner, state, and version. TM retains segment provenance and time; the guide supplies rules with positive and negative examples.
• Pin a linguistic-asset bundle ID and versions to every build. Translation tooling, CI, screenshot review, help, and support templates consume the same combination. An asset update produces an affected-message manifest, and incompatible versions cannot mix before migration finishes.
• Publish precedence: applicable mandated or contractual text is handled first by its accountable owner; the approved locale/domain termbase constrains terminology; the current style guide constrains expression; TM supplies candidates only. Every override records message, rule, rationale, approver, scope, and expiry.
• Lint encodable prohibited terms, term states, variables, and version rules, representing exceptions in a machine-readable allowlist. Native-language and domain reviewers then judge inflection, context, and comprehension in the running UI. Retire stale TM and exceptions periodically and regress all channels together.

Related

• Same group: S4.05.1 Linguistic correctness does not make an interface usable · S4.05.2 Acceptance requires target-market users
• Adjacent: T1.04.2 The glossary must cover interface, docs, and support · S1.07.3 Terminology must first be consistent in the source language
• Search terms: termbase governance · translation memory · localization style guide