Abstract
South Tyrol is a Northern Italian province where about 70% of the population, i.e. over 300,000 citizens, are German speakers (ASTAT 2019). At provincial level, the minority language German is recognised as a co-official language next to the national language Italian (Presidential Decree No. 670/1972, Art. 99). The institutional language regime of this largely autonomous province is fully bilingual.
Occupational health and safety (OHS) is a highly interdisciplinary subdomain of law, which regulates a wide range of working activities and sectors. OHS has a specific legal terminology but it also uses a wealth of terms originally belonging to other domains like engineering, medicine, biology, physics, chemistry etc. (Chiocchetti 2017). While the latter terminology is generally common to all German-speaking countries, legal terminology is system-bound (de Groot 2002). Given the differences between the German-speaking legal systems in the domain of OHS, the respective legal concepts and legal terminology also differ.
The education of employees is particularly important in the modern conception of OHS, since everyone is involved in prevention and should actively contribute to reducing occupational diseases and accidents at work (Natullo 2015, Solombrino 2017). Italian legislation demands that education be adapted and adjusted to the language competences of the staff (Legislative Decree No. 81/2008, Art. 36). In South Tyrol, this implies that German texts and terminology must be available to educate and train the local workforce in OHS.
A recently concluded terminology project, financed by the local government, showed that South Tyrolean German terminology in the domain of OHS is not yet fully developed and/or disseminated. Several concurring designations may be used to refer to the same concept, including key concepts in OHS. Sometimes Italian designations, especially acronyms and initialisms, are used in German texts, which denotes a weak implantation of the minority language terminology in OHS. Finally, there are some terminological gaps.
The presentation will discuss the terminological challenges for South Tyrolean German in the domain of OHS. It will also introduce the approaches that were adopted to face such challenges for legal terminology on the one hand and other specialised terminology on the other hand, as they require distinct approaches. Language is a fundamental aspect in the education of the workforce and ultimately contributes to an improved safe behaviour. Developing and disseminating a shared, consistent and univocal terminology in OHS is therefore an essential prerequisite for unambiguous communication and safety on the workplace.