Making of the Glossary of Internal Security

This text is an abbreviated and edited translation of an original article written by Riina Muurila. The original article was published in Terminfo 1/2023 in May 2023.

The Glossary of Internal Security was published in February 2023 after a year’s work. It contains 65 concepts related to internal security, and, more broadly, to the Ministry of Interior’s branch of government. It also contains English equivalents of the Finnish terms, which have been reviewed by the Translation and Language Division of the Prime Minister's Office (Ed. note: From June 2023, the glossary also contains Swedish equivalents compiled by the Translation and Language Division). The terminology work was carried out by the representatives from different organisations under the Ministry of the Interior’s branch of government and a terminologist of the Finnish Terminology Centre. Without a professional terminologist, we would probably still be at a workshop discussing which sources are primary, or what do functions vital to society include.

The motivation for a glossary on internal security topics developed over time. We felt that the semantic interoperability of the internal security concepts needed to be improved, and since the importance of interoperability between different parts of an organisation and different industries had been recognised in many networks, taking action was rather easy. After some necessary administrative measures, it felt great to have several workshops lead by a professional terminologist planned for the future.

The terminology work for the Glossary of Internal Security was mainly done in workshops in which there were participants from every agency of the Ministry of the Interior’s branch of government. Participation was voluntary, so it was a delight to see so many experts contributing. Some of the experts had previous experience of terminology work, but most of them participated for the first time. Everyone had their own area of expertise and could therefore benefit the project by sharing their knowledge with the group. It was also the participants’ responsibility to ensure that the content of the concept descriptions was correct, since they were all experts of their own fields.

The content of the glossary – the concepts that were to be defined – was compiled democratically as the work progressed. Before the workshops, the agencies were asked to propose a number of key concepts used in their sector, and the concepts for the glossary were then selected from these. The aim was to choose concepts that were related to each other and could therefore form concept systems.

As the work progressed, the diversity of different perspectives proved to be a benefit – even if, at times, it was challenging to decide which perspectives to include in the glossary. Time after time, however, we were able to come to an agreement. The final concept descriptions have been drawn up so that they represent the shared views of the internal security experts.

The glossary contains some concepts whose contents may differ to a degree depending on the organisation or operating environment they are used in, so the perspective behind these kinds of concept descriptions has been clarified in the glossary. Working with concepts that are perceived slightly differently in different contexts, however, turned out to be surprisingly easy. It was also extremely interesting to follow the exchange of views between the experts. The workshops were rather educational and often the high point of the day. Besides focusing on forming reasoned expert opinions, there was also time for free speculating as well as some joking, thanks to the permissive and straightforward atmosphere of the workshops.

I must admit that, at first, I was a little worried about how we would progress with the working group, since we only had remote meetings during the first few months and didn’t yet know each other that well. Partly because of the stiffness of remote meetings and the fact that terminology work was new for many of us, there was some slowness in the beginning. In these moments, the terminologist’s situational awareness, calmness and an excellent ability to keep the conversation going by asking good questions was emphasized. Soon the workshops started running more smoothly, and the conversation lit up so much so that people would sometimes have to wait a bit for their turn to speak.

The terminologist’s preparations and materials that were given to the participants early enough before the workshops were one of the cornerstones for the smooth running of the workshops and the overall progress of the project. The experts’ thought-provoking questions also played a big part, and we often noticed that things which seemed self-explanatory were not actually that simple. I was happy to see that so many experts were able to focus on terminology work along with their daily work tasks, not only by participating in the workshops, but also by preparing for them in advance and by discussing the more challenging questions with their colleagues in between workshops. The management also showed active interest in the progress of the work, which felt motivating. All in all, participating in terminology work was mind-broadening, thought-provoking and educational.

It was clear from the start of the project that terminology work is not a one-off effort, but continuous work and active monitoring of the operating environment. However, in order to get started, it was necessary to set up a framework for the project so that the work could be continued in the future with a coherent set of concepts. The workshops were beneficial for future terminology work, too, as we were able to pinpoint potential themes and concepts to work on when extending the glossary in the future.