The COVID-19 syndemic and the politics of terminological harmonization

This article analyses five COVID-19-related terms across two languages, English and Italian: ‘lockdown’, ‘droplet’, ‘spillover’, ‘infodemic’, and ‘smart working’. These terms are used to investigate the interaction between politics, specialised terminology and terminology harmonisation. The article first presents the syndemics approach, and, subsequently, applies it to the challenges and risks inherent in multilingual terminological work. Second, it sketches the theoretical backdrop underlying the complex interrelations between politics, specialised terminology harmonization and translation. Lastly, it describes terminology harmonization efforts by the European Union’s Terminology Coordination Unit, using the five syndemic-related terms as case studies, and analyses the term entries in the IATE database.