ELM Terminology

Authorised translation: translation made by an authorised translator or provided on the official website of a public institution.

BA, MA/MSc, PhD: abbreviations for academic degrees of different lengths and level: Bachelor’s degree (BA) normally four years, Master’s degree (MA) and additional one or two years after the BA, and PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) normally an additional three years after the BA and MA.

Humanities: the humanities here comprise disciplines regarding the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytic, critical, or speculative. Examples are ancient and modern languages, literature, history, philosophy, religion, visual and performing arts.

Master’s program: a master's program leads to the gaining of a second academic degree (MA). In addition, the master's degree opens up the opportunity to gain a doctorate.

Mother tongue: most commonly conceived as the language first learnt and still understood.

Multilingualism: the presence in a geographical area, large or small, of more than one ‘variety of language’ i.e., mode of speaking of a social group whether it is formally recognised as a language or not.

National language(s): official language(s) of a nation-state.
Natural sciences: the branches of science that study the natural world by using scientific methods.

Official language: a language that is given a special legal status within a particular state.
Plurilingualism: the presence of a repertoire of language in the speech competence of individuals; it includes the language variety often referred to as the ‘mother tongue’ or ‘first language’ and any number of other languages or varieties.
Regional or minority languages: languages that are traditionally used within a given territory of a state by nationals of that state who form a group numerically smaller than the rest of the state’s population. They are different from the state language(s) of that state (definition based on the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, Council of Europe 1992). As a general rule, these are languages of populations that have their ethnic roots in the areas concerned or that settled in the regions concerned and have lived there for generations. Regional/minority languages can have the status of official language, but this status will by definition be limited to the area in which they are spoken.
Social sciences: academic disciplines concerned with the study of the social life of human groups and individuals, including anthropology, communication studies, economics, human geography, history, political science, psychology and sociology.