Terminologists as Stewards of Meaning in the Age of LLM s: A Digital Humanism Perspective (2025)

Abstract: Digital Humanism calls for a reconfiguration of the development of digital technologies that embeds interdisciplinary collaboration, ethical reflexivity and critical scrutiny into both the design and evaluation of these systems. From a Digital Humanism perspective, terminologists play a vital role in safeguarding language understanding in specialized domains where clarity and consistency are critical (in both monolingual and multilingual contexts). This conceptual paper, therefore, examines the role of terminologists (and terminology) in the era of LLMs, with a focus on their function as stewards of meaning in specialized communication. The study draws on the principles of Digital Humanism to critically assess how terminologists can counteract various ethically and epistemologically problematic features characterizing current LLM development and deployment. In this regard, terminologists can ensure terminological precision, help preserve linguistic diversity and knowledge excluded in LLMs. They may also support inclusive, transparent and accountable digital infrastructures. By documenting system and variety-specific terms, they counteract the homogenizing tendencies of LLMs and challenge epistemic monopolies. Their expertise bridges disciplines and reinforces that language is not neutral, but culturally and institutionally embedded. As educators and stewards of meaning, terminologists empower users to critically engage with LLM outputs, ensuring that language technologies remain ethically grounded and responsive to human contexts and values.

## introduction the rapid advancement of generative artificial intelligence (ai), particularly large language models (llms) such as chatgpt, gemini or deepseek, has sparked both fascination and concern across academic @xcite , political and society domains @xcite , including language learning @xcite , (higher) education @xcite and language understanding @xcite @xcite . llms are used across a wide range of applications @xcite involving natural language understanding. recent advances in llms challenge traditional views that machine language understanding is purely syntactic by proposing that, through semantic fragmentism and partial grounding mechanisms, llms can achieve a form of meaning attribution that explains their effective, albeit limited, capacity for natural language understanding @xcite . with regard to language understanding, llms might even "serve as plausible models of language understanding in humans" @xcite . their code and text generation capabilities (in several languages) allow for the creation of coherent content suited to diverse contexts. for knowledge-intensive tasks, llms offer access to extensive embedded domain knowledge. their reasoning abilities can enhance decision-making and problem-solving processes. moreover, llms are well-suited for real-world scenarios, as they can process noisy input, address ill-structured problems and respond effectively to human instructions when properly aligned @xcite . while these technologies offer unprecedented capabilities in natural language processing, content generation and automated decision-making @xcite , this 'ai revolution' @xcite , which is mainly led by (large) tech companies in the us and china @xcite gives rise to social inequality (both between and within countries) @xcite . furthermore, it comes with enormous environmental costs @xcite . therefore, the development and deployment of digital technologies have prompted a wave of critical responses, especially from scholars in the humanities and social sciences. one of the most influential responses comes from the perspective of digital humanism @xcite , a movement that seeks to reassert human values, agency and responsibility in the face of digital technologies. @xcite the role of terminologists similar to other language and communication professionals, the role and work of terminologists is impacted by the emergence of large language models and generative artificial intelligence in general. terminologists as language professionals systematically collect, analyze, manage and disseminate domain-specific terms @xcite . as terminologists are working at the interface of knowledge, information and data, they are also referred to as knowledge managers, as they model knowledge and structure information @xcite for specialized communication purposes. terminologists play a crucial role in ensuring clarity, precision and consistency in specialized communication, including technical writing, translation, legal services, research and development as well as language planning @xcite . as the name suggests, terminologists work with terminology understood as the "set of designations [. . . ] and concepts [. . . ] belonging to one domain [. . . ] or subject [. . . ]" @xcite . therefore, terminologists play a central role in ensuring understanding in specialized fields of communication, including technical, legal or corporate communication. among the traditional tasks of terminologists are the management of terminology to ensure clarity, consistency and accuracy in specialized communication. their work includes compiling monolingual or multilingual terminologies, conducting documentation and corpus-based searches, defining concepts and creating concept systems. terminologists also engage in terminology planning, such as developing language policies, coining new terms and supporting standardization. they manage and maintain terminology databases, advise (and train) various stakeholders (e.g. translators, technical writers) and often play a key role in training and education. their tasks support effective communication across disciplines, languages and institutional contexts @xcite . ## language understanding and terminology terminology plays a pivotal role in enabling language understanding, particularly in specialized domains where clarity and consistency are critical (in both monolingual and multilingual contexts). at its core, terminology work is "concerned with the systematic collection, description, processing and presentation of concepts [. . . ] and their designations" @xcite . in contrast to general language @xcite , which often tolerates ambiguity and polysemy, terminology focuses on the systematic representation of domain-specific concepts and their designations, thereby ensuring semantic clarity and disambiguation (iso 704:2009). integrated into other (language technologies), terminological resources (such as controlled vocabularies, terminology databases and concept systems) can be used to enhance lexical consistency and support contextual reasoning by encoding hierarchical and associative relations between concepts @xcite . furthermore, terminology is embedded within specific domains, systems (such as legal systems) and contexts, all of which are essential for language understanding, whether by humans or machines. as llms generate increasingly fluent text in several languages, terminology therefore provides an epistemological scaffold that helps align these outputs with domain knowledge and institutional realities. without terminological grounding, computational language understanding risks producing outputs that are linguistically plausible but semantically imprecise or culturally inappropriate. this means that, without terminology, language understanding is incomplete in fields of specialized knowledge. however, llms often abstract terminology from its conceptual and disciplinary moorings, risking terminological drift and the erosion of communicative precision in specialized domains such as law, medicine or engineering. amid the current (technological) transformations, the role of terminologists warrants renewed scholarly attention. as experts who safeguard the integrity of a language for specific purposes through terminology and ensure the contextual coherence of specialized language, terminologists are uniquely positioned to address the ethical and epistemic challenges posed by llms. framing this inquiry through the lens of digital humanism (as articulated in the vienna manifesto on digital humanism) allows for a critical exploration of how language professionals can uphold human agency, domain knowledge and linguistic diversity in the face of automation and algorithmic decision-making. this conceptual paper examines the role of terminologists in the age of large language models, with a focus on their function as stewards of meaning in specialized communication. the study draws on the principles of digital humanism, particularly those outlined in the vienna manifesto on digital humanism, to critically assess how terminological practice can counteract various ethically and epistemologically problematic features characterizing current llm development and deployment. therefore, the research question is: what is the role of terminologists as stewards of meaning in specialized communication in the age of large language models, and how can digital humanism guide their practice? the paper will not address technical aspects of llm architecture or training but will instead focus on the epistemological, ethical and communicative dimensions of terminology work in human-machine language interaction. ## method this conceptual paper combines elements from both terminology studies and digital humanism, while addressing the epistemological and socio-technical dimensions of the role of terminologists in language understanding in an era shaped by llms. ## terminologists as stewards of meaning the following section examines the role of terminologists as stewards of meaning through the lens of digital humanism, bridging the domains of specialized language understanding, as well as broader practices of knowledge and data governance. the focus is on commercial llms deployed by technology companies, rather than those developed by terminologists themselves. each subsection addresses one or several of the key principles of the vienna manifesto on digital humanism, whereby the verbatim quote of the manifesto's principle is provided at the beginning of the subsection. ## conclusion from a digital humanism perspective, terminologists play a crucial role as stewards of meaning, particularly in the context of rapidly ad-vancing llms. their responsibilities extend beyond traditional terminology management to include ethical, cultural and epistemological guardianship in the face of llms that process, generate and circulate language on a massive scale.