TDG 9 for Terminology manages a profile that includes a global set of all data categories known to be used in concept-oriented terminology databases designed to support written text and spoken discourse in specialized disciplines. The profile includes data categories for monolingual subject-field glossaries, concise translation-oriented terminology management, localization resources, language planning and standardization, and the representation of concept systems, among other objectives. Designers of individual applications would normally collect their own Data Category Selections as manageable subsets of this extensive inventory of items. The profile includes term-related data categories such as those for points of grammar and register, usage-related items like /context/, concept-related and administrative data categories. Terminology in this sense differs from controlled vocabularies such as thesauri and classification systems commonly used for document and object retrieval, although there are similarities in naming labels and writing definitions. The profile is likely to include a number of Data Category Selections, for instance the following activities:

* The TBX family of TermBase eXchange formats (including TBX-Basic) compliant with ISO 30042:2008

* The ISO/IEC format for terminological definitions used in ISO/IEC standards (ISO 10241)

* Translation-oriented terminology management as reflected in ISO 12616:2002