Variation in Spanish accounting terminology

The paper discusses the main results of an analysis of Spanish accounting terminology, based on the exploitation of three different corpora. The analysis was aimed at measuring the level of terminology variation in Spanish accounting and at assessing the suitability of accounting standards and companies’ financial statements for terminology extraction in the translation of accounting texts. The results evidence a terminological variation of around 25% in international accounting standards and a considerable lack of consistency in the use of accounting terminology in the financial statements of Spanish companies, both in the Spanish originals and in their English translations.