Technical texts translation is one of the most popular services in
the translation sphere. Technical texts represent a type of functional texts
which deals with various technical processes and production and is expressed in
various forms of written texts with the main purpose to provide objective
representation of information [10]. Throughout the last century the quantity of
technical text translation has tremendously increased as a result of
industrialization and fast developing international business and collaboration.
Nowadays, translation of technical texts represents vast majority of the
professional translator’s workload. Translation of technical texts is directly
related to modern technical and productive development and the necessity to
ensure its continuing based on available professional knowledge. In each
language functional style one can distinguish certain linguistic features which
can have direct impact on the process and the result of translation and such
impact is rather significant. Similarly, translation of technical texts is
characterized by a number of peculiarities that determine the specificity of
translator’s activity when handling texts of the technical style.
The main purpose of technical texts is to communicate factual
information, notions and conclusions. One of the features of thinking in
technical sphere is its informative and logical character. This determines such
general peculiarities of technical texts as intentional consistency of
exposition, meaning accuracy (instead of ambiguity), information depth, objectiveness
and absence of imagery and emotions in the text [6, 64]. The logical character
of technical texts is expressed, among other things, by the text structure
where certain linguistic means are used to build cohesiveness of the text. According
to K. Baakes technical texts can be characterized by “objectivity, precision,
lack of expressiveness and emotions, economy, and formality” [2, 33].
Furthermore, these general features of technical texts are considered to
influence the translation activity. As mentioned by S. Gauch and R. Futrelle,
these features are “logicality, substantiveness (clear connection between the
main idea and supportive details, strict consistency), objectivity, accuracy
and subsequent clarity and lucidity” [5, 126]. In this connection, technical
texts are opposed to literary texts which are characterized by the abundance of
literary means intended for creating expressive perception of the text. In
addition, the generally agreed feature of technical texts which also
distinguishes technical texts from literary ones is objective nature of
technical narration, since the main purpose of a technical text is to convey
objective information on a technical subject without mentioning the author’s
subjective evaluation of the facts and processes.
As it was inferred above, technical texts are generally intended for
specialists in a given field. Therefore, technical texts are written following
strict rules, and the author of such text is perceived not as an individual
writer, but as a representative of the given subject specialists who build on
what has been achieved by previous research. This is required to allow for objective
and clear representation of information for recipients who use it for occupational
purposes. Thus, most of technical texts have similar syntactical and morphological
structure, set expressions and style.
Many authors concur that the most typical peculiarity of technical
texts is terminology. For instance, V. Komissarov writes that the most
significant feature of technical translation is lexical and grammatical
peculiarities of technical texts, in particular, the leading role is played by
terminology and special vocabulary [6, 66]. All technical texts tend to have language
means which help satisfy the needs of a certain communication sphere. On the
vocabulary level technical texts are characterized by the use of scientific and
technical terminology. V. Komissarov noted that the terms in technical texts
must provide accurate and clear definition of real objects and phenomena, and,
what is the most important, ensure proper comprehension of the conveyed
information by specialists. He adds that in translation of technical materials
terms must be precise, in particular, “have strictly defined meaning which can
be developed through logical thinking and removes the place of the defined
concept in the paradigm of a given field of science or technique” [6, 70].
Another typical lexical feature of the technical texts that
influence translation process is abbreviations. Technical texts are full of
multiple abbreviations and acronyms. Many abbreviations have generally approved
translations which are recorded in special dictionaries. However, a great
number of abbreviation and acronyms have several meaning. Therefore,
translator’s responsibility is to select proper meaning out of the variety of
the meanings given in dictionaries subject to the thematic component of the
text and interpret unknown and new abbreviations through logical conclusions or
direct consultation with the author of the text.
Knowledge of technical vocabulary is part of subject knowledge.
Thus, it can be defined by means of contacting the specialists who have good
knowledge of a given subject area. Professional translators do it in the
following two ways: by using a technical dictionary composed by subject
specialists; and by clarifying the meaning with relevant specialists or, when
possible, the actual author of the text in person [3, 148]. In these cases,
translators should pay special attention to the words considered to be the most
important for the message of the text.
In general, there is broad agreement that technical vocabulary needs
further investigation, because the currently available knowledge is quite
limited to handling technical vocabulary in certain areas separately, without
studying it in integration with general vocabulary. As T. Chung mentioned upon
studying the works of Sutarsyah, Chung, Chung and Nation, and etc, “research on
technical vocabulary shows a considerable underestimation of the role played by
technical vocabulary in special texts and the lack of information about the way
how technical vocabulary is connected to other types of vocabulary” [3, 155].
Further study of technical texts leads us to the necessity of
reviewing the types of technical texts. There exists a great many of technical
text types. The following types are suggested by K. Zethsen as the most often
cited technical texts:
- scientific articles;
- specifications;
- text books;
- encyclopedias;
- manuals;
- patent applications [8, 72].
A more specific classification of the types of technical texts is
given by A. Dillon and C. McKnight:
- potent documentation;
- project documentation;
- catalogues of equipment and materials;
- technical descriptions and product specifications;
- product technical documentation;
- manuals, equipment installation, or repair instructions [4, 96].
Subject to the type of technical text specified above, apart from
common lexical features technical texts can have differences in style and
syntactical structure. For instance, product guidelines and project
documentation for a product from the same industry will considerably differ in
structure. While the project documentation is very likely to have long and
complex sentences, the manual guideline will probably have more simple
sentences and be abundant with sentences in imperative mood. Similarly, the
stylistic feature of these types of technical texts will probably be different,
too. Hence, professional translators should select translation strategies
subject to complete analysis of a text to be translated. As noted by K.
Zethsen, “no particular translation strategy is required as long as the
translator gets familiar with relevant vocabulary and terminology along with
the typical syntactical structure of the technical text” [8, 79]. Thus,
applying text analysis basics in technical text translation is a very important
step in the production of precise and accurate translation.
According to I. Alekseeva, technical texts are used to convey
cognitive information; to allow for objective presentation of knowledge the
following linguistic means need to be equivalently rendered in the translation:
- subject semasiology;
- passive form
- praesens generellis;
- complex words;
- nominative nature of the text [1, 64].
Following the author, subject semasiology means the use of a subject
from a given field of knowledge or its substitutes such as personal pronouns,
demonstrative pronoun or adverb which point out the noun. At the same time, it
is very rare when subject is expressed by personal pronouns in singular form,
the plural form is more appropriate, but used a little more frequently than the
singular [1, 64]. Another type of linguistic means, the passive form, is a very
common feature for technical texts. It is expressed by passive voices of verbs,
various passive constructions and impersonal sentences. Further, praenens generellis,
i.e. the use of present simple tense to mark events which take place regardless
time is also frequently used in technical texts. This allows for objective
representation of information regardless the time paradigm. Similarly, a large
amount of complex and compound words built following the word-building patterns
with abstract meaning reflects generalization of information and as a result
its objectiveness. Finally, nominative nature of texts means prevalence of
nouns where the action is expressed not through verbs but verbal nouns and
verbs that lost their meaning, this can also increase the objectiveness of
narration [1, 66]. Thus, the above mentioned language features constitute the
peculiarities of technical texts following the scholar I. Alekseeva’s opinion.
Consistency of presentation in technical texts is ensured by a high
level of complexity and a great variety of syntactic structures if compared
with other types of written texts. According to I. Alekseeva, when translating
a technical text that has a complex syntactical structure, the latter is
generally considered to be an important feature that should be rendered in
translation in full amount [1, 67]. At the same time, translators should be
aware of the fundamental principle of scientific and technical style which is
its functionality. E. Mastná calls it pragmatic aspect. The author also
mentioned that, the structures of technical texts may be characterized mainly
by the abundance of terms, special vocabulary and compound syntax; however, it
does not necessarily mean that a translator is expected to translate them word
by word. What is required is comprehensible and precise transfer of the
relevant meaning of the original text [7, 34]. Therefore, if the syntactic
structure of a sentence to be translated is too compound and cumbersome to
clearly render the authentic meaning in the target language, translators should
break the sentence into units or rebuild it, if it is required to ensure
clarity. E. Mastná emphasized that when handling technical or scientific
texts, their form is considered to be secondary if it is impossible to render
the meaning without modification of the form [7, 34]. The primary point is the
content, which very often happens to be quite complex. Nevertheless, the
translator should not strictly follow a tricky structure of sentences which can
make the understanding of the meaning much more difficult for the reader.
Moreover, as it was noted by I. Alekseeva, sometimes due to
linguistic features of the target language, the complex structure of a text is
converted in such a way that the distance between syntactically interrelated
components of the sentence can prevent the recipient from following the
author's thought clearly. In such a case, a translator has to transform the syntactic
structure (i.e. make a syntactic transformation): to simplify it or split the
complex sentence into two simple sentences to provide for proper and unhampered
understanding of the content [1, 64]. Overall, in many cases, a translator
needs to select an alternative method of transferring the content when a
standard method of translation is not feasible.
In terms of the language structure, it is a well-known fact that the
English language is considered to be brief and compact. Thus, another
characteristic feature of English technical style is condensation of structure
[7, 37]. When translating texts where condensation has been applied, it is
necessary to enlarge and specify some condensed structures by adding more lexical
means or introducing clauses with finite verb forms. This is required to
provide clarity of the meaning and avoid ambiguity in the target language. In
terms of content, a translator always needs to bear in mind that in the cases
when description and enlargement is more explicit than mere translating which
does not ensure complete comprehension, the former should be selected as the
primary translation strategy.
Another important aspect of the syntactic structure of any text in
general and technical text in particular is actual division of sentences. When
translating technical texts, it is essential to find the rheme of the original
text and to place it to a proper position in the target language. The rhematic
position in English is determined by its fixed word order within a sentence,
and to mark the place of the rheme, certain lexical, syntactic or morphological
means are used [7, 37]. In addition to the fact that the rheme of the English
sentence generally occurs at the beginning of a sentence, it can also be found
by the indefinite article, words only, merely, just, constructions it was… who,
and etc. Similarly, the words as, though, since indicate the theme of the
English sentence [9, 23]. Thus, it is important to analyze the text content in
terms of the actual division of sentences and search for an equivalent
syntactic structure that conforms to the standards of the target language.
The peculiarities of the technical texts studied above constitute
certain inferences for translator’s activity. Primarily, the language means
that allow for text objectiveness, logics and compactness of narration shall be
the prevailing features of technical translation [1, 67]. Another inherent
feature of technical texts is its special vocabulary and terms. The latter traditionally
have the equivalent translation listed in special dictionaries. As a result a
single word is considered to be the main unit in technical translation.
Consequently, the more common type of translation equivalent is single meaning
equivalent; the second popular equivalent is variant equivalent [1, 67]. As we
discussed previously in the article, the main task of a translator is precise
transfer of the author thought. Easy comprehension of the meaning of technical
texts is facilitated immensely if a translator is familiar with the subject of
the text and associated terminology. In addition, knowledge of the target
language terminology and technical texts style is an important condition to
produce a qualitative translation.
Demand in professional technical translators has grown immensely for
the last century as a result of expanding globalization in technical science
and production among other spheres of economy. At present time, translation of
technical texts constitutes the largest part of translators’ workload all over
the world. Consequently, translation of technical texts has become a relevant
topic for research. In this article we summarized the information on the
peculiarities of technical texts and associated inferences for translators.
These peculiarities are, primarily, objective, logic and consistent
presentation of information indicated by certain linguistic features. The most
obvious feature is special terminology for the main purpose of technical texts
is to communicate special information for occupational purposes. Various special
vocabulary and terms, as well as abbreviations and acronyms represent
considerable difficulty for translation and need careful examination. Our next
step in studying technical text translation was to outline the main types of
technical texts. The analysis of two different classifications led us to the
conclusion that different types of technical texts have different linguistic
peculiarities which again influence translation process. The syntactic
structure of technical texts is another important feature that determines the
specificity of translation. The main syntactic features of technical texts are
prevalence of passive voice, praesens generellis, compound sentences,
condensation of language structures, actual divisions of sentences and a high
level of sentence syntactic complexity in general. Having analyzed the
influence these peculiarities have on translation activity, we have come to the
following basic conclusions: more common unit of translation in technical translation
is a word unit, and the type of translation equivalent is single meaning equivalent;
complex nature of technical text syntactic structure determines the need to
transform it if required to ensure clear transfer of the meaning in the
translation; and knowledge of special vocabulary and terms as well as being
familiar with the subject of translation is a very important condition for
making equivalent translation of technical texts.
REFERENCES
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for Teachers and Translators. - Saint-Petersburg: Foreign Languages Institute,
2000.
2. Baakes, K., Key Issues of Syntax
in the Special Languages of Science and Technology, Julius Groos Verlag, 1994.
3. Chung T.M., Identifying
Technical Vocabulary, School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, Victoria Uni versity, PO Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand, 2004.
4. Dillon, A. & C. McKnight. Towards a Classification of Text
Types: a Repertory Grid Approach. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies,
1990.
5. Gauch, S. & Futrelle R. P. The Scientist’s Assistant:
Structure-Based Navigation of Technical Texts. University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 1993.
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Theory, Linguistics Aspects, Moscow, 1990.
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8. Zethsen K. K., The Dogmas of
Technical Translation - are They Still Valid? Hermes, 1999.
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