Terminological Variation in Source Texts and Translations: A Pilot Study

Abstract

In this article, it is assumed that the choice of terminological variants in specialized source texts is sometimes cognitively motivated and that this motivation is reflected in the choice of equivalents in the target texts. On the basis of a pilot study, we will present a method for comparing the cognitively motivated terminological variants in source texts and their translations. The corpus in the pilot study is composed of three Galician source texts and their English translations. The texts are scientific articles addressing the economic effects of environmental disasters on fisheries. A quantitative study was first carried out in which the number of unique terms in each source text was compared to the number of unique translations of these terms. Next, each unique combination of a source term and its translation equivalent was subjected to a qualitative analysis. A value was manually assigned in order to qualify the “cognitive distance” between the source term and its translation. Based on these values and the frequency of the translation pair in each bitext, we computed the “interlingual variation index” (IVI). Differences in results between the bitexts are linked to extra-linguistic factors related to the translation processes.Dans le présent article, nous soutenons l’hypothèse selon laquelle le choix des variantes terminologiques dans les textes sources est parfois motivé sur le plan cognitif et que cette motivation est reproduite dans le choix des équivalents dans les textes cibles. À partir d’une étude pilote, nous présentons une méthode pour comparer les variantes terminologiques cognitivement motivées dans les textes sources et leurs traductions. Le corpus est constitué de trois articles scientifiques portant sur les conséquences économiques des catastrophes naturelles sur la pêche, écrits originairement en galicien et traduits ensuite en anglais. Nous avons d’abord comparé quantitativement le nombre de termes uniques dans chaque texte avec le nombre de traductions uniques de ces termes. Nous avons ensuite entrepris une analyse qualitative de chaque paire terme source – terme équivalent, dans laquelle nous avons caractérisé la distance cognitive entre ces deux termes à l’aide d’une valeur numérique. À partir de ces valeurs et de la fréquence des paires de traduction dans chaque bitexte, nous avons calculé l’index de variation interlangue (IVI) de chaque texte. Finalement, nous avons mis en relation les différents résultats entre les bitextes avec des facteurs extralinguistiques concernant le processus de traduction

Term and translation variation of multiword terms

“…Although some MWTs are fixed, it is evident that most of them are very often prone to variation (e.g. air/atmospheric/air-borne/airborne pollutant), as has been explained in different studies (Bowker 1998;Fernández-Silva & Kerremans 2011;Daille 2017;Giacomini 2018;Gledhill & Pecman 2018;Cabezas García & Chambó in press;inter alia).…”

Metodología para la traducción de términos compuestos mediante corpus

“…Este tipo de términos constituye uno de los principales problemas de traducción de los textos especializados (Daille et al, 2004;Fernández Silva y Kerremans, 2011;Maniez, 2008;Montero Martínez y García de Quesada, 2003). A ello contribuyen su complejidad estructural, semántica y cognitiva, además de los diferentes patrones de codificación de cada lengua.…”

Rendering English pharmacological terms into Ukrainian: Translation and didactic dimensions

“…The comparative analysis of the terminological entries in the machine memory and the traditional dictionaries [15] allowed concluding that the information in the machine translation system should be more elaborate as compared to the paper dictionaries. The machine translation researchers might also be interested in the idea of a translation-oriented typology of technical texts [16], as this issue is directly related to Terminology Studies and terminological databases. Some papers are devoted to the research into the impact of various factors upon the choice of the TT equivalents for the ST terminology.…”

“…The bulk of the research on the relationship between terminology and translation is also relevant for translator training. The idea of the translation-oriented typology of technical texts [16], which has already been mentioned earlier, may be important to select texts for translator training in a specific domain. The aim of translator training, among other things, involves the acquisition of the subject knowledge related to the widest possible range of the most frequent domains, whose progression in the actual translation course could be based on the gradual increase of their notional and linguistic complexity.…”

“…The implementation of this principle automatically raises the issue of the texts typology, whose main criteria involve the distinction in the corresponding text structures in the source and target languages. According to some authors [16], the successful solution of this problem requires additional contrastive research involving specific language pairs. Among the disciplines adjacent to pharmacology, several studies concerned medical translation.…”