Technical translation

INTRODUCTION

General characteristic of work. Globalization in economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan, development of oil industry as large oil-producing branch of the country, an investment of the world's largest companies in this branch makes impact not only on the economic growth of the country, but also on increasing interest to study English and Kazakh languages. It is no coincidence that the twenty-first century is called as the Age of Kazakh oil, in turn, English language in the Republic of Kazakhstan together with the Kazakh language is called the language of oil.

Due to global changes in economy of sovereign Kazakhstan, in particular with successes in development of its oil and gas sector with participation of the international organizations, there are many terms in this area in Kazakh language. It caused them to organize, classify, and therefore also caused thorough study of the linguistic point of view.

It is known that oil takes a leading place in world fuel and energy economy, and is the most important power source. The share of raw materials continuously grows in the general consumption of energy resources. The most part of the interstate relations which are realized by translators is connected with oil and gas branch. Besides, several hundred thousands of people are connected with this sphere and render legal, financial, marketing and many other services to the main production. For last years considerable and essentially important changes that promoted expansion of lexical and terminological material happened in the petrochemistry, oil production and refining field. Understanding special vocabulary features increases quality of all service unit, reduces time for search of optimal solutions in a dynamic market.

Now in linguistics the tendency to more careful research of terms that is connected with development of economic, sociopolitical, cultural attitudes between the states is observed. Special interest is represented with oil-and-gas terminological lexicon. Research is devoted to studying of a structural-semantic paradigm of oil-and-gas terminology of English and Kazakh languages in comparative aspect.

Indeed, from the earliest time when the Kazakh people appeared on the historical stage to this day, their greatest and inalienable treasure is undoubtedly their native language, called in Kazakh “ana tili” - the mother tongue, language imbibed with mother’s milk.
Many world-renowned linguists believe that Turkic languages have a clear common origin with the language of the ancient Sumerians, the Etruscans and even the Mayan language, which today is almost unquestioned. Language can be likened to a family tree book, in which the national history is depicted by the universe of words and meanings. Studies of genetic and typological links between related languages allow visualizing and objectively reconstructing a picture of ethnic groups, development of nations. Moreover, given that the nations and ethnicities of the Altaic language family (including along with the Turkic language, Mongolian, Manchu-Tungus, and even Japanese and Korean) in the second millennium BC spoke the same language, and that the Altaic family and the world’s most widespread Indo-European family make up single Nostratic macrofamily, it is easy to suggest a “linguistic roar” in the history of the Eurasian supercontinent and whose “tamgas” determined its major landmark milestones.
Language and nation are inseparable concepts, and therefore a language’s ups and downs naturally depend on the vitality of the people creating it. The language of a growing and developing nation is thriving, that of a dying nation disappears. The linguistic theory has long had an eerie term “dead languages” including not only the languages of small nations and tribes, but also great ones in terms of their place and role in the history of planetary civilization, like Sanskrit, Coptic, Avestan, Hun and even Latin. While calling these languages absolutely hopeless and lifeless would not be quite true: despite the fact that they have long fallen into disuse and no one speaks them, these languages are the progenitors, historical antecedents and fertile ground for many new and modern languages.
Classical Latin as the official language of ancient Rome, ruling over the inhabited world over thousands of years has left an indelible mark on human history and now serves the public life of the tiny territory of the Vatican. But it was exactly this language that engendered Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, spoken by the vast majority of modern Western civilization.
Five thousand years of Chinese history is a history of gradual unification of countless different tribes and genetically heterogeneous peoples, who spoke as countless different languages. The fact that even today the Chinese literary language (putonghua) significantly differs from dozens of local dialects affects the quality of mutual understanding in Chinese interethnic communication and gives us reason to believe that the process of leveling and consolidation of the Chinese dialects is continuing in the early XXI century.
In an era of Turkic domination in Eurasia in the wake of the flowering of the Great Turkic khanate, the Turkic language also survived a series of apogees. Ancient Turks invented the then world’s most advanced writing and engraved the history of the ancestors in immortal lyrics on rocks. Single root of modern Turkic languages spoken by six independent nations - the Turks, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Azeris, Kirghiz, Turkmen, as well as over thirty other ethnic groups totaling about 200 million people is the language of ancient Turks. In 1969, the Institute of Linguistics of the USSR Academy of Sciences released the Old Turkic dictionary of more than 20 000 words and phrases only from the texts of ancient Turkic, so-called “runic” monuments dating back to VII-XII centuries. The scale of the lexical richness of the ancient Turks’ language can be figured out by this comparison: the world literature classic, Shakespeare, who died in the XVII century, used a total of 15 000 words in all his works.
The rise of the Arabic language in different parts of the world began in the VII century. Arabic language, which is now the native language of about 300 million people and the language of the Qur’an for more than 1.5 billion Muslims throughout the world, had a significant impact on the development of the Kazakh language. Equally beneficial contribution to the development of the Kazakh language was made by the Persian language, origins of which are traced back as far as the second millennium BC.
We have taken this brief trip in the history of languages for the sole purpose of reminding once again that a language has a full-blooded life and develops only if it enjoys protection and support of its people – its creator and speakers. The most recent, inspiring example of such effective care that is really worth following is the fate of Hebrew, which in the XVIII century was uniquely recognized a dead language, but thanks to rational efforts of patriots rose like a phoenix from the ashes and in the second half of the twentieth century was declared the official language of Israel. All this reinforces our original thesis that careful preservation, reproduction and development of mother tongue as a great heritage of ancestors is the most direct, inalienable and noble mission of every nation.
The last but one 10-volume Dictionary of the Kazakh language was released nearly 25 years ago, which naturally gives rise to some questions. How has our native language been living over the quarter century and what are its achievements? How is it faring now and what is its future? How well is it developed compared with other languages? We’ll try and answer them.
The current “snapshot” of the global ethno-linguistic situation shows that most people throughout the world speak English after Chinese. It is a mother tongue to about 500 million people and more than 1 billion people use it as a second language - macrointermediary. One of the most authoritative English language dictionaries is a 20-volume Oxford Dictionary published in 1989 has 600 000 words. During the next twenty years the English have been painstakingly working on its new edition, which is scheduled to be completed in 2017 and include about one million words and phrases. It is interesting to note that 70% of English words are borrowed ones.
The Great dictionary of French, which until the early twentieth century was an international language, contains 800 000 words and meanings.
Among the most common languages in the world, the position of the German language remains strong and competitive. Composed by German scientists a ten-volume dictionary of the German language includes 200 000 words and about 300 000 meanings.
The comparison of basic lexicographical parameters of these three languages suggests a clear conclusion – societies with highly developed science and education, literature and art have a highly developed language, in other words, rich nations have rich languages.
Among the great languages of the world is the Russian language. What is the strength of the “great and mighty” language, where does its inexhaustible source of replenishment lie in? I think that its strength is in borrowing, and the source – in foreign languages. I’d like to draw your attention to an interesting fact – enlargement of the vocabulary of a popular Russian dictionary by S.Ozhegov that has undergone more than 20 publications: 50 000 words in 1949, 53 000 in 1960, 57 000 in 1972, 70 000 in 1989, 75 000 in 1994.
If the first large, the most comprehensive dictionary of Russian language, which was released in the late eighteenth century (1789-1794), called the “Dictionary of the Russian Academy”, consisted of 40 000 words (I deliberately leave out another academic dictionary of Russian Language, edited by J. K. Grote , released a century later, which contained only 20 000 words), a large academic dictionary of modern Russian literary language of 17 volumes already contained more than 120 000 words (1948-1965), and its latest edition, which is considered the most comprehensive historical and explanatory dictionary reflecting the richness of the Russian literary language from Pushkin to Brodsky - over 150 000 words (cf. the Russian poetic genius Pushkin used 26 000 words in his works).
In 2009 Big Dictionary of Modern Russian of 180 000 words and phrases came out. The growing dynamics of these figures shows that for two-plus centuries the vocabulary of the Russian language increased by 4.5 times, which was due to bold and active borrowing from other languages. If until the XVIII century, main suppliers of loan words in Russian language were German, Greek, Hebrew, Turkic languages, with the development of technology the share of borrowings from the German, French and English languages has increased. This case is more evidence to the correlation in question: the innovative growth of the Russian language is directly linked to the rise of Russian science and education. In this respect I fully agree with the thoughtful opinion of academician A.Shakhmatov that “the history of Russian literary language is the story of gradual development of Russian education”.
The development of the Russian language was influenced by Turkic languages. The scale of this impact is significant, since only the lexical fund (let alone other layers of the language) of Turkic loan words in Russian language is over 2 000 words, as, for example, indicated in the Vocabulary of Turkisms in Russian by E.Shipova published in 1976.
Now back to the level of the Kazakh language in the new XXI century, and how changes in it were comprehended and reflected in the dictionary lying open before you.
As mentioned above, the most recent full-scale Academic Dictionary of the Kazakh language in ten volumes was developed in 1974-86. It has 66 994 words and 24 508 phrases that make up a total of 91 502 lexical units, and interprets over 103 000 meanings. Illustrative material in the entries were examples and quotations from 2 500 literary sources, written by over one thousand individual and corporate authors, total number of examples is close to 250 thousand. Long out-of-print dictionary can now be found in private and public libraries these days and has actually become a rarity, but the main thing is that it has deservingly served the society, wholly fulfilling its historic mission.
Since Kazakhstan gained independence, social, political, scientific, technological, spiritual and humanitarian life of the country has undergone tremendous changes. Whole classes of new concepts and terms in different areas of life were formed and came into use. Information technology has quickly ushered in daily practice. Uncontrollable winds of globalization have roiled the language ocean and unprecedentedly sped up the process of cross-language interchange. All this has naturally led to the enrichment of Kazakh language and replenished its vocabulary. The time was ripe for a new explanatory dictionary of modern Kazakh literary language, and the state specifically articulated and put this task before the government and scientists.
In 2002 the culture, information and public accord ministry in collaboration with the Institute of Linguistics of RK NAS started work on these important projects of nationwide significance. He was successfully completed in 2011 and resulted in a 15-volume Dictionary of the Kazakh literary language, released on the eve of the anniversary celebrations in honor of the glorious 20th anniversary of Independence of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
The Kazakh language appeared at the world stage at the crest of the great millennial tradition, inherited from Kyultegin and Tonyukuk, Bukhar-zhyrau and Makhambet, Abai and Mukhtar Auezov, rose to new heights in this century of freedom, independence and democracy. Together with the Kazakh nation, aspiring to the highest standards in science, business, culture and art, it has opened up new horizons for functional development.
Evaluating this success, it is useful to compare quantitative parameters achieved by our foreign colleagues working on similar lexicographic projects. For example, in 2008 Uzbekistan issued a five-volume Dictionary of the Uzbek language of 80 000 words and phrases, which caused a great patriotic enthusiasm in the fraternal republic. In 2011 published was a two-volume dictionary of the Kyrgyz language with 50 000 words and expressions. When in 2010 Turkey published the 11th edition of the Turkish dictionary, which contains 92 292 words and explains 122 423 meanings, we frankly rejoiced together with Anatolian counterparts.

In 15 volumes of the Dictionary of Kazakh literary language there are 92 300 words and 57 856 phrases, which together account for more than 150 thousand lexical units. The dictionary explained 166 612 lexical meanings. In fact, this is a concrete contribution of the current generation of Kazakhs to the cause of careful preservation of linguistic heritage of their ancestors and full ordering and scientific classification, subject to a great purpose - to pass this centuries-old baggage to the young.
If one of the pillars of the country’s independence and unity of the people is the language, and the main content of the language as a priceless treasury of national historical experience is its vocabulary, the current dictionary is the repository of this fund.
The value of any dictionary is predetermined by social and practical daily need to name things, persons, facts, phenomena and processes. Just as all animate and inanimate in the environment is explained through the language, all vital functions of the individual and society are described in words. Hence, each Kazakh language speaker is vitally interested in having at his/her disposal a rich, accurate and fruity vocabulary. Reasoning from this fact, the team of the dictionary’s authors tried to include as many as possible words and lexical-phraseological units prescribed by norms of the literary language to identify everyday objects, phenomena, events and psychological states of people, means of subjective evaluation, etc. Terms, professional and dialect words, which are infrequent in popular language, were entered only after careful selection by experts.
Significant place in the wordlist is given to terms of medicine, finance and market economics, politics and law, most frequently used in the media and in active and regular practice in public speech.
The experts seriously selected lexical arrays, reflecting ethnic and cultural values, emotional states, specifically, regional economic types, topography, flora and fauna features, etc. The primary criterion was based on the principle of “golden mean”, according to which lexical units most frequently used in oral folk literature and in literary books were selected. By a similar principle, entered on the wordlist were idioms, regionalisms (dialectisms), elements of the ancient and modern vernacular.
The most crucial and difficult part of a dictionary entry for any lexicographer is explanation of te meaning of a word. The dictionary presents about 20 thousand different types of notes and collected illustrative fund of around 600 thousand citations.
Successful and winning was forwarding of names of plants and animals, as well as socio-political lexicon, along with popular and everyday interpretation with scientific names, which gives the publication encyclopedic features, i.e. although, designed for a general reader, the dictionary has a weighty scientific and educational burden.
Being a product of strict scientific linguistic research, the dictionary at the same time meets wide social and cultural needs of the population. The dictionary has a lot of information on household, economic and socio-political life of Kazakhstan’s society, traditional culture and spiritual and aesthetic basics of our people, national character, relations with other peoples and countries. Therefore, the authors hope that the dictionary will serve as a good tool for university and secondary school teachers and students, writers and translators, politicians and businessmen, representatives of many other professions and occupations.
Compiling of dictionaries is a most complicated craft that requires great diligence, long search, inexhaustible enthusiasm and extraordinary patience. All these qualities are well displayed by the staff of the Institute of Linguistics, who working on the dictionary were not limited to a mechanical collection of material, but through rigorous systematization of linguistic forms and meanings at the new stage of development have codified norms of literary language, and thus set a new standard of advanced culture and language of speech, appropriate to the changed time.
This set of lexicographic practice has incorporated several periods of the national language’s development, and is the most comprehensive and largest explanatory dictionary of the Kazakh language in terms of its scale, content, and illustrative material today. The Big dictionary of Russian language, over which Russian scientists have been working for 35 years, includes 180 000 words, including dialect, while the Kazakh literary language dictionary contains 150 000 words, with a focus, as the name suggests, on the literary language vocabulary, which means that further reserves for replenishing the dictionary are far from being exhausted that we consider the task of the next phase.
Based on the foregoing, we are inclined to believe that the authors of the dictionary have properly performed their duty to strengthen the position of Kazakh as the state language, to meet social and linguistic needs and demands of the society, to conduct scientific study of the lexical resources of the Kazakh language, collect, classify, systematize and publish information, which will serve as material for new and multi-field scientific developments.

The topicality of research subject is caused by need study an equivalence of multilingual lexemes and features of special words' formation belonging to refining industry. A rash growth of quantity of terminological units in post-war time with intensive development of oil-extracting and oil-processing industry, with development of petrochemistry, engineering promoted to create of numerous encyclopedic editions and dictionaries on studied subject. Contradictory pattern of information in literature of this sort causes a number of discrepancies and inaccuracies in the translation special literature and technical documentation, as well as big difficulties in communication of oil experts. Similar problems come up against the need to streamline and unify the complex terms related to the oil and gas industry. However, the effective unification of the term system should be based on pre-linguistic research as to create an exact term system it is necessary to determine consistent patterns of natural formation and development of terminology and highlight its special features. Such comparative studying is caused by currently term system of investigated branch is enriched not through intermediate language (Russian) as it was in Soviet times, but directly from English, the most developed term system, which connected with international integration term systems. In this work we made attempt of multidimensional study of special heterogeneous units, oil and gas terminology in English and Kazakh languages ​​in semasiological, onomasiological aspects, as well as a comprehensive analysis of connections and relations which exist between these lexemes.

The object of research is unicomponent and multicomponent terms of oil and gas of English and Kazakh languages.

The subject of research is structural-semantic, motivational and functional characteristics of unicomponent and multicomponent terms of oil-and-gas branch in considered languages.

For research of specificity of a lexico-semantic field «oil and gas» have served as a material the terms of English and Kazakh languages selected from dictionaries which quantity has made approximately 2200 units.

The aim of the research consists in multilane linguistic research and the description of sources of formation, ways of formation terms structural-semantic, nomination- motivational and functional properties of terms of oil and gas on a material of English and Kazakh languages.

Methods of research a terminological material in view of its specificity descriptive, synchronously-comparative, structural-semantic, quantitative methods, reception of elementary statistics, reception of continuous sample were applied.

The scientific novelty of research consists that the lead structural-semantic analysis of oil-and-gas terminology promoted consideration of origin, formations and developments fields of term of oil and gas in English and Kazakh languages with attraction cultural-historic facts, to allocation of the case of oil-and-gas terms, carrying out the description of structural, -derivational and functional characteristics, to research of ways of formation of terms of studied terminology.

The theoretical importance of research consists in fixing and investigated scientific sub continuums, revealing of their semantic-conceptual, structural and functional features which are growing out influence of extra linguistic and linguistic factors, in the decision of a problem of terminology English of results of work and Kazakh languages in sphere of extraction and oil refining and gas.

Practical using results of the research can be used at reading special courses on lexicology and terminology, by development of rates under the intercultural communications, at drawing up of terminological dictionaries.

In the first chapter of the research work “Formation of terms of oil-and-gas branch in English and Kazakh languages and their structural organization” represents a statement of theoretical base of research and generalization of various approaches in understanding of concept of terms of oil-and-gas branch in compared languages. Comparative the analysis of terms is carried out at different language levels; in the sum methods of the comparative analysis at considered levels allow to put and solve many theoretical problems of terminology, and also applied problems of selection and unification of terms. For two system of terminology considered English and Kazakh languages presence of the general lexical sets, logic, structural and semantic properties of terms is characteristic. The uniform principle of formation system of terminology occurs due to presence: international terms in the specified languages. In research are revealed term systems: “Oil extracting”, “petrochemistry”, “petroleum-refining industry”, “extraction of gas”, “designing”.

In the second chapter of the research “Ways of formation of terms of oil-and-gas branch” on a material of terms of oil-and-gas branch are considered ways of their formation: syntactic (creation of terminological word-combinations), lexical (loan of terms from English language and creation of tracing-papers), semantic (reconsideration of a word available in the Kazakh language on Englishcognitiveto a basis.).

In the conclusion results of the detailed consideration of oil-and-gas terminology lead by research on a material of English and Kazakh languages that represents the big interest by virtue of that investigated languages are typologically and genetically various are generalized. The terminological lexicon of English and Kazakh languages is not homogeneous and shares on two various categories of words on character: the scientific terminology always connected with definitions of corresponding concepts and professional terminology, having nomenclature character. Research of an actual material testifies that in the stylistic attitude terminology is non-uniform. It is necessary to note, that those or other terms are expressive only as members of all dictionary structure as a whole. Formation of new terms promotes transfers of the information which finds the unequivocal maintenance and expression in different languages. At formation of terms connection of two waysformation of terminology - lexical and semantic when there is a loan of speaking another language brief terminological unit and the multicomponent term together with concept is observed.

The perspective of the prospects is connected with the further studying structural and semantic features of oil-and-gas terminology in Kazakh.

Technical translation

Technical translation is a type of specialized translation involving the translation of documents produced by technical writers (owner's manuals, user guides, etc.), or more specifically, texts which relate to technological subject areas or texts which deal with the practical application of scientific and technological information. While the presence of specialized terminology is a feature of technical texts, specialized terminology alone is not sufficient for classifying a text as "technical" since numerous disciplines and subjects which are not "technical" possess what can be regarded as specialized terminology.^[1] Technical translation covers the translation of many kinds of specialized texts and requires a high level of subject knowledge and mastery of the relevant terminology ^[2] and writing conventions.

The importance of consistent terminology in technical translation, for example in patents, as well as the highly formulaic and repetitive nature of technical writing makes computer-assisted translation using translation memories and terminology databases especially appropriate. In his book Technical Translation Jody Byrne argues that technical translation is closely related to technical communication and that it can benefit from research in this and other areas such as usability and cognitive psychology.^[3]

In addition to making texts with technical jargon accessible for a wider ranging audience, technical translation also involves linguistic features of translating technological texts from one language to another.^[4]

Translation as a whole is a balance of art and science influenced by both theory and practice.^[5] Having knowledge of both the linguistic features as well as the aesthetic features of translation applies directly to the field of technical translation.

As a field, technical translation has been recognized, studied, and developed since the 1960s.^[6][7] Stemming from the field of translation studies, the field of technical translation traditionally emphasized much importance on the source language from which text is translated. However, over the years there has been a movement away from this traditional approach to a focus on the purpose of the translation and on the intended audience.^[8] This is perhaps because only 5-10% of items in a technical document are terminology, while the other 90-95% of the text is language, most likely in a natural style of the source language.^[9] Though technical translation is only one subset of the different types of professional translation, it is the largest subset as far as output is concerned. Currently, more than 90% of all professionally translated work is done by technical translators,^[10] highlighting the importance and significance of the field.

The role of the technical translator is to not only be a transmitter of information, but also to be a constructor of procedural discourse and knowledge through meaning, particularly because oftentimes, the technical translator may also take on the role of the technical writer.^[11] Research has demonstrated that technical communicators do, in fact, create new meaning as opposed to simply repackaging (198) old information. This emphasizes the important role that technical translators play in making meaning, whether they are doing technical translation in one language or in multiple languages.^[12]

Much like professionals in the field of technical communication, the technical translator must have a cross-curricular and multifaceted background. In addition to grasping theoretical and linguistic orientations for the actual translation process, an understanding of other subjects, such as cognitive psychology, usability engineering, and technical communication, is necessary for a successful technical translator.^[13] Additionally, most technical translators work within a specialized field such as medical or legal technical translation, which highlights the importance of an interdisciplinary background.^[14] Finally, the technical translators should also become familiar with the field of professional translation through training.^[15]

Technical translation requires a solid knowledge base of technological skills, particularly if the translator chooses to utilize computer-assisted translation (CAT) or machine translation (MT). Though some technical translators complete all translation without the use of CAT or MT, this is often with pieces that require more creativity in the document. Documents dealing with mechanics or engineering that contain frequently translated phrases and concepts are often translated using CAT or MT.^[16]

Practitioners within the field of technical translation often employ what is called machine translation (MT), or machine-assisted translation. This method of translation uses various types of computer software to generate translations from a source language to a target language without the assistance of a human.^[17] There are different methods of machine translation. A plethora of machine translators in the form of free search engines are available online. However, within the field of technical communication, there are two basic types of machine translators, which are able to translate massive amounts of text as a time. There are transfer-based and data-driven machine translators. Transfer-based machine translation systems, which are quite costly to develop, are built by linguists who determine the grammar rules for the source and target languages. The machine works within the rules and guidelines developed by the linguist. Due to the nature of developing rules for the system, this can be very time-consuming and requires an extensive knowledge base about the structures of the languages on the part of the linguist; nonetheless, the majority of commercial machine translators are transfer-based machines.^[18] Yahoo! BabelFish is a common example of a platform that uses this type of translation technology.^[19]

Data-driven machine translators, also known as statistical-based machine translators, work by aggregating massive amounts of previously translated bits of information, and uses statistical analysis to determine matches between the source language and target language with the previously aggregated corpora. This method is less expensive and requires less development time than transfer-based machine translation, but the generated translation is often not to the same quality as transfer-based translation.^[20] The translation services offered through Google use transfer-based translation technology.^[21]

For technical translators without access to expensive machinery, the Internet hosts many online translation sites that are either free or require a small fee. Some research has been done in order to test the effectiveness of various online translation tools. In one article, researchers looked at the success of online machine translators in retrieving appropriate search results. Looking at Google translator, Babelfish (previous to the merge of Babelfish and Yahoo!), Yahoo!, and Prompt, test searches were based on translating key search words and comparing the search results with a monolingual search. Using computer-based statistical analysis, the results showed that translated search results were only 10% less effective than a monolingual search, making the translated search fairly successful in retrieving appropriate information. However, the success in this particular study was only possible when English was one of the target languages.^[22]

Other research points to the effectiveness of machine translation when paired with human interaction. In a mixed methods experiment, researchers first examined the effectiveness of machine translations using statistical analysis and then used subjects to test out a new type of machine translation (TransType2) that required human interaction as a part of the translation process. The results of the experiment showed that human interaction is a vital supplement for overall accuracy in machine translations. This research demonstrates the importance of the role that technical translators can play in the process of translating technical documents.^[23]

While no machine translation device is able to replicate or replace the dynamics of a human translator,^[24] machine translation certainly poses important advantages. In fact, there are many practical uses for and implications of machine translation for the field of technical translation. Machine translation has major cost advantages as compared to human translation. In fields of technical communication where information is constantly changing, for example, the stock market or jobs related to the weather, the cost of paying a human translator to constantly update information would become quite expensive. Additionally, situations that involve translating massive volumes of information over a short period of time, or situations that require speedy and frequent communication would benefit from machine translation. In such circumstances, a machine translator would be advantageous from a financial perspective.^[25]

Just as important as proper translation of linguistic qualities of languages is the subject of culture and how specific cultural features are transferred and communicated in the field of technical translation. In fact, a mutual understanding of cultural components is just as important as linguistic knowledge in technical translation. This highlights the complicated nature of working with technical translation. Various cultures can exhibit drastic differences in how communication occurs, even when both cultures are working with the same target language. One Canadian technical translator and consultant working with Russian colleagues detailed difficulties while working with both North American English and global English. Encountering discrepancies in rhetorical writing strategies, differentiation in tones, document formatting issues, and conflicting conceptual goals for engineering reports, the author emphasizes cultural practices, outside of the direct realm of linguistic forms, that can impede proper communication in technical translation.^[26]

In an example using a commonly translated document, the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a researcher used correlation analyses, including semantic network analysis and spatial modeling, to interpret data describing differences among seven different translated versions of the document. Demonstrating how culture plays an important role in the process of technical translation, the results of the study showed that while the translations were fairly similar, cultural subtleties and differences existed in each language's translated version. For example, across the seven languages, common words such as "people", "individual", "man", "nation", "law", "faith", and "family' had differing levels of importance in relation to other words in the language. While in Arabic the word "man" exhibited high levels of importance in the text, other languages placed higher levels of importance with words such as "person" or "individual". In another example, the English word for "entitle" and the Chinese word for "enjoy" carried connotations attached to the concept of "rights",^[27] demonstrating a linkage of concepts unique to each individual language. Theses slight differences demonstrate the culturally specific nuances that exist across languages. As with any type of non-MT, it is still a process completed by human beings, making it impossible for total objectivity. International technical communication cannot ignore cultural differences, so seeing how the differences affect translation is fundamental for professionals in the field.^[28]

Additionally, one's cultural knowledge base, or lack thereof, can be detrimental to the effectiveness of communication, particularly when communicating warnings or risk factors. Considering how differing knowledge paradigms as a result of cultural factors can prompt people to respond in a variety of ways to different rhetorical strategies, particularly when communicating messages containing warnings of hazards or risks, understanding culture must be a priority in technical translation. One researcher found that a variance of definition of terms and inconsistent paradigms of cultural knowledge highlight the need for a new delineation of what technical writers consider as the target audience while communicating risk factors. What might be appropriate for one audience must be reconsidered for a culturally different audience.^[29] Looking at a specific example concerning the hazardous occupation of mining, one piece of research demonstrates how different cultures different perceptions about safety information. Comparing risk communication in mining in the United States and the United Kingdom, the researcher discovered variations among the perceptions of who is responsible for promoting safety in the workplace. While one culture felt that the user or worker was responsible for promoting his or her own safety in the workplace, another culture perceived the science behind the process or document to be responsible for the promotion of safety. As risks, warnings, or cautions are often important components of a technical document in need of translation, the technical translator will understand how such cultural differences can affect the effectiveness of the translated message.^[30] Avoiding assumptions about a culture and allowing one's own knowledge base to consider more diverse populations will create more effective cross-cultural communication not only when working with risky environments, but in general communication as well.

Some research has investigated the possibility of a universal writing style in order to help with the translatability of writing across different cultures and languages. However, demonstrating the difficulty of such a task, one researcher addressed the assumption that unambiguous wording eases effective communication. He gave examples from certain Asian contexts when unclear communication was actually helpful because the unequivocal language forced communicators to rely more heavily on oral discourse than on written documents.^[31] The example of the effectiveness about ambiguous language not only shows problems with a universal writing style for technical translation, but also reiterates another example of how culture plays an important role in proper technical translation.

In an age where technology allows for increased accessibility and faster communication, the technical translator must understand the role that culture plays in how people interact with, react to, and utilize technology and how these culturally related concepts can affect communicated messages.

Demonstrating how technology use differs across cultures, one researcher created a presentation that took a holistic look at preparing documents for ethnically diverse audiences, pointing out other non-linguistic topics that require special attention in communication across cultures. For example, the presenter noted items to be considered including measurement systems, types of graphics and symbols, and types of media presentation tools. The author also pointed out significant differences that would affect communication among English languages including paper layouts, spelling, meaning, and use of humor.^[32] This important and practical information can be used by professionals working with technical translation.

Additionally, technical translation involves understanding how the Internet has influenced different cultures across the globe. Varying languages, cultural influences on Internet usage patterns, and media preferences force professionals in the field of technical communication to utilize a number of different strategies in order to effectively reach diverse populations across the globe. With international online populations the technical translator must be culturally diverse in a technological sense.^[33]

Finally, as technology makes intercultural and international communication easier, the technical translator must understand intercultural communication as it relates to ethics. Traditional models for ethical decision-making can be applied to difficult situations in technical translation, but the professional must avoid stereotyping and ethnocentrism in technical communication and translation^[34].

Technical translation is the medium through which language, discourse and communication can exist in a global world.^[35] As technology creates easier and faster means of communication and the world moves toward becoming a global community, the need to communicate with people from multiple language backgrounds also grows. Rather than working with multiple languages, some have proposed the idea of using English as the primary language for global communication, making English the lingua franca^[36]—or a common world language. However, English as a lingua franca has various implications for the field of technical communication. Particularly for technical translators who are native speakers of English, there is the tendency to assume a unilateral stance on translation. In other words, the technical translator's objective is to translate to and from English, with the English message being the main focus. While English is a language of global communication, it is not the only language being used for communication, highlighting the importance of moving away from "singular perspective" of only communicating in English.^[37] The concept of maintaining technical communication in languages other than English is of particular significance in countries with high volumes of multilingual speakers. For example, research has shown that the English-speaking bias, due to the language's position as the lingua franca, within technical translation and communication has negatively affected native Spanish speakers in the United States. Lacking both in quality and quantity, user manuals for various electronic devices exemplified sub-par translations into Spanish, demonstrating the limited accessibility of certain technical documents to speakers of languages other than English, perhaps partly as a result of English as the lingua franca.^[38] Finally, when discussing English as a lingua franca it is noteworthy to mention what some researchers call "untranslatable" words^[39] and what that means for technical translation. Such words or phrases are composed of concepts that are not easily translated from one language to another. A word is considered "untranslatable" when there is either no direct corresponding word in the target language, requiring the word to be described or when important cultural connotations from the source language are not properly communicated through the target word. For example, a common example in English of an untranslatable word is the German word "schadenfreude", which means to exhibit joy as a result of someone else's misfortune. This word exemplifies untranslatability due to the lack of a corresponding word; however words can be untranslatable due to a lack of a corresponding word, loss of cultural meaning, or for both reasons.^[40] One study demonstrated that when faced with untranslatable words, technical translators resorted to avoidance tactics that evaded using the words altogether.^[41] The implications of untranslatable words and phrases suggest that the technical translation may not benefit from only utilizing English as a lingua franca, and rather, should focus efforts toward having more effective means of translating documents among multiple languages.

Date: 2016-01-14; view: 1480