9.3. Translation of terms

Terms are defined as special highly conventional language units that are coined in order to reflect the results of the cognitive process in various branches of science and technology. A term is directly connected with the notion it denotes, so terms are easily created and replaced by new coinages due to the development of branches of science and technology which means that a translator must be prepared for their correct interpretation and translation. A translator has to deal with terms when translating specialist texts and sometimes in fiction where they are used to indicate the technical peculiarities of the subject described or to make reference to the occupation of a character.

As scientific terms are language units that have a strictly limited sense in a particular branch of human knowledge or practical activity, linguists point out important properties of terms which may influence their translation:

1) terms must be systemic, i.e. forming part and parcel of a clearly perceived terminological system;

2) they must be independent of a context or context-resistant;

3) they must be, ideally, monosemantic;

4) they must allow of only one interpretation, i.e. different users must not understand them in differing ways;

5) terms must have precise definitions;

6) terms must be brief, compact:

7) they must be stylistically neutral.

B.N.Klimzo who has vast experience in this field stresses that a translator often creates translation equivalents as quite often new terms are not registered in existing dictionaries. For this reason he stresses three basic requirements that are set to translate terms adequately. They are as follows: (a) to retain the brevity of a SL term; (b) to render precisely the notional content of a term and (c) not to create an equivalent that will coincide with some existing term in TL [Климзо 2006: 56-57].

Translation of terms greatly depends on peculiarities of their use in technical and scientific texts. In this connection it is possible to speak about the index of occurrence of terms in specialist texts. Relying on his experience B.N. Klimzo mentions the use of English terms in synonymic pairs which are characterized by a high index of occurrence in English specialist texts, e.g.

to improve and increase the efficiency – повысить КПД

to avoid and overcome the disadvantage – устранить недостаток

the object and purpose of the invention – цель изобретения

yet another and further object – еще один признак изобретений

The choice of various means in TL to translate terms can be best illustrated in the example of specialized parallel dictionaries of terms. At present translation dictionaries of terms can be divided into 2 groups:

• traditional translation linguistic dictionaries of terms,

• explanatory translation dictionaries of terms.

Dictionaries of the first type provide only linguistic information connected with synonyms, peculiarities of form, derivation, combinability (e.g. New English-Russian Dictionary of Legal Terms by Yu.F.Berezovenko, S.N.Berezovenko, et.al., Kiev 1993; English-Russian and Russian-English Dictionary of Management, Economics and Business by A.Ye.Dubovik, Minsk 2001; English-Russian Dictionary of Advertising Terms by I.S.Sedelnikov, M., 1994).

Dictionaries of the 2-nd type provide encyclopaedic and specialist information about respective notions which is of great importance to a translator. Such dictionaries are known as explanatory dictionaries and their number is growing today. The best known dictionaries of this type are ‘Explanatory English-Russian Dictionary of Currency and Credit Terms’ by B.V.Fedorov, M., 1993; ‘Explanatory Russian-English Dictionary of a Businessman’ by M.A. Baskakova, M., 1993; English-Russian Dictionary of Business Oxford Explanatory Dictionary’, M., 1995, English-Russian Banking, Investments and Financial Markets Dictionary by Ya. Mirkin, V. Mirkin, M., 2006.

The analysis of the entries in the dictionaries of the second type shows the advantages of the new approach accepted in translation dictionaries of terms. There are two trends that are active in the choice of correspondences: (a) foreignizing and (b) domesticating. Each of these trends influences the way of translation that is viewed as preferable; either retaining features of a SL unit or making a unit of translation adapt to the norms of a TL. Depending on the choice of the trend, there is a varied system of correspondences some of which are shown below:

1. ready TL equivalents, e.g. mortgage note – ипотечная ценная бумага (one-level full equivalents), gearing – передаточный механизм (equivalents of different levels);

2. variant correspondences, e.g. advice – авизо, уведомление, извещение; liquidated damages – оценочная неустойка, ликвидные убытки; заранее оцененные убытки;

3. borrowed translation –

a) transliteration: eurocredit – еврокредит, dumping – дэмпинг, ECU – ЭКЮ.

b) transcription – cash flow – кэш флоу («поток наличности»), day-trading – дей-трейдинг;

c) loan-translation – asset play – игра активами; bad and doubtful debts – безнадёжные или сомнительные долги.

4) periphrastic explanations – floor trader – член биржи, непосредственно участвующий в торге за свой счёт; delisting – прекращение котировки ценной бумаги (из-за невыполнения компанией определённых правил).

5) decoding as a means of handling a shortening that is translated in a different place of the dictionary, e.g. D-mark – Deutsche mark – немецкая марка.

6) combined translation:

a) borrowed translation + equivalent, e.g. counter-trade – «коунтертрейд», встречная торговля; straddle - «стрэддл», спред.

b) borrowed translation + periphrastic explanation, e.g. spot market – рынок «спот»: рынок реальных финансовых инструментов в отличие от рынка срочных контрактов; forward margin – форвардная маржа: скидка или премия к наличному курсу при заключении сделки.

c) decoding + cross-referential translation, e.g. T-bills = Treasury bills – казначейские векселя,

d) periphrastic explanation + cross references to another entry + translation, e.g. Baker countries – страны, на которые распространяется «план Бейкера»; см. Baker Plan – «план Бейкера»: план бывшего министра финансов США Джеймса Бейкера по урегулированию долговой проблемы, включая возобновление кредитования развивающихся стран (осуществляется с 1985 г.)

Translation of English terms into Russian in the given dictionary is often accompanied by different types of transformations including:

1. concretizing of meaning, e.g. cabinet crowd – кабинетные дилеры;

2) generalization of meaning, e.g. competitive trader – член фондовой биржи в Нью Йорке;

3) additions, e.g. to declare – объявить дивиденд, trade date – дата заключения или исполнения сделки;

4) omissions – annual reports and accounts – годовой отчёт компании,

5) grammatical substitutions (of forms of words, parts of speech), e.g. offering price – цена продавца, annual accounts – годовая отчётность.

There are some other advantages of such dictionaries as compared to traditional linguistic lexicographic sources. They offer detailed descriptions of terms that bring to light important nationally specific features of their content. Compare the English accounting and the Russian бухгалтерский учет. Their comparison shows that the two words do not coicide completely as the English one is broader: это более широкое понятие, которое включает не только регистрацию хозяйственных операций, но их аналитическую интерпретацию, подготовку специальной информации, аудит, налоговый учет [Ya. Mirkin, V. Mirkin 2006].

They also give information that helps users to map out semantic links between sets and clusters of related English and Russian terms. For example, the understanding and proper translation of balance of payments involves comparison with related terms national accounting, a double entry, balance of payments deficit, balance of payments surplus, capital account.

Much attention is also paid to linguistic and extralinguistic factors influencing translation, e.g. paper money – бумажные деньги, paperless payment instruments – электронные платежные инструменты (дебетовые карточки, кредитные карточки, электронный перевод средств и т.д.).

Thus, we can conclude that of great help to translator – philologists are dictionaries which reveal different types of professional knowledge including factual, declarative, procedural, etc that for a specialist often exists in the form of tacit knowledge and has to be made explicit for a dictionary non-specialist user.