20.3. Scientific-popular Translation (Lecture, Conversation, etc.)

Scientific-popular text, usually, is easier to translate, than a scientific one: syntactic structures are easier, however the communicative task is more complex, and consequently to inform and captivate the audience by this information, a greater variety of means is necessary.

Scientific-popular text contains a great number of cognitive information, and by a range of means, the information is rendered by, reminds a scientific text. At the same time a number of differences exist:

1. The number of terms scientific-popular text is much less, however, most of the words belong here to general scientific style.

2. Information density is lower, than in a scientific text.

3. The means providing objectivity of a statement: passive constructions, indefinite-personal and impersonal sentences, absolute present, – are used in much smaller volume.

4. The background of neutral written literary norm is also presented, but its borders are blurred, and deviations, especially towards spoken language, are numerous.

In a scientific-popular text, in comparison with a scientific one, special devices, aiming at winning readers’ interest, appear, these are:

1. Special devices creating effect of closest approach to the audience: narration from the first person; colloquial and even colloquial-vernacular lexicon; direct addressing to the audience, rhetorical questions of different kind, examples, humor.

2. Emotional-evaluative devices: lexicon with emotional-evaluative connotation, inversions, emphasizing evaluative components of a sentence, etc.

3. Inclusion of citations from other sources contrasting with the popular scientific text in typological attributes, in the text; fragments from works of art, articles, etc.

4. Phrasal units and figurative clichés, which fulfill the function, similar to their function in mass-media, – they facilitate content perception, including habitual figurative devices into the plot; deformations of phrasal units.

5. Collision of incompatible language devices to create the effect of unexpectedness or ironical coloring. The effect of unexpectedness allows concentrating attention on the main point; irony serves as means of emotional discharge in perceiving complicated material.

Means of rendering aesthetic information are diverse and borrowed first of all from the arsenal of fiction: input of conditional invented characters, use of epithets, comparisons and metaphors, in particular.

Conclusions: Dominating in translating scientific-popular speeches are the means, providing adapted presentation of cognitive information and maintaining interest in it: terms and lexicon of general scientific description which is rendered by mono-semantic equivalents and variant correspondences; passive constructions, impersonal and indefinite-personal sentences (it is not recommended to increase their number in translating, considering, that in Ukrainian and Russian their frequency in any text is lower). Colloquial, emotional-evaluative lexicon, emotional inversions, rhetorical questions, phrasal units and clichés are rendered by functionally corresponding means. Collision of incompatible language means is not necessarily rendered by preserving specific features, nut it is desirable to keep the principle of incompatibility causing adequate reaction of listeners.

Questions for discussion:

1. What are general features of scientific and tec hnical translation?

2. What are the peculiarities of translating at the performaces, seminars, lectures and reports?

3. What are the ways of resolving issues with terminological abbreviations (reductions, shortenings)?

4. How is scientific-popular translation executed?

5. What are the differences of interpreting during lecture and conversation?

Make sight translation of the following text: