Strategies

Naturally, the first and most appropriate strategy is to check the Internet to see if there is an existing authoritative translation. If you find one, use it. If not, you can do one of the following:

• Transfer. If the acronym is sufficiently well known you can retain the original SL acronym in the target text

• Reconstitute: Translate the full name into the TL and use this as the basis for creating an acronym in the TL This strategy is more suited to non-specialized acronyms, general texts or ad-hoc acronyms

• Define: If there is no way of transcribing or reconstituting the SL acro­nym, if it is not possible to reconstitute the acronym or where it makes more sense in the text to explain the acronym, you can replace the acronym with a definition. This is quite a useful method for rendering Latin abbreviations and acronyms into language where Latin is not used or is unknown.

• Combine: A combination of the transfer and definition strategies. This will usually only need to be done once in a text when the acronym is first used; afterwards, the SL acronym can be used on its own.

• Write out SL: A much less common approach which involves replacing an acronym with its full name in the SL. This approach would be appropriate in higher level texts where the target audience is familiar with or interested in the source culture and language.

• Translate: If an official or widely used translation of the full name exists and there is a corresponding acronym, they can be used instead of the SL acronym.

Formulae and Equations

Thankfully, in the vast majority of cases, any equations which appear in a text do not need to be modified by the translator; they are simply left untouched. It is useful to know, however, that equations can be presented in a number of different ways. This will assist us in recognizing information which is presented in a different form and help us understand the text.

One of the things that make algebra so powerful and useful for scientific and technical work is the ability to "rearrange" formulae so that another variable is the subject. At the same time, this ability can make formulae potentially more confusing for the unsuspecting translator. A practical example would be using the formula for calculating the volume of a box (V= wdh) to calculate the width of the box provided we know the volume, depth and height of the box. This would be done as follows:

• V = wdh

where: V = volume, w = width, d = depth, h = height

• divide both sides by d: V/d = wh « divide both sides by h: V/dh = w

• swap sides: w = V / dh

Although it is safe to say that a translator would never have to do this, knowing how equations can be manipulated can make texts a little easier to follow.

Equations are often included in texts as images and this means that even if we wanted to edit them, we would not be able to without using graphics editing software. Equations can also be inserted using special characters in word proces­sors (such as those found in Microsoft Word), using ASCII codes or using tools such as Microsoft Equation Editor. For this reason, it is a good idea to learn how to insert these characters on your own computer and using your own software in the event that a sentence contains one of the symbols contained in the equa­tion. This is also important if you are given a hardcopy of the source text instead of an electronic version.