Lectures 1-2

Scientific and
Technical (Sci-
tech) Translation
 Outline
1. Introduction
2. Some distinctions
3. Historical significance
4. Modern scientific and technical
translation
5. Some legal dimensions
6. A place for translation theory?
7. Recreating the source text
 Introduction
Scientific and technical translation is part of
the process of disseminating information on
an international scale, which is
indispensable for the functioning of our
(Pinchuck)
modern society.
Translation is an important driving force of modern society. It
facilitates the flow of ideas, expertise, values and other
information between different cultures. It is also essential for
scientific and technological advancement. In today’s information
age, the role of scientific and technical translation is more
important than ever.

Although in terms of translation

studies, scientific and technical
translation is just one of a
number of fascinating areas of
study, it is, however, an area of
translation which has had a
profound impact on society.
 The aim of this course is to
introduce the fundamental

1
features of scientific and
technical translation and
the skills needed to
engage in this type of
activity.
It is important to realize,
however, that the
terms scientific and techni
cal are not identical and
that the
expression scientific and
technical is not a
tautological reference to
 Some distinctions
Another reason is Pinchuck identifies three key
that the lines categories of information,
separating which provide the materials for
scientific scientific and technical
and technical translation:
texts are 1. The results of pure science;
becoming 2. The results of applied
increasingly scientific research carried out
blurred. in order to solve a particular
problem; and
3. The work of technologists,
which is intended to result in
 So, while a technical text is designed
Some distinctions to convey information as clearly and
effectively as possible, a scientific
text will discuss,
analyze and synthesize information with a
view to explaining ideas, proposing new
theories
Due to these or evaluating
differing aims, the methods.
language used in each type of text,
and consequently the strategies
needed to translate them, may vary
significantly.
It could even be said that scientific translation has just as
much to do with literary translation as it does with technical
translation.
Locke comprehensively dismantles the idea that there is no place for
individualism, style, metaphor and creativity in scientific discourse. He cites, for
example, the use of metaphors as a foundation of scientific language with terms
such as the Big Bang and the Greenhouse Effect owing their existence to the
creativity of scientists and writers. The implication of this for translators, then, is
that they must be able to recognize and negotiate culture-bound metaphors in
much the same way as literary translators must.
 Historical Significance
Technical translation’s long and colourful history
helps us understand its importance today.
Translation is practically as old as writing itself and for almost as long as
humans have been writing they have been translating. Indeed, evidence
of this can be found in ancient clay tablets containing bilingual
Sumerian-Eblaite glossaries (Deslisle & Cloutier). Some have gone so far
as to say, rather humorously, that translation is the “second oldest
profession”
In 1447,known to humanity
Johannes Gutenberg(Baer & Koby).what is widely credited as being
developed
the first moveable type printing system which revolutionized printing and
made it much easier to produce and, indeed, own books. That this
invention had such an impact on translation and the dissemination of
scientific and technical knowledge is due to the ensuing explosion in the
number of books produced in Europe. Tebeaux (1997) describes how,
during the English Renaissance, countless books were written on topics
such as medicine, farming methods, animal husbandry, fishing, gardening,
household management, horse riding, falconry, fencing, military science,
navigation, road building, carpentry, stained glass making and so on.
 The advent of printing also marked the start
of a new era in translation itself, which, it

2
could be argued, saw the way in which
translation was viewed and carried out
change quite significantly. In the centuries
before printing, there existed a manuscript
culture with texts being handwritten, and
fragile objects.
Texts, usually of a scientific or technical
nature, were copied by scribes and were
often modified, whether intentionally or
unintentionally, through the addition,
omission or modification of information.
At the time, translating lacked the standards
of accuracy and quality that we expect today
with the result that mistranslations or even
omissions of difficult passages were common
(Montgomery).
This changed quite significantly, however, with the
advent of relatively high volume printing as
facilitated by Gutenberg’s invention. Texts became
fixed – objects to be respected rather than ragged
scraps of vellum, which could be written and copied
by anyone. The process of printing texts on paper
and binding them gave the knowledge they
contained a legitimacy and permanency which had
rarely existed previously. In the case of translation,
the existence of a fixed and standardized source
text made translators more accountable for
omissions and mistranslations because it was easier
to consult the original source text. We could argue
that printing raised standards within scientific and
technical translation and that, ultimately, it was
instrumental in the emergence of various
translation theories and concepts such as
equivalence, faithfulness or loyalty and later
concepts such as adequacy.
Practical Exercise 1: The
language of science
Think of three major scientific
discoveries and find out who are the
main scientists associated with
them. What is the nationality and
working language of each scientist?
Now identify three products or
inventions that make use of one or
more of these discoveries and find
out in which country they were
made.
 Modern scientific and technical tr
anslation
Various factors over the centuries have changed
the way we look at technical translation today.
In today’s globalized economy, scientific and
technical translation in many respects represents
the backbone of international trade and the
scientific endeavour which fuels it. Virtually every
product sold or specialized service provided –
whether MP3 players, telephone conferencing
systems, luxury cars, flame retardant cladding
for use in the construction industry, online
shopping websites, mobile phone services or
designing a steel mill – will require the
involvement of scientific and technical
translators at some point in its lifecycle. This
involvement may come as early on as the design
and consulting phase, during development and
manufacture, as part of sales and marketing
It has been estimated that scientific and
technical translation now accounts for
some 90% of global translation output
(Kingscott). Of course, this figure is
unlikely to be completely accurate for a
number of reasons – one of which relates
to how we define scientific and technical
translation (Byrne).
However, even assuming that the figure
is exaggerated due to various
confounding variables, this figure is
unlikely to be too far off the mark. This is
all the more likely when we consider that
the localization industry, which
traditionally makes extensive use of
scientific and technical translators, is
estimated to be worth around US$12
Indeed, scientific and technical
translation forms such a crucial
part of modern industry and
society that it is the subject of
numerous laws, regulations and
directives and many
international scholarly scientific
journals, even those which
publish papers in various
languages, require translations
of abstracts at the very least.
Practical Exercise 2: Exporting languages
Make a list of the electrical appliances you have in your
home and note the countries in which they were designed
and/or built. With your national language at the centre,
draw a diagram illustrating the languages from which
documents relating to your appliances have been
translated.
Try to find some of the documentation that came with
these appliances. Are there any features, for example
style, subject, language or formatting which you think
would pose problems for a translator? If you had to
translate one document yourself, how would you
approach these features?
 Understanding how various legal factors affect how and
why we do our work.
One of the most compelling reasons for studying scientific
and technical translation is that in many cases the
translation of documents in these domains is an activity
which is required by law. In Europe, EU Council Resolution
C411 specifically states that in order to be able to legally
sell or distribute technical products and appliances,
all technical documentation relating to the product
must be translated into the language(s) of the country
where the product is to be sold (Council of the European
Union).
A result of the Directive is that products are only regarded

Some legal di
as being complete when they are accompanied by full
operating instructions in the users’ own language; if there

mensions
are problems or inaccuracies in the instructions, the
whole product can be regarded as defective. To put this
into perspective, any product that involves some form of
technology, be it electronic, electrical, mechanical,
chemical etc., must be accompanied by documentation in
a variety of languages. Assuming that few companies
have the resources to employ technical writers to
produce documentation in each of the languages
concerned, it is fair to say that there is a huge demand for
The translation of technical
documentation is also subject to a
range of other laws, regulations and
directives. Another provision of
Resolution C411 is that instructions
must be clear, comprehensible and
must provide clear warnings to prevent
misuse of products and to advise users
of possible risks and hazards. Since in
practice these translations are not
regarded as translations per se, but
rather as original target
Practical Exercise 3: Translation and liability
Consider the following scenario: When translating an
installation manual for a gas heater, a translator notices
that the source text contains a serious factual error. It
says that the gas supply must not be turned off before
starting work. It should have said that the gas
supply must be turned off. However, the translator
retains this incorrect information in the target text. An
engineer installing a gas heater follows the instructions
and as a result, the heater explodes, killing the engineer
and three other people who were working nearby.
What are the key issues to be considered in this case?
Who do you think is responsible for the deaths? Should
the translator be found negligent and fined/imprisoned?
Why? Are there any mitigating factors?
 A place for tr
anslation the
ory?
What can translation theory tell us about translating technical
documentation?

Translation theory has always been a problematic area of study.

Part of the problem is that it seeks to understand and explain
translation, which is itself a complex and notoriously difficult
concept to pin down. In the rush to explain the various facets of
translation - and possibly to justify translation as a discrete field
of study - a plethora of theories, models and approaches have
emerged, some of which are extremely insightful and useful,
but amidst the noise created by so much work it is sometimes
difficult to make sense of it all.
One of the most difficult aspects of translation theory is that scientific and
technical translation have traditionally been neglected by scholars and none
of the mainstream theories really addresses scientific and technical
translation specifically. Some models have been developed as general
theories of translation while others have emerged from particular types of
translation, such as literary translation or bible translation. As a result,
applying any of the available theories to scientific and technical translation is
fraught with difficulty.
Difficulties also arise because, as Chesterman points out, many theories of
translation adopt a binary approach to translation consisting of diametrically
opposed extremes. Some examples of this
include formal vs. dynamic equivalence (Nida &
Taber), semantic vs. communicative (Newmark)
and covert vs. overt (House). While this approach certainly serves to make
the theories neater and easier to describe, it represents a rather
oversimplified vision of the translation process. Translation inevitably involves
shades of grey – new scenarios, unusual combinations of factors and so on –
which means that trying to shoe-horn a translation into one category or the
other is often uncomfortable, if not impossible. Conversely, having too many
categories or options can make classifying a particular translation scenario
equally challenging.
While a lot of valuable work has been done in the field of LSP (Language for
Special Purposes) and text typologies, which help us to understand why and
Recreating the source
text
Traditionally, the source text has been regarded as the
most important element in translation, particularly as it
is the starting point for the whole process and the basis
upon which target texts are produced. The prevailing
view has been that, for a translation process to exist
there has to be a source text, otherwise we would not
be translators, we would be writers. In recent years,
however, the focus of translation theory has,
particularly in non-literary spheres, shifted away from
frameworks based on the source text towards a more
communicative approach. This means that translation is
increasingly being regarded as a communicative
process and, as such, the guiding factors are the
message and recipient, i.e. the content and the target
audience. This change of focus has made the study of
The emphasis on the source text is perhaps most
apparent in the numerous definitions and types
of equivalence, which all rely on one thing: a link or
bond of some sort between the source text and the
target text. It is this relationship that, according to
Kenny (1998:77), allows the target text to be
considered a translation of the source text. As Catford
explains, “the
The focus in TL text must
equivalence beon
theory relatable
the needtotoat least
have a
some of
strong thebetween
link situational
the features to which
source and targetthe SL text
texts is is
relatable”. taken to extremes, however, with the
unfortunately
result that the source text can erroneously be regarded
as the most important component in the translation
process, with translators striving to create as close a
replica of the source text as possible. Indeed, some
would argue that it should be the sole guiding principle
for translators. Taking this approach to its natural
conclusion, we would have a situation where we could
never separate the source text and target text; the
While this is clearly problematic in many ways, to deny that there must be
at least some link would also be misguided. Quite simply, without the source
text there can be no translation. While this relationship can, to a certain
extent, be abused through, for example, an insistence on excessively literal
translations motivated out of an unquestioning and sometimes misguided
loyalty to the author, often to the detriment of the target language (TL)
reader, the fact remains that the source text forms the basis for the
translation.
Perhaps the most well known types of equivalence are formal and dynamic
equivalence proposed by Nida in 1964. Formal equivalence is concerned
with the message in terms of its form and content. With this type of
equivalence the message in the TL should match the different elements in
the source language as closely as possible, be they lexical, syntactic,
stylistic, phonological or orthographic. According to Catford, a formal
correspondent (or equivalent) is “any TL category (unit, class, structure,
element of structure, etc.) which can be said to occupy, as nearly as
possible, the ‘same’ place in the ‘economy’ of the TL as the given SL [source
language] category occupies in the SL” (Catford).
Dynamic equivalence, on the other hand, is based on the notion that
the TT should have the same effect on its audience as the ST had on its
own audience. With dynamic equivalence, the emphasis is not so much on
finding a TL match for an SL message but rather on creating the same
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