The Importance of Technical Translation

It has been estimated that technical translation accounts for some 90% of the world’s total translation output each year (Kingscott 2002:247). This is unsurprising given the importance attached to the availability of technical information in a variety of languages, motivated partly by the increasingly international focus of many companies and partly as a result of legislation such as Council of the European Union Resolution C411 (1998a), EU Directive 98/37/EC (Council of the European Union 1998b) and Council Directive 93/42/EEC (1993) and international standards such as EN 292-2: 1991 and EN 62079: 2001 to name just a few.

These represent just some of the various laws, directives and regulations across the world that require the provision of comprehensive, accurate and effective technical documentation in a variety of languages. Coupled with increasing international cooperation in scientific, technological and industrial activity, it is clear to see why technical translation is one of the most significant employers of translators. Yet despite the overwhelming demand for and importance of technical translation, there are several stubbornly persistent myths about technical translation’s importance, nature and role both in industry and within academia.

Before we examine technical translation in greater detail and try to relate it to various theories of translation, it would be useful to look at what we mean by “technical translation” and contrast some misconceptions about technical translation with the realities of what it means to be a technical translator.

Technical translation includes economics, law, business etc. In reality, “technical” means precisely that, something to do with technology and technological texts. Just because there is a specialised terminology, doesn’t make something technical. In discussing technical translation it is useful to make the distinction between specialised and technical translation. For example, religion has a very specific terminology and very definite conventions, styles and document structures but it is never regarded as “technical”.

The tendency among certain theorists to include LSP texts such as legal, financial and economic texts within the field of technical translation is less than helpful not least because each area has its own unique characteristics, requirements and constraints. Simply because a field or subject area has unique or specialised terminology does not make it technical. This is not to say that financial translation, or indeed legal translation, do not deserve to be studied in detail as areas in their own right, in fact there are a number of extremely useful books on these areas such as Alcaraz & Hughes (2002),but rather that they will not be discussed here. Instead, this book will take as its basis a definition of technical translation that has its roots in the translation industry and indeed industry as a whole, namely, that technical translation deals with technological texts. Or more specifically, technical translation deals with texts on subjects based on applied knowledge from the natural science.

Technical translation is all about terminology. This particular misconception is not unique to those uninvolved in technical translation. A surprising number of people within technical translation share this belief Pinchuck (1977:19), for example, claims that vocabulary is the most significant linguistic feature of technical texts. This is true insofar as terminology is, perhaps, the most immediately noticeable aspect of a technical text and indeed it gives the text the “fuel” it needs to convey the information. Nevertheless, Newmark (1988) has claimed that terminology accounts for at most just 5-10% of the total content of technical texts yet there is a disproportionate amount of attention devoted to terminology and lexical issues in technical translation. A simple subject search for “technical translation” on the BITRA bibliographic database reveals that more than half of the 150 entries found relate to terminological or lexical issues.

What makes this even more surprising is the fact that in many fields of science and technology, the terminology is remarkably similar to the extent that separate, specialised dictionaries are frequently unnecessary. Indeed, Fishbach (1993 and 1998) points to the quasi-conformity of medical terminology thanks to the common origins in Latin and Greek. So, depending on the particular language pairs, a translator should have less trouble locating appropriate specialised terms in the target language than with non- specialised, general terms. Similarly, in computing and IT, the terminology is largely uniform thanks, in part, to a predominance of English in the glossaries which are available in every language into which Microsoft’s creation of new terms and partly to the proliferation of proprietary terms and the availability of terms from software companies, e.g. the Microsoft products have been localized.

However, perhaps even more important than terminology is actually knowing how to write the texts. Translators need to produce texts which are identical to those produced by technical writers working in the target language (Fishbach 1998:2). Failing to comply with target language text conventions can undermine the credibility of the text, the author and the information in the text. O’Neill (1998:72) claims that “there is no substitute for a thorough knowledge of the target language”. In order to do this, it is necessary to look to technical writing and this is not something many translators have the opportunity to do, either as part of their training or as part of their own efforts to improve their skills.

According to Lee-Jahnke (1998:83-84), there are three things that are essential in order to learn how to deal with scientific and technical texts:

• know the text structure in the different languages
• know the LSP for the area
• know the subject area

technical translation ;  translation of technical documents ;