Scientific vs. Technical Translation

One of the greatest fallacies when discussing technical translation is to somehow lump it together with scientific translation, or worse still, to use the two terms interchangeably. Throughout the literature on translation, in the frequently brief references to technical translation we see the expression scientific and technical translation, where, out of convenience perhaps, authors see no problem in treating these two siblings as conjoined twins or even as the same person. This fundamental error serves only to confuse the issue because scientific and technical translation are not the same and as such, cannot be compared equally.

Despite the obvious connection between the two, i.e. they both deal with information based, to varying degrees, on the work of scientists, scientific translation is quite distinct from technical translation. Certainly, they both contain specialised terminology and, on the surface, deal with complicated scientific subject matter (to an extent) but it is all too easy to overestimate these apparent similarities at the expense of other, more compelling, differences.

One of the easiest ways of disambiguating the matter is to look at the words themselves: scientific and technical. Scientific relates to science which is defined by the Chambers Dictionary as “knowledge ascertained by observation and experiment, critically tested, systematised and brought under general principles” (Chambers 1992). Technical relates to technology which is defined as by the Concise Oxford English Dictionary as “the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes”. Thus we can say that scientific translation relates to pure science in all of its theoretical, esoteric and cerebral glory while technical translation relates to how scientific knowledge is actually put to practical use, dirty fingernails and all. The differentiation between scientific and technical translation is also acknowledged by the information sciences. Pinchuck (1977:13) points out that even in libraries, pure sciences are classified under 5 while applied sciences, i.e. technological material, are shelved in their own place under 6.

Scientific and technical translation, therefore, is a generic term which is used to refer to pure science, applied scientific research and technology. But it is not just the subject matter that distinguishes scientific from technical translation. Technical translation (and technical communication, which will be covered later on) can be characterised at a basic level on the basis of:
1. subject matter
2. type of language
3. purpose

So we can, for example, translate a scientific paper which deals with the concept of electromotive force and the effects of currents passed through conductors, complete with formulae, hypotheses, discussions and calculations or we can translate an installation guide for an electrical motor. Both texts are based on the fact that if you pass an electrical current through apiece of wire, a magnetic field is created which exerts a force acting at right-angles to the wire. The difference is the way in which the knowledge is used and presented. And this is a fundamental difference between scientific and technical translation and one which also affects the type of language used in the texts.

In our scientific paper on electromotive force, the goal is to discuss, explain, justify, impress, convey, convert and possibly entertain. An author will use the full extent of the language, within specific conventions and norms, to present the information in an interesting, serious and impressive way. In some cases, these texts even border on the literary, using the same devices and strategies as a short-story writer or novelist. Scientific language can be quite formal (think of journal papers) and will often have considerable range, just like a literary text. Such texts will also see the use of various rhetorical strategies, Greek and Latin terms and expressions as well as various affixes and compound terms.

An installation guide, on the other hand, is written to help someone do something. The aim here is to convey the information an engineer needs in order to install, connect and commission the motor. Consequently, the language used will reflect this: simple, unambiguous, concise, and, for want of a better word, unremarkable. The aim here is not to entertain the reader.

People generally do not settle down with a glass of wine to spend the evening reading installation guides for fun. Pinchuck refers to technical language as “workshop language”3, which is somewhere between scientific and general language. It is less regulated, less literary and even colloquial on occasion but always strictly functional.

Scientific texts will be conceptually more difficult and will be more abstract than other types of text. They will, however, have more standardized terms which are easier to look up and they are likely to be better written than texts on other levels. Technology-based texts will be more concrete, will contain less information in more space, they will be more colloquial and will feature concepts which are easier to understand. In addition to this, there will be products and processes in the external world which can be referred to. In other words, technical texts can rely on world or background knowledge to a greater extent.

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