Abstract
In this study, term variation pertains to the different ways in which specialised knowledge in the environmental domain is expressed in English institutional texts by means of terminological designations. Intralingual variation pertains to term variation within one language, interlingual variation to the possible ways in which a given English term is translated into Dutch and French target texts.
In many descriptive terminology studies, it has been pointed out that terminological variants frequently occur in different types of specialised text genres and that their presence can be motivated on different grounds (Daille 2005; Freixa 2006; Condamines 2010; Tercedor Sánchez 2011). At least two important views result from these observations: a) a view that term variants appearing in source texts should not simply be ignored by translators for the sake of terminological consistency and precision and b) a view that the different terms to express specialised knowledge as well as their possible translations should be represented in special language resources for translators, taking into account different contextual factors that may affect the choice for a specific term or translation.
Based on these views, we will present a new type of translation resource that was compiled on the basis of a corpus of source and target texts. The resource covers a set of English term variants and their French and Dutch equivalents retrieved from a trilingual parallel corpus of institutional texts. Each term occurrence encountered in a source text is combined with its equivalent in the corresponding target text to form a term-based translation unit (TU). Each TU in the resource is marked by a set of semantic and text-related properties. In this article, we will discuss why and how the resource was created, present results and reflect on how it can be used by translators.
In many descriptive terminology studies, it has been pointed out that terminological variants frequently occur in different types of specialised text genres and that their presence can be motivated on different grounds (Daille 2005; Freixa 2006; Condamines 2010; Tercedor Sánchez 2011). At least two important views result from these observations: a) a view that term variants appearing in source texts should not simply be ignored by translators for the sake of terminological consistency and precision and b) a view that the different terms to express specialised knowledge as well as their possible translations should be represented in special language resources for translators, taking into account different contextual factors that may affect the choice for a specific term or translation.
Based on these views, we will present a new type of translation resource that was compiled on the basis of a corpus of source and target texts. The resource covers a set of English term variants and their French and Dutch equivalents retrieved from a trilingual parallel corpus of institutional texts. Each term occurrence encountered in a source text is combined with its equivalent in the corresponding target text to form a term-based translation unit (TU). Each TU in the resource is marked by a set of semantic and text-related properties. In this article, we will discuss why and how the resource was created, present results and reflect on how it can be used by translators.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 5 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Journal | inTRAlinea |
Issue number | Special Issue: New Insights into Specialised Translation |
Publication status | Published - 2015 |
Keywords
- environmental terminology
- institutional translation
- term variation
- translation resource
- translation unit