Analysis of practical translation strategies applicable to terms in the field of information technology

Едылбекова Адель Армановна

Студентка 3 курса

Научный руководитель — Туркенова С.С.

КарУ им. Е.А. Букетова

Introductions: The rapid development of IT sphere has led to the fact that information technologies are now ubiquitous. This fact is also reflected in the language: new IT terms, especially in English, appear regularly. The multiplicity and speed of obsolescence of these terms, the presence of several equivalents in dictionaries or, in some cases, their complete absence present certain difficulties for translators, who often have to choose or create the most adequate translation version on their own.

Aim. The purpose of this article is to present the features of modern English and Russian IT terminology by conducting a comparative analysis of bilingual texts on the subject of IT identified during the professional practice. The material for the comparative analysis was the actual test translations on the subject of IT. The results of the study confirm the exceptional importance of translation creativity in the translation of modern IT terminology, identify the relationship between term-forming models and translation strategy, and also lay the foundation for further research on translation creativity in the translation of terminology.

Materials and methods. To fulfill the goals set at the beginning of the study and to identify patterns in the translation from English into Russian of the terms of a certain subject area, we translated about eighty terms — both terminological units and terminological combinations. As sources of these terms, we have chosen four test translations on the subject of «information technology» done by one of the authors during the on-the-job practice.

Test translations were chosen as the research material for a number of reasons:

1) this material was provided by a translation agency, which allows us to fulfill our practical goal and identify the features of relevant IT terminology that a modern technical translator deals with;

2) the absence of a publicly available translation of texts into Russian;

3) a large amount of terminology — more than one would expect from a popular science or scientific and educational text.

Results and discussion.

In order to perform a comparative analysis of the specific features of English and Russian IT terminology, we translated from English into Russian two test translations provided by the SLKO LLP in the amount of just over one translation page (1840 characters with spaces). Further, in the course of the study, the selected translation solutions will be statistically processed in order to determine the ratio of standard and non-standard translation solutions [1, pp. 122-141].

In the course of work on the translations, we have established that most of the modern English terms in the field of information technology from the considered sample are two-part terminological combinations (46%). Three-part, or three-component, terminological combinations make up 42% of terms, while the share of terminological units is only 4%, and terminological combinations of four or more components are 8% (fig. 1)

Fig. 1 The structure of English IT terms

The situation with Russian-language terms is somewhat more complicated. The composition of terms in translation turns out to be more diverse, since a certain significantly prevailing structure, as in English, was not found. Thus, the majority of Russian-language terms are tripartite, but their share is only 26%. Two- and four-part terminological combinations are distributed to almost the same extent (24% and 22%) (fig. 2).

Fig. 2 The structure of Russian IT terms

As for strategies used to transfer the meaning of IT terms ENG-RU, RU-ENG the key findings are as follows:

1. The way of translating a technical term, including an IT term, is largely determined by the specifics of the context — very different texts can be related to the topic «information technology», which requires the translator to be extremely careful and consult not only with dictionaries and glossaries, but also with analogue texts, as well as a developed skill of creative and logical thinking [2].

2.      Taking into account that the dominant structure of an IT term in English is two-part, and in Russian it is three-part, we can conclude that in most cases the translator needs to resort to transformations: from more minor ones, like changing positions and case, to replacing one part speech to another, explication, etc.

3.      Based on the study, in most cases IT terms are transferred from English into Russian using dictionary variant matches — however, it seems vital to emphasize here that dictionaries often contain several variant matches intended to nominate or describe different objects and phenomena. Accordingly, in order to select the most representative translator, the skills of logical thinking, creativity, information retrieval and, ideally, knowledge in the field of modern information technologies are a must.

4.      As well, based on the study, a typical English IT term is a two-part terminological combination formed according to the adjective + noun model (dedicated hardware — специализированные аппаратные средства; converged infrastructure — конвергентная инфраструктура); whereas a typical Russian IT term is a three-part terminological combination (at the same time, due to the greater prevalence of unique, non-repeating translation combinations in Russian, the most productive model is adjective + noun).

5. As a result of our work, there is a brief dictionary of IT terms presented on (fig. 3)

Fig.3 Our dictionary of IT terms obtained during professional practice at SLKO LLP

Conclusions. Theoretical conclusions about the importance for a technical translator of not only knowledge of the source language and the target language, but also knowledge of the usage, logical thinking and information search skills, including on the Internet were confirmed during the practical research: due to either the absence of equivalents, or, conversely, the presence of several equivalents of one term (for example, robust), the role of logic, analysis of background knowledge, the skill of searching for relevant analogous texts and translation intuition increases — and, as a result, the percentage of non-standard and creative translation solutions [3], which makes up the vast majority of all translation decisions made in the course of the study (68%) (Fig. 4).

Fig.4 The ratio of usage of standard and creative strategies while translating IT terms

Modern English IT terms are predominantly two-part attributive combinations that require lexical and/or grammatical transformations when translated into Russian.

Due to the need to apply the above transformations, Russian terms often do not retain their laconic two-part structure. So, according to the results of the study, the dominant structure for these terms is a tripartite. In addition, the five-, six-, and even seven-component structures that were also encountered were not typical for English terms, which reflects the less tendency of the Russian language in this area for conciseness.

Based on the all above, we consider it possible to conclude that the term-forming models of modern IT terms do not influence the translation strategy. Despite the fact that knowledge of term formation is necessary, it is impossible to draw a clear parallel between the model and the translation solution — even in the field of IT terminology, the variability of translation decisions and strategies, and hence the role of translation creativity, is extremely high.

References:

1. Убоженко И. О когнитивном моделировании интуиции и творчества в переводе: интерпретативно-семиотический подход [Текст] // Вестник Санкт-Петербургского университета. Серия 9. Филология. Востоковедение. Журналистика. — 2016. — № 4. — С. 122-141.

2. Алексеева И.С. Введение в переводоведение [Текст]: учеб. пособие для студентов филологических и лингвистических факультетов высших учебных заведений. / И.С. Алексеева. — СПб.: Филологический факультет СПбГУ; М.: Издательский центр “Академия”, 2004. — 352 с.

3. Minna Ruokonen & Kaisa Koskinen (2017) Dancing with technology: translators’ narratives on the dance of human and machinic agency in translation work, The Translator, 23:3, 310-323, DOI: 10.1080/13556509.2017.1301846