Major Misconceptions about “Technical Translation “Analyzed in Depth

by Pie Chan Digital marketer

In a previous article titled "Being a technical Translator Requires Strong Sense of A technical Writer", the author shared his ideas about what is technical translation, the purpose of technical translation, as well as the differences between and disputes over technical translation, literary translation and scientific translation. For those who do not yet have basic concepts about what is the “technical translation", it is highly recommended for them to hit back and read that one first.

Technical translation puts focus on the "beauty" of practical norms, while literary translation emphasizes on the successful convey of artistic conception. Technical translation is about applied science, that is, how scientific knowledge is actually applied (e.g. XX guide), while scientific translation is about pure science, focusing on science itself. So, what are the most common cognitive conceptions about the technical translation? If you do fall into the following traps, it's time to refresh your knowledge in these aspects.

Strictly speaking, the term "technical" in the context of "technical translation" refers to the content relating to technology and specialized materials. We don't call a field or subject as "technical" just because it gets some specialized terminologies. For example, in our daily Chinese to English translation

As legal translation, finance translation, religious and other professional specialties are often referred to as "translation", namely the specialized translation, translation is not technology. Even technical translators are prone to the misconception that technical translation is mainly about the translation of terms. So, does it mean that terms are not important in technical translation? Of course not. Terminology is a feature of technical texts, and the correctness and consistency of term translation is the basis for high-quality technical documents. What should be said here is that terminology is not the whole technical text, and most efforts should be avoided in technical translation. Newmark has claimed that terms make up at most 5-10% of the technical text, yet receive a great deal of attention beyond their importance.

In fact, special language pairs translate better than ordinary non-professional pairs. In addition, there is a great degree of consistency between the terms in the computer and IT field, and IT is also more suitable to use translation memory tools to assist translation and improve translation efficiency and quality. In technical translation, understanding and mastering how to write technical documents may be more important than terminology translation. The translation should be as concise, clear and easy to use as the technical document written by the technical Writer in the target language.

For technical translators, this common misconception is a bit irritating - people think that the “style" is not important in technical translation? Those who have this kind of misunderstanding must still have no idea what exactly is the purpose of technical translation and technical translation. If viewed from a narrow literary perspective, style has little place in technical translation. But if style is understood as the way we write and use words and sentences, then style is at least as important in technical translation as it is in other fields, if not more. , big companies or small companies are also not easy to find your Style Guide, such as IBM/Google/Microsoft/Apple...... Perfection became the industry's style norm. Poetic beauty, the use of a variety of rhetorical devices (such as metaphor, metonymy, parallelism) writing is a style; concise, clear, complete is also a style. For those who have this misunderstanding, it is almost certain that they have not understood exactly what the purpose of technical translation and technical translation is.

How do we understand the fact that technical translation needs to be creative and subjective rather than simple language conversion? Reading technical translation needs to have a sense of technical writer, understand what the purpose of technical translation and technical translation is.

In practical work, the source materials obtained by the technical translators are not necessarily the documents in full compliance with the technical writing standards. At this time, the translators need to give play to their subjective initiative in the process of translation, and require the translation according to the writing standards of the technical documents, so that the translation is derived from the original text but higher than the original.

have not understood exactly what the purpose of technical translation and technical translation is.

Many people have a misconception that to be an excellent technical translator, one must first become an expert in a highly specialized field. A person who is both an expert in a particular field (e.g., databases) and has excellent source and target language skills appears to be the perfect technical translator. The reality, however, is that this is unrealistic. On the one hand, people who are proficient in both the professional field and the language are unlikely to consider technical translation because... There is a better position for him. On the other hand, a good technical translator does not have to be an expert in a specific field.

The necessity of translation, and require the translation according to the writing standards of the technical documents, so that the translation is derived from the original text but higher than the original.

have not understood exactly what the purpose of technical translation and technical translation is.

The necessity of learning technical knowledge in the professional field: there are certain commonalities between the professional knowledge in the computer field and the IT field. Learning professional knowledge not only helps to better understand the translated text, improve the translation quality and efficiency, but also helps to quickly get familiar with the new related fields. A good technical Writer needs at least: good language skills + technical writing knowledge + professional knowledge. So if you choose a field keeps an open mind and embraces the expertise in that field. This understanding is not comprehensive, in fact, that is the purpose of technical translation. It has been mentioned in the last article that technical translation needs to have a technical Writer's sense.

One of the purposes of technical translation is to accurately convey information to the readers of the target language. In addition, the technical translation should be concise and complete, so that readers can use the translated information easily, correctly and effectively. The simple understanding is that the duties and purposes of the technical Translator and the technical Writer are overlapped to a large extent. In the process of translation, the technical Translator should have the sense of the technical Writer, and also consider many factors such as the cultural differences between the source language and the target language, the habits of the target language, the document type habits, and the understanding of the target reader.