Scientific texts in the paradigm of translation studies

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Department of Translation and Theoretical and Applied Linguistics,

State Institution „South Ukrainian National Pedagogical University named after K.D. Ushynsky“

Scientific texts in the paradigm of translation studies

Ilona Derik

Candidate of Philology, Associate Professor

Tetyana Druzhyna

Candidate of Philology, Senior Lecturer



Summary

The article is dedicated to the study of the specificity of translating scientific texts from English into Ukrainian. In the focus of the research there is the survey of the finding in this field. There is also provided the analysis of the strategies and tactics of translation employed in accordance with thefunctional-communicative approach to translation studies.

The research was carried out on the basis of the scientific texts of different genres (articles, theses, reports) presented in English and their translations into Ukrainian. The objective was formulated as the analysis of the adequacy of the tactics employed to the dominant translation strategy, the search for the grounding of the accuracy of the operations at work as well as the formulation of the assessment criteria.

The conclusion was drawn that the employment of such translation transformations as grammatical and functional replacement, transposition and search for translation equivalent are observed while employing the tactic of conveying relevant information.

It has been proved that the strategy of communicatively relevant translation is the most appropriate for the translation of the scientific texts. It is realized by means of thefollowing tactics: the tactic of rendering relevant information, the tactic ofpre- serving formal and structural peculiarities, the tactic of the correct presentation of information and rendering the distinctive features of the functional style and genre.

The quantitative parameters of the distribution of translation strategies, tactics and operations have revealed the typological commonness of the operations employed.

There has been observed the correlation of the transformations of transcoding (transliteration and transcription), contextual replacement and the tactic of linguistic and cultural adaptation.

The perspective of the study of the variability of strategies and tactics in translating scientific discourse is seen in researching the distinctive parameters of the translation strategies and tactics and in performing comparative analysis.

Key words: scientific texts, functional-communicative approach, strategies, tactics.



Наукові тексти у парадигмі перекладознавства

Анотація

Статтю присвячено вивченню специфіки перекладу наукових текстів з англійської мови на українську. У дослідженні здійснено огляд розробок у цій галузі. Також наведено аналіз стратегій і тактик перекладу, що вживаються відповідно до функціонально-комунікативного підходу у теорії перекладу.

Дослідження здійснювалось на матеріалі наукових текстів різних жанрів (статей, тез, доповідей), представлених англійською, та їх українських перекладів. Мета зазначалась як аналіз адекватності використаних тактик відповідно до домінуючої стратегії перекладу, пошук засад для визначення влучності операцій та формулювання критеріїв оцінювання.

Було зроблено висновок, що застосування таких перекладацьких трансформацій, як граматична та функціональна заміна, транспозиція та пошук перекладацького еквівалента спостерігаються при застосування тактики передачірелевантної інформації.

Було доведено, що стратегія комунікативно рівноцінного перекладу є найбільш влучною для перекладу наукових текстів. Вона реалізується за допомогою таких тактик: тактики передачі релевантної інформації, тактики збереження формально-структурних характеристик, тактики коректного оформлення інформації та тактики відтворення стилістичних і жанрових особливостей.

Кількісні параметри розповсюдженості перекладацьких стратегій, тактик і операцій дозволили виявити типологічну спільність застосованих операцій.

Було встановлено кореляцію трансформацій транскодування (транслітерації та транскрипції), контекстуальної заміни із тактикою лінгво- культурної адаптації.

Перспектива дослідження варіативності стратегій і тактик перекладу наукового дискурсу вбачається у вивченні дистинктивних параметрів перекладацьких стратегій і тактик та у здійсненні зіставного аналізу.

Ключові слова: наукові тексти, функціонально-комунікативний підхід, стратегії, тактики.



Научные тексты в парадигме переводоведения

Аннотация

Статья посвящена изучению специфики перевода научных текстов с английского на украинский. В исследовании проведен обзор разработок в этой области. Также приведен анализ стратегий и тактик перевода, используемых в соответствии с функционально-коммуникативным подходом в теории перевода.

Исследование проводилось на материале научным текстов разным жанров (статей, тезисов, докладов), представленным на английском, и их украинских переводов. Цель определялась как анализ адекватности использования тактик в соответствии с доминирующей стратегией перевода, поиск основы, для определения уместности операций и формулирование критериев оценивания.

Был сделан вывод, что использование таких переводческих трансформаций, как грамматическая и функциональная замена, транспозиция и поиск переводческого эквивалента наблюдаются при применении тактики передачи релевантной информации.

Было доказано, что стратегия коммуникативно равноценного перевода является наиболее подходящей для перевода научным текстов. Она реализуется при помощи таких тактик: тактики передачи релевантной информации, тактики сохранения формально-структурным характеристик, тактики корректного оформления информации и тактики воспроизведения стилистических и жанровым особенностей.

Количественным параметры распространенности переводческих стратегий, тактик и операций позволили выявить типологическую общность примененным операций.

Быта установлена корреляция трансформаций транскодирования (транслитерации и транскрипции), контекстуальной замены с тактикой лингвокультурной адаптации.

Перспектива исследования вариативности стратегий и тактик перевода научного дискурса видится в изучении дистинктивным параметров переводческих стратегий и тактик, а также в проведении сопоставительного анализа.

Ключевые слова: научный текст функционально-коммуникативный подход, стратегии, тактики.



Introduction

Scientific translation occupies a prominent place in contemporary translation studies. The culture of the informational society has greatly enriched the language with lexical coinages like international units, initialisms, acronyms, shortenings characterized by specificity of translation. All this has predetermined the growing interest to the issue of translating scientific and technical texts from English into Ukrainian.

Scientific-technical translation is a specific kind of activity which is one of the basic ways of international communication, in terms ofwhich a translator becomes a mediator in exchanging not only scientific information but also spiritual legacy of nations and nationalities.

The main trend of the recent researches is seen as the lexico-semantic approach to the investigation. The philosophical and methodological foundations have been laid by such outstanding scholars as W. von Humboldt, O. Potebnja, F. de Saussure, G. Frege, H. Steinteil.

Certain problems of scientific translation have been in the focus of the researches by such linguists as V. Akulenko, L. Andrijenko, O. Andrijevs'ka, O. Akhmanova, O. Balovnjeva, A. Bilets'kyi, N. Hlinka, V. Dubychyn- skyi, O. Duda, O. Ivanova, L. Ivina, A. Kapush, V. Karaban, T. Kyjak, A. Kul'chyts'ka etc.



Problem-setting

The translation of scientific-technical texts from English into Ukrainian has been recently viewed from various aspects, nevertheless, the aspect of the apt choice of translation strategy and tactics hasn't been touched upon so far.

The communicative situation of translation in this case is termed as CST-1_formal according to the classification of communicative situations of translation suggested by V V. Sdodnikov.

The research was aimed at solving such tasks as the analysis of the adequacy of the tactics employed to the dominant translation strategy, the search for the grounding of the accuracy of the operations at work as well as the formulation of the assessment criteria.

The research was performed on the basis of English scientific texts and their Ukrainian translation equivalents. According to the results of the factual material systematization there has been formed a table with the translation assessment criteria according to the chosen strategy of communicatively relevant translation.

The analysis of the strategy, tactics and operations was preceded by the stage of the differentiation of the communicative situation type. It has been defined that the most widely spread are communicative situations of the first type, where the initiator of translation is the translator himself.

The analysis of the translated texts has witnessed the full preservation of the semantics and pragmatics of the source text and its unabridged rendering by means of the target language.

It has been experimentally proved that the strategy of communicatively relevant translation is the most appropriate for the translation of the scientific. It is realized by means of the following tactics: the tactic of rendering relevant or essential information, the tactic of preserving formal and structural peculiarities, the tactic of the correct presentation of information and rendering the distinctive features of the functional style and genre.

Such speculations are due to the regularities revealed in the translation analysis of the experimental material (about 200 text fragments each with the general scope of 0,5 printed pages), which formed actually the basis for the research. The data on the correlation with the adequate translation assessment criteria is given in the table.

The novelty of the research lies in the fact that in the focus of the investigation there is the translation of scientific texts from English into Ukrainian viewed from the perspective of the adequacy of the selected strategy and tactics of translation.

Scientific style -- is a functional style of literary national language, which is formed mainly by the neutral units of the national language, which have their own peculiarities and possibilities of their employment, and a relatively small number of stylistically colored language units. Particular attention is drawn to specific facts which are to be described and explained.

Among the typologically common features of the scientific-technical style there are brevity, unambiguity, logics, impartiality. On the lexical level there may be observed the dominance of common and special terms, abbreviations, stale phrases, non-figurative phraseological combinations, foreign words and expressions in Latin, preserved in their original form and presented in italics. On the grammatical -- quantitative prevalence of nouns and verbs over adjectives and adverbs.

However, it should be borne in mind that the notion «scientific-techni- cal texts» encompasses such types of texts as:

— scientific texts proper (e.g. monographs, printed editions, journals, articles, theses);

— educational scientific-technical texts (textbooks, reference books etc.);

— scientific-technical texts in different fields of science and technology (manuals, instructions, guidebooks, patents etc.).

The essential feature of scientific-technical texts is the high frequency of terms. However, it is sometimes rather difficult to differentiate between terms and words of everyday usage due to the growing polysemy of many words.

For example, such generally accepted notions as «electricity», «temperature», «space», «vitamin» and others are no t perceived as terms in everyday speech, where the technical part is of less importance while such words as «earth», «silver», «pressure» and others may be employed as terms in a specific technical context where they carry out the main logical meaning.

Subject is the most important component in translating scientific and technical texts. The first and foremost prerequisite of performing qualified translation of a special text is understanding its semantics and pragmatics fully. To achieve this objective the translator should possess profound competence of both the source and target languages as well as deep background knowledge in the field of science the text to be translated is referred to.

Scientific translation is no less painstaking than artistic translation. It is required from the translator to have a correct perception of the source text, semantic relationship between its components as well as good understanding of syntactic and morphological structures.

There are distinguished the following three aspects of translation according to its objective:

— scientific proper, connected with translation theory, improvement of translation quality and translator's qualifications;

— pragmatic, targeted at practical information activity improvement;

— cybernetic, directed at elaboration of the machine translation and dictionaries compilation.

Grammatical structure of the scientific texts is characterized by certain peculiarities:

— the presence of long sentences complicated by primary and secondary members. It should be noted that the words dependent on the subject or predicate are often found at a distance from the main words;

— the use of the multi-component attributive word-combinations;

— the absence of form words;

— the employment of attributes, coined by blending syntactic groups;

— the use of syntactic and passive constructions, structures of secondary predication.

The discrepancies in the structure of English and Ukrainian, inventory of grammatical categories, forms and constructions result in problems of translation. English scientific texts abound in complex sentences.

There is a great possibility to lose semantic correlations in translating such constructions with insertions. That's why it's appropriate to omit such attributive clauses on the first stage of translation and insert them on the later stages. In many cases there arises a need to rearrange a sentence by replacing the subject by the direct or prepositional object thus transforming a simple sentence into a complex one and vice versa.

The absence of the subject or predicate due to compression is typical of the texts in the encyclopedias, reference books, catalogues, manuals etc. Nevertheless the omitted subject may be easily restored from the context or replaced by the personal pronoun. All the grammatical phenomena of the English language different from Ukrainian in their functions can also give rise to difficulties in translation. The specific peculiarities of the scientific-technical style in English are in the replacement of the subordinate clauses by the adjectives in postposition (e.g.: the materials available) and the use of the infinitive in the function of the attribute (e.g.: the temperature to be obtained).

Another characteristic trait of English scientific style is the greater distribution of elliptical constructions (e.g.: low pressure producers), cases of the article omission (e.g.: general view, biological engineering). There are also used the constructions with the preposition of (e.g.: the oxidizer of liquid oxygen) and numerous attributive groups (e.g.: medium-power silicon rectifiers). There is also noted the occurrence of expressive language means, in particular similes and metaphors.

The scientific-technical style is also characterized by prevalence of the nouns denoting abstract and general notions: development, movement, transformation, phenomena. The logical means of cohesion are also widely spread.

The manner of narration is distinguished by the predominance of the combinations with the nominative semantic nucleus. Unlike English scientific style, Ukrainian one is recognized by homogeneous sentence members, constructions with the Participle and diepryslivnyk. There are also often used chains consisting of several nouns in the Genitive case.

The difficulties in translating scientific-technical texts often arise due to the discrepancies in the syntactic system of languages: the sequence of the elements in the utterance in English and Ukrainian may not coincide. It should be borne in mind that typical of English is grammatical polysemy, i.e. the same verbs may function as notional verbs, auxiliary verbs or modal verbs which should be taken in account while translating.

Grammar and vocabulary are closely interwoven with genre and stylistic peculiarities and also involve the employment of grammatical forms, structures and the distribution of specific terms.

The criteria of the qualified scientific-technical translation are the following:

— concretization or generalization for the better perception of the text;

— semantic development or the precise replacement by the similar term;

— antonymic translation (e.g.: 'you can get low results' -- 'можна одержати низькі результати' or 'unable to get hight results' -- 'неможливо одержати високі результати');

— syntactic transformation or reformulation of the sense.

Transcription and transliteration are the most widely used translation transformations which are often used to render the acoustic and graphical form of terms. For example: 'Quasar' -- 'Квазари', ' Altair' -- 'Альтаїр', 'Trapist 1' -- 'Трапіст 1', 'Leonids' -- 'Леоніди'. 'Leonids -- is the name of a collection of shooting stars, which operate annually from November 6 to November 30' -- 'Леоніди -- є назвою скупчення подаючих зірок, що діють щороку від 6до 30листопада'.

Descriptive translation or explication is a complex lexico-grammatical translation transformation which consists in the replacement of a lexical unit by a word combination. For example: 'Back to the reveal of the merger of two black holes announced last night through the collaboration of Ligo (United States) and Virgo (Europe)'. -- ' Назад на виявлення злиття двох чорних дір, оголошених минулої ночі за допомогою співпраці Ліго (Сполучені Штати) та Діва (Європа)'.

To achieve precise descriptive translation the translator should see to it that the word combination at work conveys all the basic features of the notion, denoted by the word in the source text. This transformation still has certain drawbacks.

Firstly, there may be misinterpretation of the meaning of the simple terms. Secondly, descriptive word-combinations violate such requirements for the use of terms as brevity. This transformation is mainly used in translating author's terms-neologisms given in inverted commas. Transcoding is often combined with description or translator's commentary.

Calque translation is interpreted as one of possible ways of enriching vocabulary in speech contacts. This transformation is based upon the use of foreign lexis as object of translation, thus borrowings are automatically excluded. For example: 'atmospheric absorption' -- ' Атмосферне поглинання'; 'Today it has risen with a beautiful copper hue (caused by atmospheric absorption).' -- 'Сьогодні вона встала з красивим мідним відтінком (викликаного атмосферним поглинанням)'. 'Last night (July 23, 2016) we saw in the sky clusters of stars (finally as stars)'. -- 'Минулої ночі (23 липня 2016року) ми бачили у небі скупчення зірок (нарешті, як зірки), що рушили'.

Calque is mostly used in translating composite terms. For example: 'Scorpion' -- 'Сузір'я Скорпіон'. 'The Scorpio constellation, from the Latin Scorpion, is one of the 13 constellations of the Zodiac that the sun passes through the year'. -- 'Сузір'я Скорпіона, від латинського Скорпіона, є одним із 13 сузір'їв Зодіака, яке Сонце проходить через рік'.

It should be remarked that calque is used to render equivalent lexis. For example: 'Galactic Center' -- 'Галактичний центр'. 'Galaxy... the ends of the sky,such as black hole activity in the galactic center. ' -- 'Галактика.... кінці неба, такі як активність чорної діри в галактичному центрі'.

Calque often conveys the essence of the term without any deviations from the source texts with preservation of the authentic form which is very important for better understanding of the text. Nevertheless word-formation still has some limitations. This process is corrected by social practice. Calque is either accepted or rejected. For example: 'A nebula is an interstellar cloud of gas and dust'. -- 'Туманність -- це міжзоряна хмара газу та пилу'.

The transformation of addition consists in introducing into the translation text lexical elements for better sense rendering. Addition in scientific texts should be performed beyond the source text limits -- in references, footnotes, commentary. Nevertheless it is also found in the main text massive.

For example: 'Stability and control are the major problems in devising such machines'. -- 'Забезпечення стабільності роботи та надійності управління -- ось головні проблеми в конструюванні таких машин'. 'Non-members of the organization are invited to the conference as observers'. -- 'Країни, що не є членами організації, запрошуються для участі в конференції в якості спостерігачів'.

The contrary in its direction is omission which consists in omitting only those elements which are not relevant for the semantics of the whole text or are tautological. E. g.: 'The proposal was rejected and repudiated'. --' Цю пропозицію було відкинуто (вилучення одного із членів тавтологічної пари)'. 'This is an apt remark to make'. -- 'Це не є влучне зауваження (вилучення означення)'.

In most cases English words of one part of speech are translated into Ukrainian by words of another part of speech. E. g.: 'This assumption is a hypothesis in a rather special sense'. -- 'Це припущення можна назвати гіпотезою, тільки надаючи цьому терміну особливого сенсу'.

Such transformation may be applied to all parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives). Some English verbal word-forms which are absent in Ukrainian (Present Participle Active, Present Participle Passive), are replaced by personal verb forms in subordinate clauses in Ukrainian. E. g.: 'Mechanical engineers also design machine components'. -- 'Інженери- механіки також проектують і розробляють деталі машин'.

The transformation of transposition or permutation consists in the change of word order in translation. E. g.: 'administrative efficiency' -- 'ефективне керівництво'. This is especially true for the translation of word combinations.

Table 1

The Quantitative Data on the Adequacy of Translation Assessment Criteria

Quantitative parameters	Content	Assessment criteria
high (80- 100 %)	The semantics is fully preserved	semantic invariant
average (60- 79 %)	There are minor variations
sufficient (40- 59 %)	There are more substantial variations
high (80- 100 %)	The stylistics is fully identical	stylistic peculiarities
average (60- 79 %)	There are minor variations
sufficient (40- 59 %)	There are more substantial variations
high (80- 100 %)	The message is fully adapted	linguistic and cultural adaptation
average (60- 79 %)	There are minor variations
sufficient (40- 59 %)	There are more substantial variations

The analysis of scientific-technical texts allows to draw conclusion that almost all terms have both literary and terminological meaning. Literary meaning is often interwoven with the direct meaning. Thus, it may be concluded that translating terms presupposes rendering both literary and terminological meaning though sometimes they may be in contrast.



Table 2

Quantitative data about the distribution of translation transformations, %

Type of transformation	Tactic of conveying relevant information	Tactic of correct presentation	Tactic of linguistic and cultural adaptation	Tactic of rendering stylistic peculiarities
grammatical replacement	25	24	15	15
functional replacement	20	26	15	10
transcoding	25	-	20	-
contextual replacement	20	22	30	45
semantic development	10	28	20	30

This makes the technique of differentiation the most productive method of rendering terms. It consists in replacing a lexical unit of the source language by a lexical unit of the target language which is not a proper translation correspondence. The key point here is the influence of the context in selecting the corresponding equivalent and the compliance with the language norms and regularities.



Conclusions and perspectives

As it has been revealed in the research the translation tactics correlate with the selected translation strategy and the translation operations at work.

The quantitative predominance of the translation operations of replacement, transposition and search for translation equivalent is found while employing the tactic of rendering relevant information for all the types of information messages under investigation.

The quantitative parameters of the distribution of translation strategies, tactics and operations have revealed the typological commonness of the operations employed.

This has grounded the assumption that the choice of the translation operations is often determined by the linguistic peculiarities of the translation language, and not only by the task of adequate mirroring of the content of the source text while foregrounding the certain strategy.

It should be borne in mind that the notions of adequacy and equivalence are differentiated by their interpretation. Adequacy is defined as the correlation of the selected translation strategies and tactics with the peculiarities of the real communicative situation. At the same time equivalence is understood as the correspondence of the text to the requirements of the functional style.

We should consider as the criteria of the translation adequacy the following: the completeness of the semantic invariant rendering, the correctness of the official-style peculiarities rendering, the degree of linguistic and cultural adaptation necessary to provide the expected pragmatic effect. The quantitative data on the adequacy of translation assessment criteria are provided in Table 1.

Thus, related to the translation of scientific-technical discourse equivalence is determined by the correct form in accordance with the genre and stylistic peculiarities of the official and publicist styles, because the discourse which is in the focus of the research is of mixed type.

As it was mentioned above the choice of the translation operations in general and translation operations in particular

As it has been mentioned before, the choice of translation operations in general and translation transformations in particular in most cases is predetermined with the typological distinctive features of the source and target languages.

Nevertheless the correlation of certain tactics with some transformations acting as ways of their realization can't be denied. The data about the frequency of translation transformations is given in Table 2.

According to the results there may be drawn a conclusion that the employment of such translation transformations as grammatical and functional replacement, transposition and search for translation equivalent are observed while employing the tactic of conveying relevant information.

At the same time there has been observed the correlation of the transformations of transcoding (transliteration and transcription), contextual replacement and the tactic of linguistic and cultural adaptation.

Thus, as it's seen from the data, there exists a big inventory of translation transformations employed in translating scientific and technical texts from English into Ukrainian.

The grounding for the qualified translation is the strategy of the communicatively relevant translation. The strategy is realized through the following four tactics: the tactic of conveying relevant information, the tactic of correct presentation, the tactic of linguistic and cultural adaptation and the tactic of rendering stylistic peculiarities.

The perspective of the study of the variability of strategies and tactics in translating scientific discourse is seen in researching the distinctive parameters of the translation strategies and tactics and in performing comparative analysis.

In particular, it is planned to investigate the peculiarities of employing strategies of re-addressing and tertiary translation in translating scientific texts in certain communicative situations.

translating scientific texts



Література

1. Карабан В. І Посібник-довідник з перекладу науково-технічної літератури Ч. 1, 2. К.: Tempus, 1997. 257 с.

2. Карабан В. І. Переклад англійської наукової і технічної літератури. Вінниця: Нова книга, 2002. 564 с.

3. Кияк Т. Р. Теорія та практика перекладу. Вінниця: Нова Книга, 2010. 110 с.

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5. Панов С. Ф. Фаховоорієнтований переклад технічної літератури // Наук. пр. Донец. нац. техн. ун-ту. Сер.: Педагогіка, психологія і соціол. 2010. Вип. 7. С. 128-131.

6. Петрова Т І. Англійська мова. Науковий переклад: конспект лекцій / Київ. нац. ун-т буд-ва і архіт. К., 2002. 39 c.

7. Черноватий Л. М., Карабан В. І., Омелянчук О. О. Переклад англомовної технічної літератури: навчальний посібник / за ред. Л. М. Черноватого, В. І. Карабана. Вінниця: Нова Книга, 2006. 296 с.

References

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3. Kyiak T R. (2010). Teoriia ta praktyka perekladu. [Theory and practice of translation]. Vinnytsia: Nova Knyha [in Ukrainian].

4. Kyiak T R. (2004). Forma i zmist movnoho znaka. [Form and meaning of the language sign]. Kharkiv: Konstanta [in Ukrainian].

5. Panov S. F (2010). Fakhovooriientovanyi pereklad tekhnichnoi literatury. [Professionally oriented translation of technical literature]. Donetsk [in Ukrainian].

6. Petrova T I.(2002). Anhliiska mova. Naukovyi pereklad. [The English language. Scientific translation]. Kyiv [in Ukrainian].

7. Chernovatyi L. M., Karaban V. I., Omelianchuk O. O. (2006). Pereklad anhlomovnoi tekhnichnoi literatury. [English technical literature translation]. Vinnytsia: Nova Knyha [in Ukrainian].

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