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Massome Raeisi, Hossein Vahid Dastjerdi, Mina Raeisi Strategies used in the translation of scientific texts to fill the lexical gap// Research Result Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, 5 (3). 2019
РАЗДЕЛ III. ПРИКЛАДНАЯ ЛИНГВИСТИКА SECTION III. APPLIED LINGUISTICS
УДК 811 DOI: 10.18413/2313-8912-2019-5-3-0-11
Massome Raeisi1
2
Hossein Vahid Dastjerdi
3
Mina Raeisi3
Strategies used in the translation of scientific texts to fill the lexical gap
1) Islamic Azad University, Shahreza, Isfahan, Iran. E-mail: [email protected] ORCID: 0000-0001-9880-774X
2) University of Isfahan, Islamic Azad University, Shahreza Branch, Iran. E-mail: [email protected] ORCID:0000-0001-8105-0138
3) Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran. E-mail: [email protected] ORCID: 0000-0001-8221-0682
Received 5 July 2019; accepted 20 September2019; published 30 September 2019 Abstract
The present study is aimed at exploring the strategies used in translating scientific texts to overcome challenges which translators faced for selecting suitable Persian chemistry equivalents. For this purpose, a two-volume book in polymer chemistry was investigated. The study was conducted qualitatively, with a text analysis design. The research materials included 65 technical words selected from among the glossary of the book. There are, however, numerous translation strategies applied in translating this book, from which only five most common were selected, including loan word, loan translation, loan blend, loan rendition, and loan translation and rendition. The analysis of the selected technical words showed that loan word translation with 33.33% was the most common, and loan word rendition with 4.76% was the least applied strategy. Therefore, the straightforward implication of the research would be institutionalizing some of common strategies to the experts in polymer chemistry-field for adopting appropriate Persian equivalents.
Key words: lexical gap, loan words, scientific text, translation strategy How to cite: Raeisi Massome, Vahid Dastjerdi Hossein, Raesi Mina (2019). Strategies used in the translation of scientific texts to fill the lexical gap. Research Result. Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, V.5 (3), 117-123, DOI: 10.18413/2313-8912-2019-53-0-11
Massome Raeisi, Hossein Vahid Dastjerdi, Mina Raeisi Strategies used in the translation of scientific texts to fill the lexical gap// Research Result Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, 5 (3). 2019
Introduction
Translation has been increasingly developing due to the improvement of international trade, growing migration, globalization and enhancement of the mass media and technology. Translators have attempted to interpret concepts and speech in a variety of texts; they have had a crucial role as bilingual or multi-lingual intermediates of concepts. Most translation theorists agree that translation is understood as a transfer process from a foreign language - or a second language - to the mother tongue. However, market requirements are increasingly demanding that translators transfer texts to a target language that is not their mother tongue, but a foreign language. This is what Newmark (Newmark, 2001) called as service translation.
The research objectives include:
• To explore different type of translation strategies to cope with lexical gaps.
• To identify the least and most frequent strategies used in translating this scientific book.
Based on what was stated above, the following research question was addressed in this study:
• What are the most appropriate translation strategies used to fill the lexical gap in scientific texts?
No two languages are completely similar, and there exist many differences in various parts of languages such as lexical which brings about the lexical gap. The difference between two languages stems from many factors, including the dynamicity of one language, linguistic characteristics and outer reasons like the financial and technological developments. From among languages, English is a very dynamic one which has been receiving a wide range of scientific words. The term equivalent "refers to two or more entities being of equal value, corresponding value, or having same use or function as something else" (House, 2009).
The three common categorizations of texts addressed by Newmark (Newmark, 1988). The scientific or academic text can be
counted as the informative group based on the mentioned categorization. One of the most common ways of solving problems caused by the absolute lexical gap is applying the loan processes in translation. Based on Bateni (Bateni, 2010), all changes in X language which are done based on grammar and lexes in Y, Z and other languages are called loan processes.
"Introduction to polymer compounding: raw material and recycled polymer. Properties and application". This book is a scientific and academic text which is written by Natamie (Natamie, 2015). It is an applicable book for those chemistry students whose field of study is polymer. The book is originally written in English translated into the Persian by the researcher as the MA thesis. Although the text is simple, it is full of new scientific words which are not usually translatable.
The lexical gap, the translator's problems and challenges arising when there is not any suitable counterpart or equivalent for a concept in the target language - these lexical items are of two types, including the relative and absolute lexical gap (Bateni, 2006).
2. Theoretical background
The Topology of Lexical Gaps starts with the work by Chomsky (Chomsky, 1965) Chomsky & Halle (Chomsky & Halle, 1965). Words that do not exist but could be reasonably expected to exist are the accidental gaps and words that are not even expected to exist since they violate the rules of what is a "good" word named as the systematic gaps. It is common to talk about lexical gaps rather referring to non-existing words, because they are indications of "holes" in the lexicon of the language that could be filled.
Discussing words, especially those established parts of the vocabulary, is the issue which has been considered by linguists. Newmark (Newmark, 1988) suggested different ways for translating scientific texts. First, in order to comprehend and assess its degree of formality, it is crucial to read the text objective, the potential cultural and professional differences between the readership and the
Massome Raeisi, Hossein Vahid Dastjerdi, Mina Raeisi Strategies used in the translation of scientific texts to fill the lexical gap// Research Result Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, 5 (3). 2019
original one. The translator is also required to pay attention to all factors from every word to every figure, letter and punctuation mark. Specialized terminology should be used as a significant device for translators of scientific texts. According to Sofer (Sofer, 1999), the first part of technical translation is its specialized terminology which is transferred.
Based on Trask (Trask, 1993), the term refers to "the absence of a hypothetical word which would seem to fit naturally into the pattern exhibited by existing words" (Trask, 1993: 157). Lehrer (1974), as a semanticist, believes that the term 'lexical gap' is multiply ambiguous in the sense that it has been used to all types of instances where a word, in one way or another, is missing (p. 95). mentioned that when a language expresses a concept with a lexical unit whereas further language expresses the same concept with a free combination of words, lexical gap occurs. Lyons (Lyons, 1977), see also Kiekema 2009, claims that lexical gaps are imputed to unlexicalized concepts across languages explains lexical gaps as slots in modeling (Kiekema, 2009:303). Among Chinese linguists, Wang (Wang, 1989) mentions that free-linguistic symbols are lexical gaps and Fan (Fan, 1989) defines the lexical gaps "empty spaces in a lexeme cluster".
Chomsky (Chomsky, 1965) and Li (Li, 2007) gave some recommendations to define lexical gaps. It is argued that although Chomsky's defining criteria is basically offered to make clear lexical gaps in English, they are also appropriate to the definition of lexical gaps in Chinese and other languages.
2.1 Background of the Study
By increasingly developing the technology and widespread inventions, accordingly, the language of science must be developed in different languages, therefore, technical translation is a very significant issue. In line with the mentioned matters, Heshmatifar and Biria (Heshmatifar, Biria, 2015) carried out a research, exploring the translation strategies used for rendering the economic terms from English to Persian. They found that most of
the frequently-used strategies for translating a scientific text are literal translation and calque. Heidari and Pezeshki (2015) published an article entitled "Strategies used in translation of scientific texts to cope with lexical gaps". They found that loan translation had the highest rate of usage (68.5%) among other techniques, and in scientific contexts it is widely preferred. Al-Ghazali (Al-Ghazali, 2012), carried out a research entitled "Lexical gaps in Arabic-to-English translation". He claims translations of Quranic ayahs under study has indicated that lexical gaps are so challenging in religious translation to overcome unless appropriate translation techniques are applied to process them. Lach (Lach, 2010), carried out a research in this regard too and found that some mechanisms which are frequent at the fourth grade decrease their presence, basically borrowing, and some other tend to increase, mainly L2-based mechanisms as linguistic proficiency, awareness and cognitive development increase. Haydary Tabrizy (Haydary Tabrizy, 2007), carried out a research in which different strategies of borrowing in translation were evaluated. He found that finding a proper counterpart is not an easy task. Not only translator needs the knowledge of linguistic, communicative, pragmatic, discourse and grammar of the target language, but also all mentioned factors must be met for the source language. He found that the most applicable strategy used in scientific texts is loan translation.
The research lays bridges on existing gaps in identifying the polymer chemistry-related translation strategies and identifying the most common strategies. Based upon this exploration, the researcher will be able to suggest the most frequently used strategies to the lexicographers in order to coin specialized terms as professionally as possible.
3. Methodology
Research Design
This research was conducted based on the qualitative approach, with a text analysis design.
Massome Raeisi, Hossein Vahid Dastjerdi, Mina Raeisi Strategies used in the translation of scientific texts to fill the lexical gap// Research Result Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, 5 (3). 2019
Material:
The data were collected from glossary of the two-volume book in polymer chemistry. This data with their translated equivalence of Persian consist of 65 specialized chemistry words which are mostly the names of devices and materials.
Procedure
Sixty-five specialized chemistry words were selected so as to assess the translation strategies used in such texts. The words were categorized based on the specified strategies such as loan word, loan translation, loan
blend, loan rendition and loan translation and rendition. After identifying each strategy, the data were tabulated into the table. Table 1 includes categorizing strategies and Table 2 contains strategies, frequencies and percentages which they were yielded numerically. Comparing the frequency and percentages determining the most and the least applicable strategies, it is worth noting that sometimes the translated scientific words include two or more strategies and translator was urged to use a multimethod.
4. Results and Discussion
Table 1
Loan word Loan blend Loan rendition Loan translation and rendition Loan translation
Titanium dioxide Electromagnetic shielding Reactors Recycled Water bath
Thermodynamic Free-radical Coating Technology Blender
Enthalpy Carbon black Kneader Water ring pelletizer Thermoplastic
Rheology Wood plastic composite pinned stirring-type screw tips Hydrophilic
Resin Antimicrobial Degassing Morphology
Tension Polymerization Devolatilisation Hydrophobic
Acrylic Decomposing polymer Hot air blower
Polypropylene Batch Mixers Pellet dryer
Extrusion Single-screw Extruder Ultraviolet
Polyethylene Macromolecular Tensile strength
Polyester Particulate solid mixer Plasticizer
Peroxide Vented extruder Mineral fillers
Matrix Char polymer Isothermal
Master batch Side feeder Laminar Mixing
Gelation Microstructure
Formulation shear stress
Comonomer
Calcium carbonate
Alloy
Polystyrene
Hydrolysis
As Table 2 shows, lexical items were divided into 5 parts and each strategy is placed in a column. There are five strategies
like loan word, loan rendition, loan blend, loan translation and rendition and loan translation.
Massome Raeisi, Hossein Vahid Dastjerdi, Mina Raeisi Strategies used in the translation of scientific texts to fill the lexical gap// Research Result Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, 5 (3). 2019
Table 2
Strategies Loan blend Loan rendition Loan translation and rendition Loan translation Loan word
Frequency 15 3 6 16 21
Percentage 23.80 4.76 9.23% 25.39% 33.33%
As noted before, 65 scientific words were selected. In the first column, the loan word includes 21 words from among the total scientific words. This indicates that 33.33% is the highest percentage related to loan word, and the least frequency of 6 (4.76%) is related to loan rendition.
Lexical gap is an essential issue in technical translation. As Sofer (Sofer, 1999) maintains, under the special circumstances that the translation of a specific text includes vocabulary items associated with a scientific domain, it should be marked as technical translation. Therefore, it would be logical that the first considerable signal for technical translation is the existence of specialized terminology in a text. According to Newark (1988), "Technical Translation is a component of specified translation; It is differentiated from other kinds of translation by terminology, although terminology usually makes up about 5-10% of a text" (Newark, 1988:151).
From linguist's attitude a significant part of description of language is word. It is always relevant to note the words that are not part of the vocabulary which can be addressed as non-existing words. Gaps are indicating through the non-existing words. The vocabulary of all languages shows the lexical gap, e.g. the English noun horse as a hypernym, incorporates its denotation both stallion (male horse) and mare (female horse). There is, however, no such hypernym in the case of cows and bulls, which subsumes both cow and bull in denotation. The absence of such a hypernym is called a lexical gap (Vishwa Vidyapeetham, 2019).
Strategies applied for the analysis of the selected words are defined as follows:
Loan word: One of the most common sources of new words in English is the pro-
cess simply labeled borrowing, that is, the taking over of words from other languages. (Yule, 1996) apparently, this is the simplest method in which translator transfer the words to the target language through transliteration. For example, polyester: 'jS^l ^polyester, rheology: ^jJjjj rheology, and extruder: j^jj^l extruder (see Appendix). According to Newmark (1988), This strategy, however, in the categorization of translation processes is named naturalization (Newmark, 1988: 83), i.e. The machine/mashin/u!—* is a type of naturalization. In this process, first the SL word is adapted to the suitable pronunciation and morphology of TL (Newmark, 1988).
Loan translation: In this strategy translator borrows the structural models but do not transfer the original words from the source language (Bateni, 2006) For example: water bath: 'V ^-^"hamam aab", hydrophobic: ^j^j^ "aab gorizi", and ultraviolet: '^¡H'mavara banafsh"
Loan blend: In some cases, applying grammatical and phonetic structures of the target language on the regular loan words caused creating new terms that half of it is borrowed and the rest part is original (Bateni, 2006). The examples are as electromagnetic shielding: '^nLUi^jj&Jl <j—jj "poshesh el-ektromeghnatisi", Hydrogen bounding: ^jj '^-jjjj^" peivand hidrogeni", free radical: olj] J-£.plj"radical azad"
Loan Rendition: With this strategy, all parts of a term are not rendered word by word, rather the term will be analyzed and then considering one prominent feature or a special function, new equivalents will be made (Bateni, 2006). This strategy is called approximate loan translation (Gomez, 1997). As Hogg, black and Burchfield (2000) maintained, "therefore, all parts of SL would not
Massome Raeisi, Hossein Vahid Dastjerdi, Mina Raeisi Strategies used in the translation of scientific texts to fill the lexical gap// Research Result Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, 5 (3). 2019
be matched in loan rendition which is rarely used." (Burchfield,2000: 315). For example: Kneader: 'jj£j^"khamirghir", and coting: '<¿■4 ayeghbandi"
Loan translation and rendition: The combination of loan rendition and loan translation creates a new strategy called loan translation and rendition. this process is done through translating one part and analyzing the rest (Haydari Tabrizy, 2007). For instance: recycled: 'J^^bazyaftr, technology: '<s jJ^—fanavari"
5. Conclusion
The most frequent type of strategy used in translating a text from the source to the target is loan word (Yule, 1996) and (Heidari Tabrizi, 2007). In comparison with the mentioned strategy, loan rendition is a special type of strategy in which the highest level of accuracy is needed and rarely used by novice translator (Hogg and et al., 2000); (Bateni, 2006). As Table 4.2 depicts, the loan word has the highest frequency and percentage which is in line with Heidari Tabrizi and Pezeshki (2015). The loan rendition takes the least number and percentage. Therefore, the loan word's strategy is the most common type for filling the lexical gap in this case. It seems that in technical sciences, which have a close relationship with new technology, in this case, the preferred strategies were the loan word which was 33.33% (Heidari Tabrizi and Pez-eshki, 2015) and (Heshmatifar & Biria, 2015). Strategies such as loan translation 25.39% and loan blend 23.80% were the next applicable methods in the scientific text.
All texts have special translation challenges but this problem is dominant when the target language is not quite dynamic as it is in the source language. In fact, the field of modern and technical sciences is continually faced with rapid changes and inventions. Finding a suitable equivalence in developed countries is more simple than in developing countries.
References
Al-Ghazali, F. M. (2012). Lexical gaps in Arabic to English translation. Sayyab Translation Journal (STJ), 4, 69-88.
Bateni, M. (2006). Borrowing strategies in Persian language. Language and thought. Tehran: Ketab Zaman Publication.
Bentivogli & Pianta (2009). Looking for Lexical Gaps. Retrieved from http "//www. itc. it/paper/wordnet-euroalex2000.
Chomsky, N. & Halle, M. (1965). Some controversial questions in phonological theory. Journal of Linguistics, 1(2): 97-138.
Gómez Capuz, J. (1997). Towards a typological classification of linguistic borrowing. Revista Alicantina de Estudios, Ingleses. 2(10): 81-94.
Heidari Tabrizi, H. (2007). Lexical gaps in translation. About Translation, 2(3):57-63.
Heidari Tabrizi, H. & Pezeshki, M. (2015). Strategies used in translation of scientific texts to cope with lexical gaps (Case of Biomass Gasification and Pyrolysis Book), Theory and Practice in Language Study, J(6):1173-1178.
Hogg, R. M., Blake, N. F., & Burchfield, R. W. (2000). The Cambridge history of the English language. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Heshmatifar, Z. & Biria, R. (2015). Exploring the translation strategies utilized for the rendition of economic terms from English into Persian. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research 2(8), 111-127.
House, J. (2009). Translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kiekema, A. R. (2009). Translation Events in Dutch Cross-Language Information Retrieval. In Annual Review of Information Science. Vol. 33. Martha Williams (ed.), PP.64-86.
Lach, M.P.A. (2010). Lexical gap-filling mechanisms in foreign language writing. Overlay Panel Ma, 38(4), 529-538.
Lehrer, A. (1974). Semantic fields and lexical structure. Amsterdam, the Netherlands: North-Holland Publishing Company.
LI, F. Y. (2007). An introduction to semantics. Beijing: Beijing University Press.
Lyons, J. (1977). Semantics. Vol. 1. Cambridge: CUP.
Natamai Subrmanian, M. R. (2015). Recycled Polymers: Properties and Applications. Vol. 2. A Smithers Group Company.
Natamai Subrmanian, M. R. (2014). Introduction to polymer compounding: Raw material. Vol. 1. A Smithers Group Company.
Newmark, P. (2001). A textbook of translation. Edinburgh, UK: Pearson Education Limited.
НАУЧНЫЙ РЕЗУЛЬТАТ
RESEARCH RESUL Т^И
Massome Raeisi, Hossein Vahid Dastjerdi, Mina Raeisi Strategies used in the translation of scientific texts to fill the lexical gap// Research Result Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, 5 (3). 2019
Newmark, P. (1988). A textbook of translation. New York and London: Prentice Hall Press.
Sofer, M. (1999). The translator's handbook. Rockville, Maryland: Schreiber.
Trask, R. L. (1993). A dictionary of grammatical terms in linguistics. London, UK: Routledge.
Appendix
Vishwa Vidyapeetham, A. (2019). Lexical gaps in the vocabulary structure of a language. Rajendran, Sankaravelayuthan.
Wang, X. J. (1989). Empty signs in language. Chinese Learning Monthly, 2, 67-70.
Yule, J. (1996). The Study of language (2nd ed.). Noida: Cambridge University Press. MLA.
Words Translation Transliteration
Water bath M Hammam ab
Wood plastic composite Composite haye choob-pelastic
pinned stirring-type screw tips 4". ^l^Jjl Ь jlkja. ^JJ Pich charakhan ba antehaye baste
Water ring pelletizer . П A jl.-"'n Pelletsaz halghe ab
Titanium dioxide Dioxide Titanium
Thermoplastic pjiUjS Garma narm
Thermodynamic ^-I^UJJJ^J" Thermodynamic
Tension ^j" Tanesh
Tensile strength ь jlj" Tavan kesheshi
Talc Talc
Vented extruder Extruder manfazdar
Rheology Rheology
Resin jJJJ Resin
Recycled Bazyafti
Reactor äJjAJ ^jSlj Vakonesh dehande
Hot air blower pjS ji Fan havaye garm
Polystyrene jjjl"^ JJ Polystyrene
Polymerisation jJ^l jA.lj Polymer shodan
Polyethylene Polyethylene
Polyester Polyester
Plasticizer Narm konande
Physical properties Khosusiat physici
Peroxide Peroxide
Ultraviolet Ijjl^ Mavara banafsh
Morphology Rikht shenasi
Mineral fillers ^jJ*^ ûJÎj£ JJ Porkonande haye maadani
Microstructure jl"kl^ .jjJ Riz sakhtar
Matrix ^jjjl^ Matrix
Masterbatch Masterbatch
Technology ^jjlji Fanavari
Macromolecular Dorosht molecule
Isothermal Hamdama
Reactor äJjAJ ^jSlj Vakonesh dehande
Hydrophobic i^ij M Ab gorizi
Hydrolysis jjIJJJJA Hydrolysis
Hydrogen bonding ^jJJJJiA JjjJJ Paivand Hydrogeny
Gelation Ajj Gele ay
Free-radical Jlj! Jl£-ljlj Radical azad
Formulation jjJ^Vj^ji Formulation
Hydrophilic ^luljJjl AB doosti
Massome Raeisi, Hossein Vahid Dastjerdi, Mina Raeisi Strategies used in the translation of scientific texts to fill the lexical gap// Research Result Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, 5 (3). 2019
Ethoxylated dUi n^j'l Ethoxyle
Enthalpy Enthalpy
Emulsion Emulsion
Laminar Mixing Ekhtelat layeh ay
Electromagnetic shielding Poshesh Electromagnetic
Blender Makhloot kon
Degassing Gass zedaey
Cylinder J.^Ul 4 Cylinder
Comonomer jÄJjJÄJ^ Comonomer
Batch Mixers Mixer haye paymane ay
Coating Ayegh bandi
Carbon black Carbon siyah
Calcium carbonate Carbonate Calcium
Antimicrobial Zed microbi
Alloy Aliage
Biodegradable Polymers jjjj ^jj^j ùijj j^jij Polymer haye zist takhrib-pazir
Acrylic ^jjjjSl Acrylic
Kneader Khamirgir
Devolatilisation ^l-u jlj Fararzodayee
Hydrolysis jJjjAiA Hydrolysis
shear stress Tanesh boreeshy
Particulate solid mixers üljj ji^jÄ Mixer haye zarrat jammed
Side feeder feeder janebi
Char polymer JJiAJi j^jjj Polymer nimsooz
Conflicts of Interest: the authors have no conflict of interest to declare.
Hossein Vahid Dastjerdi, associate Professor of Applied Linguistics and Translation Stud-ies,University of Isfahan, Islamic Azad University, Shahreza Branch
Massome Raeisi, MA in Translation, Tans-lator and Instructor Department of Eng-lish,Shahreza Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shahreza Branch
Mina Raeisi, Lecturer, Department of English, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran.
