Equivalence in scientific and technical translation : a text-in-context-based study

Scientific and technical translation has always played a pivotal role in disseminating knowledge. Today, the domain of science and technology is the main area of translation work. Nevertheless, there is still a discrepancy between the growing need for high-quality technical translations and the short supply of competent technical translators to produce them, a situation which may be due in part to the recent neglect of the equivalence concept in the theoretical/descriptive and applied branches of translation studies (TS). This thesis sets out to redefine, reassess, and reinstate equivalence as a useflul concept in TS by adopting an approach based on the English-German language pair and on one specific text genre and type. The investigation of equivalence as a qualitative complete-text-in-context-based concept is embedded in an equivalence-relevant methodology based on two methodological pillars, the first being a theoretically sound translation comparison and the second a highly refined translation corpus. Within this methodological framework, equivalence-relevant features are investigated and described at the syntactic, lexical-semantic, terminological-phraseological and overall textual levels. These levels are hierarchically interrelated in descending and ascending order and may be conditioned by pragmatic aspects, viz., domain knowledge and register considerations. The comparison is made using a high-quality corpus selected on the basis of a threefold set of selection criteria, with a special emphasis on the qualitative criteria. This helps us generate well-underpinned intersubjectifiable regularities in the form of potential equivalents established in the TT for ST equivalence-relevant features and enables us to obtain meaningful generalizations. Both regularities and generalizations should be capable of implementation in the applied branches of TS and, at the same time, help dynamize and intersubjectify the complex concept of equivalence. So, hopefully, this thesis will also contribute toward creating a link between the methodological, theoretical/descriptive and applied branches of TS to their mutual benefit.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Visualización del lenguaje a través de corpus

Digital version of the print publication, published in A Coruña: Universidade da Coruña, Servizo de Publicacións, 2010 (ISBN 978-84-9749-401-4)This book contains the papers presented at the Second International Conference on Corpus Linguistics held at the University of A Coruña in 2010 and organised by the MuStE group. The essays deal with different aspects of corpus linguistics both as a methodology and as a branch of Linguistics.[Abstract] The collection of essays we are presenting here are just a mere sample of the interest the topics relating to Corpus Linguistics have arisen everywhere. Such different topics as those related to Computational Linguistics found in “Obtaining computational resources for languages with scarce resources from closely related computationally-developed languages. The Galician and Portuguese case“ or “Corpus-Based Modelling of Lexical Changes in Manic Depression Disorders: The Case of Edgar Allan Poe” belonging to the field of Corpus and Literary Studies can be found in the ensuing pages. Almost all research areas can nowadays be investigated using Corpus Linguistics as a valid methodology. This is reason why Language Windowing through Corpora gathers papers dealing with discourse, variation and change, grammatical studies, lexicology and lexicography, corpus design, contrastive analyses, language acquisition and learning or translation. This work’s title aims at reflecting not only the great variety of topics gathered in it but also the worldwide interest awaken by the computer processing of language. In fact, researchers from many different institutions all over the world have contributed to this book. Apart from the twenty-two Spanish Universities, people from other Higher Education Institutions have authored and co-authored the essays contained here, namely, Russia, Venezuela, Brazil, UK, Finland, Portugal, Poland, Austria, Mexico, Thailand, Iran, the Netherlands, Belgium, Japan, Turkey, China, Italy, Malaysia, Romania and Sweden. All these essays have been alphabetically arranged, by the names of their authors, in two parts. Part 1 contains the papers by authors from A to K and Part 2, those of authors from L to Z

Idiom treatment experiments in machine translation

Idiomatic expressions pose a particular challenge for the today\u27;s Machine Translation systems, because their translation mostly does not result literally, but logically. The present dissertation shows, how with the help of a corpus, and morphosyntactic rules, such idiomatic expressions can be recognized and finally correctly translated. The work leads the reader in the first chapter generally to the field of Machine Translation and following that, it focuses on the special field of Example-based Machine Translation. Next, an important part of the doctoral thesis dissertation is devoted to the theory of idiomatic expressions. The practical part of the thesis describes how the hybrid Example-based Machine Translation system METIS-II, with the help of morphosyntactic rules, is able to correctly process certain idiomatic expressions and finally, to translate them. The following chapter deals with the function of the transfer system CAT2 and its handling of the idiomatic expressions. The last part of the thesis includes the evaluation of three commercial systems, namely SYSTRAN, T1 Langenscheidt, and Power Translator Pro, with respect to continuous and discontinuous idiomatic expressions. For this, both small corpora and a part of the extensive corpus Europarl and the Digital Lexicon of the German Language in 20th century were processed, firstly manually and then automatically. The dissertation concludes with results from this evaluation.Idiomatische Redewendungen stellen für heutige maschinelle Übersetzungssysteme eine besondere Herausforderung dar, da ihre Übersetzung nicht wörtlich, sondern stets sinngemäß erfolgen muss. Die vorliegende Dissertation zeigt, wie mit Hilfe eines Korpus sowie morphosyntaktischer Regeln solche idiomatische Redewendungen erkannt und am Ende richtig übersetzt werden können. Die Arbeit führt den Leser im ersten Kapitel allgemein in das Gebiet der Maschinellen Übersetzung ein und vertieft im Anschluss daran das Spezialgebiet der Beispielbasierten Maschinellen Übersetzung. Im Folgenden widmet sich ein wesentlicher Teil der Doktorarbeit der Theorie über idiomatische Redewendungen. Der praktische Teil der Arbeit beschreibt wie das hybride Beispielbasierte Maschinelle Übersetzungssystem METIS-II mit Hilfe von morphosyntaktischen Regeln befähigt wurde, bestimmte idiomatische Redewendungen korrekt zu bearbeiten und am Ende zu übersetzen. Das nachfolgende Kapitel behandelt die Funktion des Transfersystems CAT2 und dessen Umgang mit idiomatischen Wendungen. Der letzte Teil der Arbeit beinhaltet die Evaluation von drei kommerzielle Systemen, nämlich SYSTRAN, T1 Langenscheidt und Power Translator Pro, in Bezug auf deren Umgang mit kontinuierlichen und diskontinuierlichen idiomatischen Redewendungen. Hierzu wurden sowohl kleine Korpora als auch ein Teil des umfangreichen Korpus Europarl und des Digatalen Wörterbuchs der deutschen Sprache des 20. Jh. erst manuell und dann maschinell bearbeitet. Die Dissertation wird mit Folgerungen aus der Evaluation abgeschlossen