Documentary research in specialised translation studies

Geneviève BordetParis Diderot University , Sorbonne Paris Cité, CLILLAC-ARP EA

3967 F-75205, Paris, France

Terminologija i specijalizirano prevođenje u službi međukulturne strukovne Komunikacij – August 22-23 2014 – University of Zadar

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1 What is the point of documentary research for translation?

- why is it necessary

- a double objective for a double corpus

- information as data for translation

2 How does it work?- identifying a domain and discovering a documentary landscape

- 5WH: a methodology

- tools and techniques

3 How is documentary research applied to translation?- Terminology

- Translation problem solving

- Using process tracing to become a translator

Outline

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Why is it necessary?

What is specialized translation: transfer from one “langue-culture” to another for the transmission of information via a text

Requires the collection and assimilation of textual information as to a specialized domain and a discourse community

The “langue-culture” is made of a specific vocabulary but also a specific handling of general language, and terms’ combinations

1. Documentary research and specialized translation

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A twofold objective

Collect, connect information required for the understanding of a field of human activity (scientific, technical, economic, ...)

Collect a corpus made of documents that are representative of the diversity of the discursive production of the considered field of activity

1. Documentary research and specialized translation

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A twofold corpus

Popularization and didactic documents, images, videos, charts etc…

A comparable corpus of specialized documents in the source and the target language

1. Documentary research and specialized translation

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Collected data as a material for translation decisions

Identification of the specific terms Identification of the specific use of general language terms (including verbs)

Identification of terms’ recurrent combinations (collocations, colligations)

Identification of specific clausal and textual structures that are representative of the studied domain

1. Documentary research and specialized translation

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Collected data as a material for translation decisions

Identification of the specific terms Identification of the specific use of general language terms (including verbs)

Identification of terms’ recurrent combinations (collocations, colligations)

Identification of specific clausal and textual structures that are representative of the studied domain

1. Documentary research and specialized translation

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A circular process

Domain Terminology Translation

A complex process

Complexity of a domain made up of a diversity of actors, interests, issues and discursive genres

The 5 Ws and 1H methodology

• A domain representative corpus

• Validation of terminological information sources

2. The documentary research process

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What is “conflict diamonds trade”?

Who is involved? Who are the actors?

Where does it take place?

When (or since when) does it happen (exist)?

Why does it happen (exist)?

How: how does it work?

2. The documentary research process

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2. Part of the research process: establishing the documentary landscape

French Corpus: Genre contract1%

technical report1%

legislation15%

NGO reports16%

university papers47%

certification manual

1%

industry reports2%

political speech/debate

2%KP workshop

3%

organisation rules5%

official (mostly UN) reports

7%

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2. Part of the research process: establishing the documentary landscape

English Corpus: Genrelegislation

2%

industry reports8%

university papers14%

trial (Charles Taylor)

35%

showroomprive sale1%

professional association

report1%

political speech/debate

3%

organisation rules3%

KP compliance verification

3%UN report4%

certification manual

6%

NGO reports10%

technical reports10%

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2. Part of the research process: establishing the documentary landscape

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A wide range of tools The Web and the libraries Databases (ex: repec.org for economy) and search engines

(Google Scholar) Open and off-campus access resources

An interrogation syntax Research equations

ex : « monetary funds » AND regulation AND date >2005 ET (types of documents= periodical papers OR reports)

Database interrogation tools

2. The documentary research process

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2. Research process: Google’ search tools

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2. Research process: Google’s advanced search

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2. Research process: advanced search results

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2. Research process: Google’s instant search

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2. Research process: Google Images

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2. Research process: Google Scholar

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2. Research process: a human sciences search engine

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2. Research process : off-campus access to library resources

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2. Research process : national network of university libraries

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2. Research process: Factiva a news database

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2. Research process: Revues.org open-access database

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An adequate choice of terminology for requests:

2. The documentary research process

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Consultation with technical experts: oral and written resources (synonymy, neology)

2. Research process: the experts

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2. Research process: information watch

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Establishment of a specialized terminology Creation of definitions and technical remarks Example:- Definition of “credit intermediation”a funding process in which an institutional unit acquires financial assets and at

the same time invests them on the market through credit, maturity or liquidity transformation

- Additional remark:The definition applies both to the shadow banking system and the traditional

banking system. Although the credit intermediation in the traditional banking system is performed in an integrated way, the shadow banking credit intermediation is performed through a multi-step process in which each shadow bank has a particular role to play and uses specific techniques.

3. Application to specialized translation

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Creation of tree diagrams based on the understanding of each term’s semantic status

Remark: financial intermediation" (intermediation performed by financial entities), together with "banking intermediation", is part of the "credit intermediation". However, banking intermediation refers exclusively to the intermediation performed by banks and is rarely used by American authors (the US financial system relying less on banking institutions than the European financial system).

→ financial / banking intermediation are the meronyms of credit intermediation

3. Application to specialized translation

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Identification of collocations

Ex: to perform / to conduct a credit intermediation

“Like the traditional banking system, the shadow banking system conducts credit intermediation . However, unlike the traditional banking system, where credit intermediation is performed “under one roof”—that of a bank—in the shadow banking system….”

3. Application to specialized translation

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Identification of various types of synonyms

Ex: credit transformation / credit enhancement

Comment:"credit enhancement" has a more general meaning than "credit

transformation" and refers to the attempts by a financial institution to reduce the credit risks of its assets, thereby improving its credit worthiness: collaterals, credit risk transfer or credit tranformation are credit enhancing tools.

3. Application to specialized translation

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Comparing terms: shadow bank / nonbank

3. Application to specialized translation

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Comparing terms: shadow bank / non bank

3. Application to specialized translation

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Translation problem solving: making decisions

In the domain of “mergers and acquisitions”, translating from French to American English:

Knowledge of the institutional context helps filling in the gaps for the target audience so as to make up for cultural differences

3. Application to specialized translation

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Taking into account cultural and economic specificities Ex: Translating the word “concentration” from French to English

Problem:- “concentration” (French) is a process

Ex: réaliser (to realize) une concentration - “concentration” (English) is either a process

Ex: to realize a concentration Or a result:

Ex: a newly merged concentration

3. Application to specialized translation

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The student’s comment: After learning much more about merger control and competition law,

and spending much more time studying the corpora, I realized that in English, occurrences of “concentration” as a process only seemed to appear in European texts.

The European use of the word “concentration” in English actually corresponds to what North American authors refer to as mergers and acquisitions (M&A)

3. Application to specialized translation

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Conclusion:Since the text is a French paper dealing with the

European situation: the translation’s targeted audience is American

the French term “concentration” should be translated by “mergers and acquisitions”

Decision = comparative analysis of economic context + identification of the translation’s targeted audience

3. Application to specialized translation

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Translating a neologism In the domain of “celebrity marketing”

(as in Nespresso with George Clooney!)

Translating the following sentence:In a co-branding situation, either between two product brands or

between a product and a human brand, the separate relevant brand attributes tied to each brand come together.

Problem: the term “human brand” has no exact equivalent in French

3. Application to specialized translation

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Solution:

The student coins a new term: “marque – célébrité” based on the study of the corpus using a concordancer:

Avoids the ambiguity in French of “marque humaine”

Reproduces the observed recurrent structure in French: “marque – x”

Confirmed by an expert who uses this neonym in an essay included in the corpus

3. Application to specialized translation

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A process tracing approach to become a translator

A 3 parts report:

Documentation: commentary

Terminology: dictionary and commentary

Translation: aligned translation and commentary

3. Application to specialized translation: process tracing

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3. Application to specialized translation

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Choosing a Field of Study

“At that point, I was not aware that this subject incorporated a significant legal aspect. Once I started to translate small parts of the article to see exactly what kinds of issues I might have with terminology, I realized that there were many references to legal matters and texts. Little by little I discovered that I was dealing with an interdisciplinary field called competition law. It included several different sub-fields of economics, and the administrative bodies that regulate the economy in France and the European Union. I would have to learn basic concepts from several of these different subjects and put them all together to get a good enough understanding of the relevant issues in order to translate an article about them.”

3. Process tracing: extracts of a student’s report

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Search Methods

Online Resources “Since the article to be translated was from an academic journal, I wanted to find a lot of texts from the same kind of documents written in the same register. For this reason, I chose to use search engines such as Google Scholar, the “Catalogue +” search function on the Université Paris Diderot website, Sudoc, and the CAIRN and Science Direct17 databases. Search terms were first chosen based on the article to be translated. The following are some examples of the first ones I used: “competition law” + mergers "industrial organization" + "competition policy" “contrôle des concentrations” “économie industrielle” + concentrations “droit de la concurrence” + fusions »

3. Process tracing: extracts of a student’s report

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Types of Documents Available in the Field

It is not surprising that the most documents produced about French merger control and competition policies come from the government agencies responsible for monitoring markets in that country. The Autorité de la concurrence issues opinions about the state of competition, and makes decisions regarding proposed mergers and acquisitions. They also issue press releases about the result of certain cases, or their recommendations for improving the state of markets in certain industries.

Everything that comes from the Autorité is important to those working in the field of competition law, and the firms affected by that law

because it sets the tone for what is considered acceptable and what is not.

3. Process tracing: extracts of a student’s report

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CONCLUSION

(…) Although one could hardly say that the terminology in the field is volatile, this mix of subjects in the context of the European Union creates a confusing situation for the use of terms in English. Once I realized this, it definitely affected the way I did my research and decided which documents to take into account when choosing terms. In this way, I was confronted with the reality of translating in a country that is part of a larger framework where languages meet and mix, resulting in often very unique English vocabulary that is not necessarily understood by those who are not familiar with it. It makes me wonder how often translators with deadlines who are not

familiar with these differences use vocabulary from the European Commission when it may not be the best choice if one’s goal is

widespread comprehension.

3. Process tracing: extracts of a student’s report

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information research

document collection

specialised language discourse community domain

Conclusion

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Corpus

Terminological / phraseological query

Translation decision

Conclusion

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My course: http://www.eila.univ-paris-diderot.fr/enseignement/lea/cours/rech-documentaire/gbordet2

A selection of useful resources: http://www.eila.univ-paris-diderot.fr/enseignement/lea/cours/rech-documentaire/l3

Research methodology for the Internet: http://ccfd.crosemont.qc.ca/cours/trousse/carte/index.html

On-line resources

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Geneviève BordetParis Diderot University , Sorbonne Paris Cité, CLILLAC-ARP EA 3967

F-75205, Paris, Francegbordet@eila.univ-paris-diderot.fr

Hvala na vašoj pozornosti!

Documentary research in specialized translation studies

Terminologija i specijalizirano prevođenje u službi međukulturne strukovne Komunikacij – August 22-23 2014 – University of Zadar

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