423.10.3.4  : EARLIER TRANSLATIONS

     Earlier translations of standard technical books, journals, research papers may also be helpful for technical translator.

423.10.3.5  : MASS MEDIA

423.10.3.6  : GRAMMAR

     A good comprehensive grammar of both the languages and a good learner's dictionary could also be a good aid in translation and help in the bridging of linguistic barriers between two languages. Most of the good bilingual and learner's dictionaries include small grammars in their dictionaries as an appendix or in the introduction. Occasional discussion with subject experts, whenever possible, may be useful in clarifying concepts, and finding suitable terms, besides help in better understanding of the subject matter.

423.10.3.7  : TERMINOLOGICAL SERVICES

     There is a steady increase in the number of terminology banks all over the world particularly in Europe, that offer terminological services to the technical translator. These terminological banks aimed at standardization, and internationalization of scientific and technical terminologies have special obligation concerning the supply of scientific and technical information services and terminological counseling not only to the translator but also to the terminologists, standardization agencies, publishers and information scientists. International Committee for Unification of Terminological Neologisms (ICUTN) and World Bank of International Terms (WBIT) with its branches all over the world, are engaged in the promotion and exchange of scientific, terminological, economic, social, cultural and specialized information which helps scientists and translator keep abreast with the latest foreign research and scientific works. Unfortunately, in India, terminological banks and the terminological services have not received the attention they deserve. This is mainly because translation particularly scientific translation is not an organized effort in India, even today. Translations in India continue to be individual enterprises and customer-based. The creation of a centralized terminology, data bank and an central agency for the management of technical translations will go a long way in aiding scientific translation.

     Finally, a dictionary is not "cure all" of translation. A technical translator requires a whole range of tools, dictionaries of various kinds - monolingual, bilingual, learner's dictionary, collocational dictionary, "area studies" dictionary, encyclopaedias, research papers / abstracts to bridge the gap between linguist and specialist, between SL and TL.

423.10.4  : SUMMARY

     In this unit we have learnt that the aim of translation of social science text is the dissemination and transfer of information across language and cultures. This involves a sound knowledge of the scientific field or the subject and a good understanding of the text under translation, besides and active knowledge of the languages involved. Technical language is specialized in terms of terminology, syntax and style.

     Language being culture-specific have distinct features of there own, and therefore, pose various lexical, grammatical syntactic, syntactic and situational problems to the technical translator. A translator, however, has access to a range of tools both linguistic and extra linguistic, in the form of dictionaries, encyclopedias, terminological services etc., to help him overcome the language barriers in translation.