Documentary research in specialised translation

studies

Genevive Bordet
Paris Diderot University , Sorbonne Paris Cit, CLILLAC-ARP EA 3967
F-75205, Paris, France

Terminologija i specijalizirano prevoenje u slubi meukulturne strukovne 1

Komunikacij August 22-23 2014 University of Zadar

Outline
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

2
1. Documentary research and specialized translation

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

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1. Documentary research and specialized translation

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

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1. Documentary research and specialized translation

A twofold corpus

Popularization and didactic documents, images, videos, charts

etc

A comparable corpus of specialized documents in the source and

the target language

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1. Documentary research and specialized translation

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

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1. Documentary research and specialized translation

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

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2. The documentary research process

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

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2. The documentary research process

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?

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2. Part of the research process: establishing the
documentary landscape
industry reports political
French Corpus: Genre technical report 2%
contract speech/debate
certification 1% 1% 2%
manual KP workshop
1% 3%
organisation rules
5%
official (mostly
UN) reports
7%
university papers
47%

legislation
15%

NGO reports
16%

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2. Part of the research process: establishing the
documentary landscape
professional political
English Corpus: Genre association organisation
legislation
speech/debate
showroomprive report 2% 3% rules
sale 1% 3%
1% KP compliance
trial (Charles verification
Taylor) UN report 3%
35% 4%
certification
manual
6%
industry reports
8%

technical reports
10%
NGO reports
university papers 10%
14%

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

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2. The documentary research process

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

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2. Research process: Google search tools

14
2. Research process: Googles advanced search

15
2. Research process: advanced search results

16
2. Research process: Googles instant search

17
2. Research process: Google Images

18
2. Research process: Google Scholar

19
2. Research process: a human sciences search engine

20
2. Research process : off-campus access to library
resources

21
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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2. The documentary research process

An adequate choice of terminology for requests:

25
2. Research process: the experts

Consultation with technical experts: oral and written resources

(synonymy, neology)

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2. Research process: information watch

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3. Application to specialized translation

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.

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3. Application to specialized translation

Creation of tree diagrams based on the understanding of each

terms 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

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3. Application to specialized translation

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 roofthat of a bankin the shadow banking system.

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3. Application to specialized translation

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.

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3. Application to specialized translation

Comparing terms: shadow bank / nonbank

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3. Application to specialized translation

Comparing terms: shadow bank / non bank

33
3. Application to specialized translation

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

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35
3. Application to specialized translation

Taking into account cultural and economic specificities

Ex: Translating the word concentration from French to
English
Problem:
- concentration (French) is a process
Ex: raliser (to realize) une concentration
- concentration (English) is either a process
Ex: to realize a concentration
Or a result:
Ex: a newly merged concentration

36
3. Application to specialized translation

The students 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)

37
3. Application to specialized translation

Conclusion:
Since the text is a French paper dealing with the
European situation: the translations targeted
audience is American

the French term concentration should be

translated by mergers and acquisitions

Decision = comparative analysis of economic context +

identification of the translations targeted audience

38
3. Application to specialized translation

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

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3. Application to specialized translation

Solution:

The student coins a new term: marque clbrit 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

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3. Application to specialized translation: process
tracing

A process tracing approach to become a translator

A 3 parts report:

Documentation: commentary

Terminology: dictionary and commentary

Translation: aligned translation and commentary

41
3. Application to specialized translation

42
3. Process tracing: extracts of a students report

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.

43
3. Process tracing: extracts of a students report

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 Universit 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"
contrle des concentrations
conomie industrielle + concentrations
droit de la concurrence + fusions

44
3. Process tracing: extracts of a students report

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 Autorit 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 Autorit 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.

45
3. Process tracing: extracts of a students report

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 ones goal is
widespread comprehension.

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Conclusion

information research

document collection

specialised language discourse community domain

47
Conclusion

Corpus

Terminological / phraseological query

Translation decision

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On-line resources

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

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 Hvala na vaoj
pozornosti!

Documentary research
in specialized translation studies

Genevive Bordet
Paris Diderot University , Sorbonne Paris Cit, CLILLAC-ARP EA 3967
F-75205, Paris, France
gbordet@eila.univ-paris-diderot.fr

Terminologija i specijalizirano prevoenje u slubi meukulturne strukovne 50

Komunikacij August 22-23 2014 University of Zadar