Филологические науки. 6 Актуальные проблемы перевода

К.п.н. Борисова П.В.

Санкт-Петербургский государственный горный университет, Россия

Some Issues on Written Translation Teaching in Technical University

Nowadays the English language has become a universal tool of communication between scientists all over the world. Fast speed of informational flow as well as fast information change within professional communities make young specialists to acquire foreign language (English) at a really high level. Necessity to process sufficient amount of information written in English serves the same function. In the modern world the English language is needed for the up-and-coming engineer as much as French was needed to be successful in the society in the 18^th-19^th centuries. That’s the reason why English for Special Purposes (ESP) has become more and more demanded. And teaching students written translation skills in Technical University plays first fiddle here.

Written translation teaching on the base of scientific texts on the given specialist subject takes a special place in students’ professionally-oriented teaching of the foreign language in technical institutions. Technical translation is a special kind of translation with its origin being found in linguistics on the one hand and science and technology on the other. The basic issue of technical translation is the necessity of combining both knowledge of the foreign language and knowledge of technology. Who can become a “technical” translator? First of all, it can be a “specialist in technology” with a high level of the foreign language acquisition. Then it can be a “linguist” with deep profound knowledge on the technical topic.

Because of the recent changes in curricular now in the Mining University there is a new subject “Technical translation” (72 work hours per week; about 40 hours goes for forming students’ skills in written translation). What is technical translation in this context? First of all, it’s the process of written text transformation from one language into another saving its’ ideas and making all necessary changes.

Certainly, there was a written translation program in the Mining University before putting this new program into practice. But the practical course was composed according to preference of each exact teacher. Because of this reason some teachers (not being strong professionals in ESP) didn’t pay enough attention to the technical translation. And the situation looked as the following: the first and the second year students got acquainted with the terms on their specialist subject for the first time in their lives at the English language lessons. But English teachers could give them only translation of such terms as – “finger raise – пальцевый восстающий”, “crest – бровка уступа”, “longwall advancing to the rise – сплошная разработка с выемкой по восстанию”, etc… – and could not explain the meaning of words and word combinations.

No doubt that new subject “Technical translation” provokes the necessity to increase teachers’ competence and skills. Partly it can done by the teachers themselves due to self-education including creation of interdisciplinary links, attending professors’ lectures, reading special literature, etc. Partly teachers’ competence can be raised due to the University help in organizing study courses, international conferences (English teachers usually take part in them as interlocutors).

New subject demands new textbooks creation. But there is the whole range of “narrow” specialties in the Mining University (Blasting, Applied Geodesy, and Hydrogeology – 29 specialties in total). To provide all of them with proper textbooks is a hard and time-consuming task. And the level of staff’s technical knowledge doesn’t make this task easier.

Thus, I and my co-author, Maria Perfilova, encountered some problems while composing the text-book on Geodesy and working out its vocabulary. The difficulties were lexical in character. For example, not being strong professionals in Geodesy we “very logically” translated a word combination “geodetic astronomy” as “геодезическая астрономия”. And it was only our technical editor (associate professor of the Geodesy department) who explained us that in reality this term should be translated as “сфероидическая астрономия”.

At this very moment I would come back to the beginning of the given article and spend some time to discuss lexical difficulties that students can have while translating technical texts from English into Russian. As it has already been mentioned before, to learn and use lexical units freely is quite a hard task for students because their professional skills training starts on the third course. But a foreign language acquisition lasts only during the first and the second courses.

Nowadays the foreign languages department composes lexical minimums on each (even the most general) specialty as before it there were lexical minimums only for 7 faculties. Lexical minimum is highly important for the students not only because it’s a step of multi-leveled final exam but also because it provides students with useful vocabulary which is necessary for their future career.

I can’t but mention the difficulties typical for those students who have not practiced such activity as technical translation of original texts. Besides the necessity to be skillful in grammar and vocabulary one needs to possess such skills as: 1) ability to use a dictionary effectively, including not only searching for a new word but also choosing a proper meaning from the list; 2) to see the idea of the text through the number of sentences and by necessity to be able to transform it. Moreover, in this context I can’t but mention the “corrupted power” of such programs as Prompt over lazy students’ minds. Probably there is no need to write about “high” quality of technical texts translations offered by such programs. The example with a word combination “горные породы” being translated as “mountain breeds” by Prompt (not as “rocks”) speaks louder than words.

It’s not a secret that scientific terms have several meanings. Sometimes one and the same term has different meanings within different branches of science. And context is the only key to be used by students to choose the right variant of translation. For instance, in oil and gas texts, “sand management” should be translated not as менеджмент песка, but “управление пескованием” (выносом песка), and “Christmas tree” – is not a real tree but “фонтанная арматура”.

When a student works on technical text translation s/he can be puzzled by the metaphorical sense of some terms. This is especially typical for oil and gas texts. For example, “дикая кошка” (“wildcat”) in reality should be translated as “поисково-разведочная скважина”.

Another actual problem is that not only terms and special lexical units are used in scientific texts. The special group provoking difficulties in translation consists of terms belonging to the general English words with special meaning. For instance, “Toe” means “палец ноги” but it also means “подошва выработки”; “hat” means “шляпа” but it technical translation it denotes “покрывающая порода”. At the same time there can be met usage of one word in different special meaning due to the branch of science.

And at last, it’s necessary to help students to avoid word-for-word translation as in the following example where “electric rock drill” is translated as “электроскалосверлилка” or “электрический скалодроб”. Besides, I feel like mention some difficulties provoked by the content of the texts. Some special features in the foreign language teaching (teaching special terms in English during the first 2 years while professional-training education starts at the 3^-rd course) causes some problems decreasing efficiency of teaching students even elementary things in written translation.

Besides the difficulties provoked by lexical peculiarities, I can’t but mention some grammar difficulties. And passive constructions translation causes a great number of mistakes as students usually substitute object for the subject. Constructions with the infinitive, gerund, and participle that are widely introduced in in technical texts can also cause some difficulties while translation. Moreover, giving definitions and real objects descriptions by stating their properties are typical for technical texts. This fact explains wide usage of simple two-components sentences consisting of compound predicate and predicate: They are of the hollow-cavity type…, The guyed tower is a bottom founded structure, which…, The length of the pipeline is a safety factor necessitated by…, In underground workings transport of men and materials is by high-capacity electric locomotives. Such structures are used in the negative sense either but in this case compound predicate with negation is widely used instead of typical negation (do not): The collars above the bent sub are non-magnetic.

At the lessons students are taught all these and many other peculiarities. For the written translation students use not only “classical” paper dictionaries but also electronic ones such as Multitran (multitran.ru) and software programs such as Lingvo. They help to facilitate the process of translation. The skills in oral translation of technical text students can improve not only at the lessons but also during taking part in international conferences, seminars and training courses.

Reference

1. Воробьева М. Б. К вопросу о работе над научным текстом // Преподавание ИЯ и его лингвистические основы. М.: Наука, 1972. – 285 С.

2. Мурзо Ю.Е., Киракозова Л.Г. Особенности письменного и устного перевода технических текстов горной тематики // Записки горного института. С-Пб., 2010 – С. 279-282.