Section I.

Subject matter and objectives of the course on translation of scientific and

technical literature

Translation is the transfer of information contained in a given work of speech by means

of another language. Depending on the form of speech in which the interacting languages
are used, the following types of translation can be distinguished.

Written translation.

This is one of the most common types of translation in translation practice.

a) newspaper translation;

b) official business translation;

c) scientific translation;

d) scientific and technical translation;

e) oratorical and journalistic translation;

f) literary and artistic translation.

Oral Interpretation.

a) consecutive interpretation and

b) simultaneous interpretation.

Consecutive interpretation follows the original text.

Simultaneous interpreting is usually performed almost simultaneously with the

pronunciation of the original text. The use of both types of interpreting in practice is
fraught with considerable psychological difficulties.

Written and oral translation

Within this type of translation, two variations are also possible:

a) translation can be done simultaneously with reading the original text to oneself or

b) sequentially, after reading the whole text or paragraph by paragraph.

The first type of translation and interpretation is usually referred to as translation from a
sheet of paper, the second as translation with preparation (with preliminary reading and
understanding of the original text).

Interpretation

In practice, this type of translation is quite rare,

Sometimes there is

automatic (computer-aided) translation

as a special type of translation that has become widespread recently.

The main tasks of translation of scientific and technical literature are that the translation
product should meet the requirements of equivalence and adequacy. The equivalence in
translation theory should be understood as preservation of relative equality of content,
semantic, semantic, stylistic and functional-communicative information contained in the
original and the translation.

Adequacy answers the question of whether the translation as a process corresponds to the
given communicative conditions (for example, colloquial jargon is not applicable in an
official business conversation). Violations of translation norms are called literal and free
translation. Literal translation is proposed to be a translation performed at a level lower
than that required in a given case.

Не walked with his eyes down.

Часто переводят это так –

Он шел с глазами, опущенными в землю,

в то время как правильным будет перевод –

Он шел, опустив глаза.

Literal translation should be distinguished from literal translation. It consists in rendering

the structure of a sentence without changing the construction and without substantially
changing the word order.

Free translation is the antithesis of literal translation.

Unjustified departure from the original leads to the fact that the translator goes beyond
the scope of his duties and acts in the role of the author, which is not his own.

Background information is socio-cultural information characteristic only for a certain

nation or nationality, mastered by the mass of its representatives and reflected in the
language of this national community.

When translating, it is usually necessary to solve two main tasks: 1) to understand the
content of the text in the original language correctly; 2) to fully and accurately convey
this content by means of the target language.

To successfully translate scientific and technical literature it is necessary to:1) have a

certain stock of English words (including special terminology in a certain field of
knowledge);2) know the grammar of the English language, otherwise the words will
remain only "bricks" from which nothing can be built;3) know the lexical, grammatical
and stylistic issues of translation;4) be able to use a dictionary (before opening a
dictionary, to know by formal signs, to what part of speech belongs to an unfamiliar
word; to know all the features of the construction of the text; 4) to be able to use a
dictionary (before opening a dictionary, to know what part of speech the unfamiliar word
belongs to; to know all the features of the English language); 4) to be able to use a
dictionary.