As time goes by and the word acquires more status
(more and more people use.it) the convenience of
defining clearly its semantic range makes itself felt.
Scientists and technicians approach this problem in
different ways.
a. Some give a concise and clear definition:
»Die Geomorphologie untersucht die Oberfláchenfor-
men der Erde, das Relief, studiert und analysiert
Prozesse, die zur Ausformung des Reliefs geführt
haben bzw. es derzeit überformen und versucht eine
zeitliche Einstufung des realen Reliefs und seiner
Teile*.
F. Wieneke (ZPF 2/91)
b. Some, clarify concepts which, in spite of being
erroneous, have been generally accepted:
»91 bien la designación imagen digital parece un
contrasentido desde el punto de vista linguistico,
su uso se ha generalizado en lugar de imagen
digitalizada que seria una expresión más correcta.
H.-P. B&hr, 1991
c. Some just give some synonym to guide the reader
and avoid confusions:
»... Ssimulierte Buttons oder Schalter ...*
M. Gross (ZPF 5/91)
d. or they give incomplete definitions which merely
serve the purpose of the moment:
»... Aliasingeffect (Falschberechnung der Farbvalenz
M. Gross (ZPF 5/91)
»... Lacken (Lóffler) — salzhaltiger Flachsee ... *
Csaplovics and Senftner (ZPF 2/91)
At this point of evolution, a word can be considered
to have attained maturity and with it the right to
appear as an entry in our technical dictionaries and
glossaries. Its meaning becomes fixed and so does
its spelling as well as its grammatical, phonetic and
syntactical features.
336
3 The Translation of Tech-
nical-Scientific Words and
Concepts
So far the history of created words but what happens
when a word or an expression is to be translated into
another language? Who translates in the first place?
Sometimes a professional translator is appointed;
sometimes scientists and technicians attempt the job
themselves. It should be borne in mind, however, that
to fulfill the task satisfactorily a thorough knowledge
of the subject is not enough: some linguistic criteria
are also welcome.
A foreign language is the expression of another
cultural environment. It segments reality in a
different way and conveys meaning through a set
of conventions and rules which are not necessarily
similar to those we have internalized with our own
cultural patterns. Thus, we may force meaning upon
certain descriptions of events because of the difficulty
of standing aside from our mother tongue which is
a habit and a cultural non-est-disputandum (Whorf,
1949).
If we translate
GIS as „Geographisches Informationssystem“ (Ger-
man) or „Sistema de Informaciön geogräfica“ (Spa-
nish) readers will be mislead because what is meant
by „geographisch“ in the German language covers a
different semantic range than „geogräfico“ in Spanish.
Perhaps „Geoinformationssystem“ and „Sistema de
Geoinformaciön“ would bring both concepts closer to
the original.
Without some linguistic knowledge we are unable
to see the foreign language objectively and are thus
liable to be influenced by language habits of which we
are not even conscious due to an unavoidable pattern
of habitual thought.
A furniture advertisement in a large store in
Karlsruhe (Germany) offered ,,Bad Design“ referring
to bathroom arrangements.
On the other hand, a translator without thorough
knowledge of the subject he is translating produces
his own layman's interpretation of the original text
and translates it cloaking concepts in words furnished
by dictionaries, which are not always capable of
providing him with the correct lexical item. Thus
he may miss the point generating confusion and/or
misunderstandings:
hardware - mercaderia dura (Spanish) instead of using
the same word or the technical equivalent ,soporte
fisico“
scoria - cagafierro (Spanish) which is the ob-
solete synonym for „escoria“and sounds absolutely
ridiculous
Sometimes words are given different translations and
these different versions coexist as synonyms during
a certain time until one of them attains supremacy
