Was heißt hier Fernerkundung?
Translation of Technical-Scientific Concepts
Anita Schwender
Universidad Tecnolögica Nacional Regional Santa Fe
Lavaisse, AR-3000 Santa Fe, Argentina
Hans-Peter Bähr
Institute for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, University of Karlsruhe
Englerstrasse 7, D-7500 Karlsruhe 1, Germany
Email: bähr@ipf.bau-verm.uni-karlsruhe.de
ISPRS Commission VI
Abstract
Although English is on the best way to become
the „Lingua Franca“ in science and technology - or
perhaps precisely due to this reason - there is a
growing demand for technical-scientific translations,
either from English into other languages or vice versa.
Thus both translators and readers are faced with
difficulties which sometimes interfere with straight
forward communication. By means of examples the
authors discuss in this paper some of the challenges
posed on translators and readers and stress the
importance of adopting common criteria.
Zusammenfassung
Es existiert eine gesteigerte Nachfrage nach tech-
nisch-wissenschaftlichen Übersetzungen, und zwar
vom Englischen in andere Sprachen wie auch um-
gekehrt. Dabei sehen sich sowohl Übersetzer als
auch Leser in Schwierigkeiten, die. manchmal das
Definieren von Begriffen und die direkte, einfache
Kommunikation erschweren. Anhand von Beispielen
aus Photogrammetrie und Fernerkundung diskutieren
die Autoren einige der Herausforderungen, welche
sich Übersetzern und Lesern stellen, unter Betonung
allgemeingültiger Kriterien.
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„Human beings do not live in the objective world
alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as
ordinarily understood, but are very much at the
mercy of the particular language which has become
the medium of expression for their society. It is
quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts the
reality essentially without the use of language and
that language is merely an incidental means of solving
specific problems of communication or reflection
We see and hear and otherwise experience
very largely as we do because that language habits
of our community predispose certain choices of
interpretation“.
Edward Sapir
1 Introduction
Words, like human beings, are born into a society
and shaped by their cultural environment. They must
conform to preestablished grammatical, phonetical,
orthographic, etc. patterns and rules in order to be
accepted by their language community.
When words or whole concepts are translated into
other languages or from other languages into our
own, a newbirth occurs: the lexical item or lexeme
(word) must now be submitted to other linguistic
rules and patterns, i. e. those pertaining to the
language into which its meaning is to be transferred.
This process is frequently disregarded and therefore
so many synonymous expressions flourish whenever a
new concept makes its appearance. It is at this point
that some training in Linguistics helps , translators”
to scrutinize with true objectivity both the foreign
language and their own so as to preserve, by applying
common criteria, terminological precision without
»polluting language.
How words are created and translated will be
analyzed and different approaches will be forwarded
for further discussion.
