Terminology Translation And Management In Collaborative Translation

Against the background of economic and cultural globalization,translation plays an increasingly significant role.Terminology is an essential issue in translation,since translators inevitably encounter many specialized terms in translation practice,especially in professional translation projects,where terms occupy a considerable proportion.Accurate and consistent translation of these terms determines to a great degree the translation quality,even the success of translation projects.In recent decades,along with the prosperity of translation industry and the increasing translation scale,translation modes have changed significantly.Modern translation projects are characterized by large size,short turnaround,interdisciplinarity,high quality requirements and so on.Traditional single-handed translation style can no longer meet the ever increasing requirements of modern translation projects,and thus more and more translation projects need to be completed through collaborative translation mode.Available literature shows that although terminology translation is a hot topic in academia,the problem is that,to some extent,there still lacks high efficient theoretical guidance.Translation methods introduced are mainly confined to the perspective of General Theory of Terminology,such as “accuracy”,“readability” and“conventionality”.General Theory of Terminology argues that syntax and pragmatics are irrelevant to terminology studies,and thus it is unfit to guide translation practice.Besides,little attention has been paid to terminology management and collaborative translation mode in academia,and systematic researches and analyses of collaborative translation mode are far from enough.This thesis adopts Design Issues as data,which is a world-renowned academic journal published by MIT Press.It is also one of the top three authoritative academic journals of industrial design.This thesis mainly investigates terminology translation and management in collaborative translation mode,including how to translate terms,how to extract terms with modern terminology management tools and guarantee the consistency of terminology translation in collaborative mode.This thesis employs Communicative Theory of Terminology(CTT)and theprocess management concept of PMI(Project Management Institute)as the major theoretical framework.The former concerns terminology translation,stressing the cognitive,communicative and linguistic dimensions of terminology;the latter is about terminology management,which is categorized into three processes,namely,pre-translation terminology management,while-translation terminology management and post-translation terminology management.Research findings in this thesis come into three aspects.Firstly,terms influencing the consistency of terminology translation in Design Issues fall into three categories,proper nouns,professional terms and high-frequency words or phrases with special meanings.Secondly,as to the translation of design terms,translation methods adopted should not be restricted to the perspective of General Theory of Terminology.Translators still have to combine Communicative Theory of Terminology to guide the study of terms,taking the cognitive,communicative and linguistic dimensions into full consideration and translating terms in texts.Thirdly,in the process of terminology translation and management in collaborative translation mode,translators’ acquaintance with the general process of terminology management,master of the use of modern terminology management tools,and mutual communication and collaboration improve translators’ translation competence,especially their terminological competence.Terminology management effectively shuns the repeated search and translation of the same term among team members,reduces the problem of translation confusion,and thus ensures the consistency of terminology translation,which greatly enhances the quality of translation projects.The innovation of this thesis lies in the following two aspects.The first is the innovation of research field.Previous terminology researches mainly center on the fields of law,finance,medical science,Wushu,linguistics,civil aviation and so on,but the field of design is rarely discussed.The choice of research subject and data in this thesis is innovative and in line with the requirements of the development of modern times.Through the research of Design Issues,it is helpful to cultivate people’s innovation sense and competence so as to answer the call of times.In addition,the combination of terminology management and design texts extends the width of terminology research.The second is the innovation of research methods.Terminology management is both the science of translation and the art of management.This thesiscombines terminology translation and process management together to illustrate how to translate and manage design terms,promoting terminology researches to a deeper level.Moreover,terminology translation methods are no longer limited to the perspective of General Theory of Terminology,but rather combined with Communicative Theory of Terminology,taking a full account of the contexts to guide the research of terminology translation and management.