WEBVTT

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Hi! My name is Krystian Aparta,

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and I'm going to talk about
translating terminology.

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So, as translators, we all know

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that because one word
can mean many things,

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we can't just translate a word,

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but we first need to find out
what concept it refers to,

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and then, what words are used for
that concept in our target language.

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And it's usually enough
to look at the context for that.

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So with a word like "mouse"
in the first sentence here,

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from the context, we know that it
refers to just our general domain

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of the knowledge
and experience with mice,

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and in the second sentence, it refers
to a more specialized domain

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of computer devices.

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When we're translating a word like
"mouse" in the first sentence,

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we just go to our general
knowledge of the language,

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and do a so-called "literal"
or "word-for-word" translation.

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But with a word like "mouse"
in the second sentence

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that refers to a specialized domain,

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we can't really do
a literal translation,

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but first, we need to find out...

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Well, if we didn't know
anything about computers,

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we would need to do some research

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and find out what this device
is called in our language.

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And this is important,

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because even though in English one
word can refer to both things,

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in a foreign language the specialized term
can have a different, non-literal translation.

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For example, in Japanese, "mouse"
in the rodent sense is "nezumi,"

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and "mouse" as the computer
pointing device is "mausu."

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And you can tell that "mausu"
and "nezumi" are totally different.

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I will refer to a word that refers
to a specialized domain as a "term."

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Now, it's usually easy to tell
that a word or phrase is a term.

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Very often, terms are capitalized.

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So, these two phrases mean
something completely different,

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and they may have a different
translation in your language.

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Like in Spanish, the landmark
sense is "la Gran Muralla China,"

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and the literal translation
is "la pared grande,"

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which is just some wall
in a house somewhere.

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Also, words that seem difficult or
"sound foreign" are often terms.

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So when we come across a word
like "velocity" or "aperture,"

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we sort of get the feeling
that we need to look it up.

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There are cases, though, where it's hard
to tell if a word is actually a term,

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and then we need to, first, find out
if it does work like a term in English,

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and then whether there is an established
translation in our target language,

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or if we have to make up our own.

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And I would like to share
an experience like this...

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that happened when I was
reviewing the Polish translation

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of Janna Levin's talk on
the sound of the universe

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by Kinga Skorupska.

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And this example is used by
the translator's permission.

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At one point in the talk, Janna
Levin uses the phrase "dust lanes,"

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which was translated in
Polish as "ścieżki pyłu,"

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a literal translation that
basically means "paths of dust."

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And because Janna Levin uses a lot of
specialist vocabulary in her talk,

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I wasn't really sure if
the literal translation would work.

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So, I needed to find out
if "dust lane" is a term.

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I started by googling
"'dust lane' galaxy,"

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and these quotation marks are there
to look for this exact phrase.

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And I found this Wikipedia entry
on the Sombrero galaxy,

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which did contain the term
"dust lane" in the same meaning.

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So, this confirmed that "dust lane"
was indeed a term in English.

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Now, I needed to find
the Polish translation.

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And the first thing I did was to go to
the Polish entry on the Sombrero galaxy,

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which contained this sentence,
translated literally as:

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"is partially occluded by a belt
(torus) of nonluminescent matter."

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And at this point, "torus" seemed like a good
enough candidate for "dust lane" in Polish,

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but I wasn't really sure if this was
only a word used in this article

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or the established term in Polish.

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And to find out about this,
I did another Google search,

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this time in Polish,
for "torus galaktyka."

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And I found this Wikipedia
entry on the Seyfert galaxy,

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containing this sentence,
which literally translates as:

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la la la, "closest vicinity of the active
core (known as a dust torus)."

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And there!

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I thought I was done,
and this was my translation:

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"dust lane" translates as "torus
pyłowy" or "dust torus" in Polish.

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But then I thought they
may not be that similar.

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Because as much as a "lane,"
usually being straight,

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can sometimes be used
for something circular,

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a "torus" is always like a circle.

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So, I needed to find out
if the term "dust lane" in English

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was really used for
something circular,

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like a "torus" would be.

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I went to Google again, and did a
search for "'dust lane' galaxy,"

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but this time an image search.

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But all it gave me were these
pretty images of galaxies,

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but nothing to confirm
or disconfirm my idea.

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Then, I did another search,

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for "'straight|long' dust lane',"

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and this straight
line works like "OR."

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This is because we don't usually
refer to circles as "straight" or "long."

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This brought me to a page containing
images and descriptions of galaxies,

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and one of the descriptions had
the phrase "long dust lane" in it.

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But comparing the descriptions and
images for other galaxies on this page,

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I saw that they were
all pretty similar.

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So, "dust lane" did refer to something
circular in all these images.

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And there, I had my term.

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"Dust lane" was translated
as "torus pyłowy,"

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or literally "dust torus," in Polish.

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As translators, you probably go through
investigations like these all the time.

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But I wanted to share
this story, because...

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Outsmarting a talk that wants
to hide away a term from me

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is, to me, one of the most exciting
parts of the process of translation.

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Thank you.