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Krystian Aparta: How We Track Terms Down

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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.
Title:
Krystian Aparta: How We Track Terms Down
Description:

A run-through of a presentation given at the Open Translation Project workshop at TEDGlobal. Get the presentation (PPT) at: http://timetravel.net46.net/Krystian_Aparta_terms.ppt
I talk about why it's important to track down terms when translating, based on a term that I found in the Polish translation of Janna Levin's TED Talk entitled "The Sound the Universe Makes." You can watch the talk (and take a look at the translation) at http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/janna_levin_the_sound_the_universe_makes.html

Image credits:

SLIDE 2: mouse (animal) -- Salssa http://www.sxc.hu/photo/985046 mouse (computer) -- Mustafa Kilic http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1279442
SLIDE 3: mouse (animal) -- Bas van de Wiel http://www.sxc.hu/photo/757748 mouse (computer) -- Alen Stojanac http://www.sxc.hu/photo/206809
SLIDE 4: the Great Wall -- Webnut Shen http://www.sxc.hu/photo/777650 the great wall -- Maciej Nitka http://www.latimeria.pl/ni
SLIDE 5: background -- Svilen Milev http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1158788
SLIDE 6, 7: Janna Levin, "The sound the universe makes"
SLIDE 9, 12, 14 -- NASA/ESA/STScI
SLIDE 10: Yassine Mrabet
SLIDE 13: lane -- Library of Congress, LOT 13407, no. 025 torus -- Endolith http://www.endolith.com
SLIDE 16: text and images by Paul J Shulte http://sols.unlv.edu/Schulte/Astronomy/SBb.html
SLIDE 17: background -- Richard Styles http://www.sxc.hu/photo/605324
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Video Language:
English
Team:
closed TED
Project:
TED Translator Resources
Duration:
07:39

English subtitles

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