Krystian Aparta: How We Track Terms Down
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0:00 - 0:04Hi! My name is Krystian Aparta,
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0:04 - 0:08and I'm going to talk about translating terminology.
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0:08 - 0:10So, as translators, we all know
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0:10 - 0:14that because one word can mean many things,
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0:14 - 0:17we can't just translate a word,
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0:17 - 0:21but we first need to find out what concept it refers to,
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0:21 - 0:27and then, what words are used for that concept in our target language.
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0:27 - 0:33And it's usually enough to look at the context for that.
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0:33 - 0:37So with a word like "mouse" in the first sentence here,
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0:37 - 0:43from the context, we know that it refers to just our general domain
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0:43 - 0:46of the knowledge and experience with mice,
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0:46 - 0:51and in the second sentence, it refers to a more specialized domain
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0:51 - 0:53of computer devices.
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0:53 - 0:56When we're translating a word like "mouse" in the first sentence,
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0:56 - 1:00we just go to our general knowledge of the language,
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1:00 - 1:06and do a so-called "literal" or "word-for-word" translation.
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1:06 - 1:09But with a word like "mouse" in the second sentence
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1:09 - 1:11that refers to a specialized domain,
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1:11 - 1:14we can't really do a literal translation,
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1:14 - 1:17but first, we need to find out...
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1:17 - 1:19Well, if we didn't know anything about computers,
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1:19 - 1:20we would need to do some research
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1:20 - 1:25and find out what this device is called in our language.
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1:25 - 1:27And this is important,
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1:27 - 1:32because even though in English one word can refer to both things,
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1:32 - 1:39in a foreign language the specialized term can have a different, non-literal translation.
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1:39 - 1:43For example, in Japanese, "mouse" in the rodent sense is "nezumi,"
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1:43 - 1:48and "mouse" as the computer pointing device is "mausu."
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1:48 - 1:52And you can tell that "mausu" and "nezumi" are totally different.
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1:52 - 1:59I will refer to a word that refers to a specialized domain as a "term."
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1:59 - 2:06Now, it's usually easy to tell that a word or phrase is a term.
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2:06 - 2:09Very often, terms are capitalized.
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2:09 - 2:15So, these two phrases mean something completely different,
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2:15 - 2:18and they may have a different translation in your language.
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2:18 - 2:22Like in Spanish, the landmark sense is "la Gran Muralla China,"
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2:22 - 2:25and the literal translation is "la pared grande,"
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2:25 - 2:28which is just some wall in a house somewhere.
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2:28 - 2:35Also, words that seem difficult or "sound foreign" are often terms.
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2:35 - 2:39So when we come across a word like "velocity" or "aperture,"
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2:39 - 2:46we sort of get the feeling that we need to look it up.
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2:46 - 2:53There are cases, though, where it's hard to tell if a word is actually a term,
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2:53 - 2:58and then we need to, first, find out if it does work like a term in English,
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2:58 - 3:04and then whether there is an established translation in our target language,
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3:04 - 3:07or if we have to make up our own.
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3:07 - 3:11And I would like to share an experience like this...
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3:11 - 3:14that happened when I was reviewing the Polish translation
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3:14 - 3:18of Janna Levin's talk on the sound of the universe
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3:18 - 3:19by Kinga Skorupska.
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3:19 - 3:25And this example is used by the translator's permission.
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3:25 - 3:30At one point in the talk, Janna Levin uses the phrase "dust lanes,"
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3:30 - 3:34which was translated in Polish as "ścieżki pyłu,"
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3:34 - 3:39a literal translation that basically means "paths of dust."
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3:39 - 3:44And because Janna Levin uses a lot of specialist vocabulary in her talk,
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3:44 - 3:49I wasn't really sure if the literal translation would work.
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3:49 - 3:56So, I needed to find out if "dust lane" is a term.
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3:56 - 3:59I started by googling "'dust lane' galaxy,"
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3:59 - 4:06and these quotation marks are there to look for this exact phrase.
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4:06 - 4:10And I found this Wikipedia entry on the Sombrero galaxy,
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4:10 - 4:16which did contain the term "dust lane" in the same meaning.
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4:16 - 4:20So, this confirmed that "dust lane" was indeed a term in English.
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4:20 - 4:24Now, I needed to find the Polish translation.
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4:24 - 4:31And the first thing I did was to go to the Polish entry on the Sombrero galaxy,
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4:31 - 4:34which contained this sentence, translated literally as:
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4:34 - 4:40"is partially occluded by a belt (torus) of nonluminescent matter."
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4:40 - 4:47And at this point, "torus" seemed like a good enough candidate for "dust lane" in Polish,
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4:47 - 4:51but I wasn't really sure if this was only a word used in this article
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4:51 - 4:54or the established term in Polish.
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4:54 - 4:59And to find out about this, I did another Google search,
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4:59 - 5:04this time in Polish, for "torus galaktyka."
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5:04 - 5:09And I found this Wikipedia entry on the Seyfert galaxy,
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5:09 - 5:14containing this sentence, which literally translates as:
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5:14 - 5:19la la la, "closest vicinity of the active core (known as a dust torus)."
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5:19 - 5:21And there!
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5:21 - 5:25I thought I was done, and this was my translation:
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5:25 - 5:31"dust lane" translates as "torus pyłowy" or "dust torus" in Polish.
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5:31 - 5:36But then I thought they may not be that similar.
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5:36 - 5:40Because as much as a "lane," usually being straight,
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5:40 - 5:42can sometimes be used for something circular,
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5:42 - 5:46a "torus" is always like a circle.
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5:46 - 5:51So, I needed to find out if the term "dust lane" in English
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5:51 - 5:55was really used for something circular,
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5:55 - 6:00like a "torus" would be.
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6:00 - 6:04I went to Google again, and did a search for "'dust lane' galaxy,"
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6:04 - 6:06but this time an image search.
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6:06 - 6:10But all it gave me were these pretty images of galaxies,
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6:10 - 6:14but nothing to confirm or disconfirm my idea.
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6:14 - 6:16Then, I did another search,
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6:16 - 6:19for "'straight|long' dust lane',"
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6:19 - 6:25and this straight line works like "OR."
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6:25 - 6:30This is because we don't usually refer to circles as "straight" or "long."
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6:30 - 6:35This brought me to a page containing images and descriptions of galaxies,
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6:35 - 6:40and one of the descriptions had the phrase "long dust lane" in it.
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6:40 - 6:45But comparing the descriptions and images for other galaxies on this page,
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6:45 - 6:51I saw that they were all pretty similar.
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6:51 - 6:57So, "dust lane" did refer to something circular in all these images.
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6:57 - 7:01And there, I had my term.
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7:01 - 7:03"Dust lane" was translated as "torus pyłowy,"
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7:03 - 7:08or literally "dust torus," in Polish.
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7:08 - 7:13As translators, you probably go through investigations like these all the time.
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7:13 - 7:18But I wanted to share this story, because...
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7:18 - 7:24Outsmarting a talk that wants to hide away a term from me
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7:24 - 7:31is, to me, one of the most exciting parts of the process of translation.
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7:31 -Thank you.
- Title:
- Krystian Aparta: How We Track Terms Down
- Description:
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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.htmlImage 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 - Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TED Translator Resources
- Duration:
- 07:39
symbolt edited English subtitles for Krystian Aparta: How We Track Terms Down | ||
symbolt edited English subtitles for Krystian Aparta: How We Track Terms Down | ||
symbolt edited English subtitles for Krystian Aparta: How We Track Terms Down | ||
symbolt edited English subtitles for Krystian Aparta: How We Track Terms Down | ||
symbolt edited English subtitles for Krystian Aparta: How We Track Terms Down | ||
symbolt edited English subtitles for Krystian Aparta: How We Track Terms Down | ||
symbolt edited English subtitles for Krystian Aparta: How We Track Terms Down | ||
symbolt edited English subtitles for Krystian Aparta: How We Track Terms Down |