technical language By technical language we normally mean

technical language

By technical language we normally mean the language of science and technology: physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, engineering and the likes. Each of these disciplines has its own technical terms or jargons as the language used in each has its own special characteristics which belong to that particular genre.

The focus of technical translation will be on science and technology as we are now living in an age where developments in science and technology are so fast and great in volume that we, in developing countries in particular, are unable to keep up with them.

Characteristics of technical language 1. Each of these disciplines has its own technical terms or jargons as the language used in each has its own special characteristics which belong to that particular genre. Some of these terms may be common words, words used in everyday life with a general meaning familiar to most people. But where used in technical texts, they may have especial meanings. This might create a challenge to the translator, who should guard against taking their meanings at face value.

2. Technical texts are seldom aimed at complete no-specialists. The typical technical ST is not easily accessible to most native source language speakers. The reasons for this relative inaccessibility is lexical and conceptual. The lexical reason is of course the specialized use of technical vocabulary which are not used in everyday, ordinary language.

The conceptual reason is caused by failure to understand underlying suppositions and knowledge taken for granted by experts in a science, but not understood by non-specialists and not explicit in the ST (Subject matter).

Another conceptual problem arises in translating the development of new ideas. What one might call the logic of a discipline -methods of argumentation, the development of relations between concepts – is normally specific to that discipline.

A third characteristic of a technical language is grammatical: in English, for instance, the dominant use of the passive, the third person, empty verbs, present tenses, nominalizations. For example, The relations between dopamine and motor functions were analyzed. An analysis is carried out of the relations between dopamine and motor functions. (

The technical style is usually objective, and free from emotive language , connotations, second effects and original metaphors. Newmark (1988: 153) suggests three style levels: Academic Professional Popular (layman’s vocabulary) diabetes / sugar disease