TRANSLATION IN

THE FIELD OF
PHYSICS

BY KHOROSHCHAK SOFIIA FIL-19-1

The modern language development is
characterized by a growth of terms in Physics.

Due to the rapid development of the physical information

the problems of the study of the functioning of terms in
the process of physic technical translation become more
and more urgent.
The terms are used to create precise definitions of
the notions of physic area. Most researchers admit
that terminology is one of the main stylistic
features of the scientific style, the informative
core of the vocabulary of science.
Linguists have indicated translation of
physical terms as one of the main
difficulties of technical translation, due to
the ambiguity of their meaning, lack of
translation equivalents (in terms of
neologisms) and national variability.

Such scientists as V.I. Karaban, T.R. Kyiak,

A.V. Superanska, T.A. Kazakova, Y.I. Retsker
and many others have worked on the
peculiarities and methods of science and
technical translation.
In particular, the main difficulties of translation
of physic terms are in the existence of the
synonymic terms, polysemantic terms,
homonymic terms and neologisms, which do
not have translational equivalents.
There is a large number of terms different in
form and expressing one and the same concept
or phenomenon of reality. These are called
synonymic terms, such as:“moving staircase,
escalator”, meaning “ескалатор”;“frame,
apparatus, device, guide”, meaning“пристрій”.
 Therefore, to avoid synonymy, which is not
acceptable within the same terminology field, one
should rely on certain criteria, such as quantitative
estimation of the motivation of the term derived
from the comparison of its internal form (literal
meaning) and lexical meaning (dictionary
definition).
Special attention in translation of physical terms is
also required to the so-called "false friends" of the
interpreter, i.e. lexical units that are similar in
external and internal form, therefore evoking false
association due to the fact that they have different
meaning in the opportunity of the semantic
variation of this linguistic unit. For example, the
term “resin” means “смола”and not the
Ukrainian “резина”, which would actually
be “rubber” in English.
However, one of the
most difficult group
of lexical units for
translation
constitute the
words in quotes,
 
which can be
neologisms,
occasionalism,
borrowings from
another
terminology, words
used in ironic sense,
or metaphors.
So, when the dictionary does not provide the exact
equivalent of terminological unit, when there are no
variation matches in the target language, or if the
term is ambiguous, various techniques of
interlanguage transformations are used. The task of
the translator lies in the right choice of a method of
transformation in order to convey the meaning of the
term as accurately as possible.
 The translational transformations are subdivided into lexical,
grammatical and stylistic. Transformations can be combined with
each other becoming complex. 

The most common lexical

transformations are: transcoding,
tracing, instantiation,
generalization, meaning
development, translation by
description.

L.S. Barchudarov denotes 4 basic grammatical transformations:

permutation; replacement; adding; omitting.
To sum up, regardless of the degree of the interpreter’s skills
in both languages, the scope of their background
knowledge, they are going to come across the unexpected in
the original text, which may be linguistic realities. Given this,
besides dictionaries the translator should know and be able
to use various handbooks as well as master their skills in
picking the right way to translate.
Thank you for your attention!