Types of norms

SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL TRANSLATION EDITING

Lecture 2

“Technical translation has traditionally been regarded as the poor cousin of “real” translation” (Jody Byrne)

Rules for Technical Translation Editing

It has been estimated that technical translation accounts for some 90% of the world’s total translation output each year. This is partly motivated by the increasing international focus of many companies and partly as a result of legislation such as Council of European Union Resolution C411 (1998a), several EU Directives as well as international standards such as EN 292-2:1991 and EN 62079: 2001 to name just a few. These and many other laws, directives and regulations requiring the provision of comprehensive, accurate and effective technical documentation in a variety of languages make up the regulatory base for technical translation editing.

Any message can be conveyed in an infinite number of ways. However, any society imposes certain conventional restraints on particular types of messages. Thus, only few ways are considered to be the optimal variants. Such optimal variants are deemed normative and form the rules, or the norms for editing.

Editing norms are structured as follows:

- The agent of a norm (the one that has established it; e.g. society, National Academy of Sciences, State Committee on Standards, etc.)

- The addressee of a norm (the performer of the norm, e.g. an author, an editor, a designer)

- The content of a norm (the action to be undertaken or failed, i.e. to correct or not to correct something in a text)

- The nature of a norm (whether it obliges, permits, prohibits to undertake a particular action, e.g. some norms prohibit the use of non-euphonic words in certain types of messages)

- The conditions of a norm (circumstances, under which a particular action should be undertaken or failed, e.g. prepositions “в” and “у” are interchangeable in Ukrainian depending on the immediate syntactical context)

- The sanctions (possible implications of a failure to fulfill a particular norm, e.g. readers cannot understand the meaning of the message – communication failed)

Types of norms

There are general and specific norms.

General norms are postulates. They are always applied in the course of editing messages. Editors distinguish between the following general norms:

- Messages should always contain information that is new for recipients

- Messages should have a definite modality

- Messages should be adjusted to the time, place and situation, in which recipients will perceive them

- Authors must use the language and word meanings that are familiar to recipients

- Messages should be adjusted to recipients’ thesaurus

- Messages should only presuppose the mechanisms of perception

- Messages should make recipients perceive them

- Messages should be protected from noises

- Messages should comply with the norms adopted by a certain society within a certain period.

Specific norms used in editing are the following:

- Linguistic norms

- Psycholinguistic norms

- Logic norms

- Compositional norms

- Scientific norms

- Editorial norms

- Legal norms

- Political norms

- Printing norms

- Ethical norms

- Aesthetic norms

All of these norms are embodied in different forms. Thus, there are

- Parameters (no more than 1000 words in a summary, no more than 25 words in a sentence, etc.)

- Lists (vocabulary, dictionary, key term list, etc.)

- Templates or samples (agreement, patent, invoice, etc.)

- Structures or models (main sentence followed by clause 1, clause 1 followed by clause 2…)

- Provisions (rules applying to the semantics of a message, e.g. logical laws, linguistic rules, classification rules, etc.)

The norms, whether fixed or not, form the background for editing competency.

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