Methods of Translating Terms in Translations of European Union Legal Acts into Lithuanian

EGIDIJUS ŽȦIKAUSKAS

European Commission

KEYWORDS: translation of terms, translation of European Union documents, equivalents, features of concepts, components of terms, equivalence

The article hypothesizes that, when certain texts are translated into Lithuanian, terms are more often translated component by component rather than rendered using Lithuanian equivalents, as required by Lithuanian terminology theory. To substantiate this hypothesis, terms used in translations into Lithuanian of three European Union documents are analyzed. All three documents were translated by translators from the Lithuanian Language Department of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Translation in 2013–2014 and published in the electronic EU document database EUR-Lex (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/homepage.html?locate=lt)¹. Twelve methods of translating terms are identified in the selected texts. They are named using Lithuanian terms. Introducing Lithuanian terminology for terminology studies is another aim of the article. Statistics on the methods used to translate the terms examined are also presented to substantiate the article’s main hypothesis. Finally, the possible problems and prospects of viewing term creation as term translation, and of applying translation methods in terminological work, are discussed.

1. SELECTING TERMS OR TRANSLATING TERMS?

International cooperation among entities in science, business, public administration and other economic sectors cannot function without a common means of communication—a common language. Where appropriate, a language shared by all entities (and known to all) may be used. However, often, for political, ethical, economic and other reasons, entities use their own

¹ For more on the terms examined, see the section “Statistical Results for the Terms Examined”:

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languages, and texts are translated from one language into another. The content of common documents in all (both) languages must be identical, although the form is national. Terminologists have long observed that “over the past dozen or so years, more texts in many fields have been translated than created” (Keinys 2012: 84), and translations have a significant influence on the development of the Lithuanian language. The English language, which dominates the world in science, technology, politics, and many other areas of life and has become lingua franca, also affects the terminology of other languages, perhaps most strongly through the translation of texts in specialized fields. This influence is clearly evident in translations of European Union documents.

The fundamental principle of translation from any language is to convey the same meaning as the text. But texts contain many meanings, and the safest way to convey the same meaning is to translate separately every unit of independent meaning. Terms—regardless of how many elements they consist of—are independent units of meaning, and each term should be translated as a whole, i.e. rather than translating its individual elements, one should select equivalents on the basis of the concept. Ideally, the concept and its place in the system of concepts should be analyzed, the essential characteristics of the concept identified, their hierarchy established, and a definition formulated; only then should a designation for the concept—a term—be selected (cf. LST ISO 704:2005; LST 0-3-2:2005). In practice, however, terms are by no means always created in such a systematic manner, especially in smaller languages such as Lithuanian. Much more often, terminologists make use of existing results of terminology work—terms in other languages, definitions in other languages, texts in other languages that explain a concept or illustrate the use of a term, and other terminological data in other languages. One of the aims of this article is to show, through examples and figures, that Lithuanian terminology practice does not always coincide with Lithuanian terminology theory, which holds that terms should not be translated, but that their equivalents should be selected. At least in translations of European Union documents into Lithuanian, compound terms are more often translated literally, element by element, rather than having equivalents selected or, where none exist, new systematic terms created on the basis of the rules of the native language’s grammar.

The distinctive features of terminology work in the European Union’s translation services are multilingual consistency of terms (the concept must be conveyed by terms in all 24 official EU languages), legal precision (terms must be precise to avoid legal consequences), and time pressure (the deadline for delivering a translation is very often extremely short, leaving insufficient time for full-fledged terminological procedures—examining systems of concepts, breaking them down into characteristics, and consulting with ex-

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perts and responsible institutions—so the translator has to select terms relying solely on their own knowledge². Therefore, the prevailing strategy is to translate terms element by element, striving to find the most precise equivalents for each meaningful element of a term. This strategy for translating terms is also recommended to translators of international standards, and is therefore not a phenomenon unique to translations of EU legislation: “Where the literal translation of an English term and/or definition is unsuitable or insufficient, the term or definition may be replaced by an equivalent term or definition in the national language”³ (Jones 2010: 49). This approach runs counter to the view established in Lithuanian terminology that less attention should be paid to terms in other languages, for example: “It is obvious that, when creating terms, the structure of terms in other languages should be given the least consideration. <...> The essential features of term formation should be independence and Lithuanian character”⁴ (Keinys 2005: 203–204).

Sometimes the authors of English-language documents wish or even require that terms not be translated at all, but that the English terms they provide be used in texts in other languages as well. This is worth noting for some EU languages, such as German, Danish, Swedish, Dutch, and Italian: in these languages, new concepts are quite often designated by English terms that have been adapted to the grammar, or even left entirely unadapted, e.g.: English *chip on board⁵ – Danish, Swedish, German *chip on board, English *bail-in – Danish, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, German *bail-in.

Nevertheless, direct borrowings from English are unacceptable in many other languages, and terms are translated. English terms are used as a common template for creating terms in other languages. In this case, the same characteristics of a concept are conveyed by formally identical equivalents, ensuring that terms in different languages express the same concept without distortion. This is particularly important for EU legislation, which is drafted in all 24 official EU languages (Regulation No 1, 1958). However, for various reasons, terms in the source language (hereafter SL) and the target language (hereafter TL) that denote the same concept are sometimes not formally identical.

² At times, fear of making a mistake is rightly cited as one of the main reasons, for example: “Translation practice clearly reveals a tendency to make terms in one’s own language as similar as possible to terms in another language (the language of the source text), or a fear of diverging from them.” (Keinys 2012: 85)

³ Translation by E. Z.

⁴ Perhaps this statement is more appropriate when discussing the formation of single-word terms, but it is hardly rational when creating compound terms.

⁵ Examples given for illustrative purposes that are not from the three main EU documents used in the study are marked with an asterisk. All examples are taken from documents translated by European Union translation services and from the EU institutions’ terminology database IATE (http://iate.europa.eu).

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2. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOURCE-LANGUAGE AND TARGET-LANGUAGE TERMS

Differences can be distinguished at two levels: that of the concept, or its features, and that of terms, or the units (components) of their formal structure. If terms in two languages convey a concept in the same way, that is, identify the same semantic features, they may be regarded as identical. From a cognitive perspective⁶, one should assume that identity is possible only when SL and TL terms have the same number of components and each component of an SL term corresponds to one equivalent (at the same linguistic level) component of a TL term. At the same time, however, cognitivists sharply distinguish terms for concepts in everyday language from those for concepts in scientific or specialist language (Mikuls kas 2009: 42–43). It would therefore be incorrect to apply to specialist-language terms the principle of coherence between the quantity of content and its expression characteristic of everyday language. Thus, the content of SL and TL terms may differ even when the number of components is the same: different features of the concept may be identified, other aspects of the features may be emphasized, the components denoting the constant and the modifier may sometimes be interchanged, and so on. Likewise, different numbers of components—morphemes or lexemes—may denote the same features in SL and TL terms.

Translation studies offer numerous descriptions and classifications of methods for translating textual elements (e.g., Vinay, Darbelnet 1958; Vázquez-Ayora 1977; Malone 1988; Munday 2012⁷), but in many of them terms are generally set aside because they are perceived as indivisible textual elements. The number of methods identified ranges from seven (Lundquist 1997) to a couple of dozen. In the book The textbook of translation, which has become a classic of translation studies, Peter Newmark identified eighteen methods (procedures) for translating smaller units of meaning, including: literal translation (literaly translation), transference (transference), equivalents (equivalents), through-translation (through-translation), shift of transposition (shift of transposition), modulation (modulation), compensation (compensation), paraphrase (paraphrase), componential analysis (componential analysis⁸, etc. (Newmark 1988: 81–93). In general, as L. Pažūsis notes, classifications of translation methods (procedures) are rather confusing, including terminologically (Pažūsis 2014: 59–62). Moreover,

⁶ “A longer [linguistic expression] form generally also implies more content” (Dirvenas 2009: 14).

⁷ In Lithuanian translation studies, translation methods are perhaps described most comprehensively by Lionginas Pažūsis in his book Kalba ir vertimas (Pažūsis 2014). Nevertheless, even this comprehensive study focuses primarily on the translation of free textual elements, and terms are not examined separately.

⁸ This very procedure could be considered the general strategy for translating terms. It is, however, realized in various ways, some of which correspond to other procedures identified by P. Newmark, while others do not.

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The translation methods identified are most often applied to free textual elements and are not always suitable for describing the component-by-component translation of terms. Therefore, drawing on my personal experience⁹ and also seeking to introduce Lithuanian terminology for the field of terminology, I present here my classification of methods for translating terms¹⁰.

3. CLASSIFICATION OF METHODS FOR TRANSLATING TERMS

The classification is based on the formal expression of a concept’s features in SL and TL terms. I assume that the meaningful components of a complex term—words denoting individual features of a concept, or derivational or grammatical¹¹ morphemes—are translated separately by the translator. Of course, translators may take some complex terms ready-made from dictionaries, terminology databases, translation memories, or their own memory; methodologically, however, the same analysis can be applied to them—that is, one can assume that the original creators of those terms also translated them. Based on the correspondence between the components of SL and TL terms denoting the same concept, the following types of term relationships (translation methods) can be distinguished:

Equivalence

1) correspondence (selection of equivalents)

2) adjustment

3) grammatical expansion

4) grammatical reduction

5) expansion

a) grammatical

b) derivational

c) lexical

6) contraction

a) grammatical

b) derivational

c) lexical

⁹A presentation on quantitative and qualitative numerical ratios between terminological equivalents in the source and target languages was delivered at the conference of the Terminology Centre of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language, “Terminology and Terminography: Development, Current Issues, Prospects,” on 10–11 October 2013 (see the conference abstracts).

¹⁰The translation of an individual term cannot be equated with a translation strategy. A translation strategy should be understood as a conscious method for translating an entire text. P. Newmark (1988: 81) calls the methods for translating smaller units of meaning—the sentence and smaller units—translation procedures (English: translation procedures); Anne Schjoldager (2008: 89) calls them microstrategies, and L. Pažūsis (2014: 359) calls them transformations.

¹¹In this case, the mental process of translation or word formation is irrelevant: grammatical morphemes are usually not distinguished as independent mental units of speaking (writing, translation), but here, if comparison of source-language and target-language terms reveals a distinct function of a grammatical morpheme, it is examined as a separate component.

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Inequality

7) substitution

8) replacement

9) addition

10) omission

11) demetaphorization

12) metaphorization

The first six relations indicate the equivalence of SL and TL terms: each component of an SL term corresponds to one TL morpheme, word, or phrase denoting the same feature of the concept as that denoted by the component of the SL term.

Relations 7–10 indicate the inequality of SL and TL terms: the components of a term in one language denote more features of a concept or different features than the components of a term in the other language.

Metaphorization and demetaphorization (11 and 12) are special methods of translating terms. A metaphorical term conveys a concept through a figurative or logical association, whereas a demetaphorized term directly names the features of the concept. A term may be entirely metaphorical, e.g., English cradle-to-grave, or only one of its components may be metaphorical, e.g., English *orphan work¹². Clearly, a demetaphorized TL term is not equivalent to a metaphorical SL term, just as a metaphorized TL term is not equivalent to a non-metaphorical SL term. However, the relationship between terms in such pairs is much more complex than that between non-metaphorical terms, and a specific method would be required to analyze it. Therefore, the methods of metaphorization and demetaphorization are not examined in greater detail in this article.

3.1. Equivalence

3.1.1. MATCHING (SELECTION OF EQUIVALENTS)

Each component of an OK term is matched by one component of a VK term, and their essential qualitative characteristics coincide, e.g.: energy content of hot water – karšto vandens energijos kiekis, multi-functionality – daugiafunkciškumas, compound financial instrument – sudėtinė finansinė priemonė, *flexicurity – lankstumas ir saugumas, *voluntourist – turistas-savanoris¹³ and so on.

¹² See the European Union institutions’ terminology database IATE for term definitions and other terminological data.

¹³ According to the LST ISO 704:2000 standard, in this article compounds are treated as complex (multi-root) terms and equated with complex terms formed from independent words. Therefore, the terms one-word term and multi-word term are not used. Specific word-formation methods are not discussed in this article.

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Components can be considered identical if, independently, they mean the same thing in their respective languages. It must be acknowledged that whether two OK and VK components are identical or non-identical is a relatively subjective matter; therefore, I additionally checked whether they are presented and explained as equivalents in the English-Lithuanian dictionary Anglonas and Dictionary of International Words.

Due to the distinctive features of each language, grammatical constructions or formations may differ, e.g.: boiler space heater – patalpų šildytuvas su katilu, *person with visual disability – regos negalią turintis asmuo, additional environmental information – papildoma informacija apie aplinką, but if they do not denote different characteristics, or at least different aspects of the same characteristic, the terms are considered identical.

The degree of lexical overlap may also vary. It is evident that international words shared by OK and VK indicate a greater degree of overlap between terms than terms made up solely of inherited words. Direct borrowings from OK have an even greater degree of overlap with their OK equivalents, but none occurred in the research material.

3.1.2. MODULATION

An OC term component is replaced by an FC term component denoting the same feature in a slightly different way—somewhat more narrowly, more broadly, or from another perspective—for example: *prevention of falls – *fall prevention, the more abstract fall is translated by the more concrete word griuvimas (“falling”) (semantic broadening), and water draw-off – water abstraction, the more concrete draw-off is translated by the more abstract word ėmimas (“taking”) (semantic narrowing).

This method of translating terms is clearly illustrated by comparing how synonymous components of different English terms are rendered in Lithuanian terms. For example, English *investigation, *inquire, *trial, *study, *research are often translated using the same Lithuanian term tyrimas (“research”), while English *common, *single, *global, *general, *united, *overall, *gross, *aggregated, *joint, *overarching are rendered as Lithuanian bendras(is). (“common/general”).

3.1.3. GRAMMATICAL BROADENING

This is a case of term translation in which the FC component, having the same lexical meaning as the OC term component, contains additional grammatical formants that do not denote separate semantic features but change the interpretation of the conceptual feature formally expressed by that word, for example: macht funding – harmonised funding. Compared with English match (“to match, to correspond”), the component suderintas also carries past-tense and passive meanings, which may restrict the term’s use in a text.

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3.1.4. GRAMMATICAL NARROWING

It may be assumed that the opposite case is also possible—narrowing of grammatical meaning—but no such examples could be found either in the research material or in other texts, probably because English has far fewer grammatical formants than Lithuanian.

3.1.5. EXPANSION

This is a translation method in which an OC term component is replaced in the target language by a component from a higher linguistic level.

3.1.5.1. Grammatical expansion. Replacement of a grammatical morpheme in an OC term with a derivational morpheme or lexeme in an FC term, for example: emissions – pollutants emitted, emission is translated as išmetimas (“emission”)—in English, the plural marker “-s” gives the phrase the feature of a result of an action, which is expressed in Lithuanian by the separate lexeme dalelės (“particles”). Compare also *borrowing+s – borrowing> (“borrowed funds”), *application+–s – (ap)taikymas> (“application”), and so on. Such expansion of the English plural marker is fairly typical when translating terms into Lithuanian, but is perhaps the only type of grammatical expansion.

3.1.5.2. Derivational¹⁴ expansion. Replacement of a derivational morpheme in an OC term with a lexeme in an FC term, for example: derecognition – termination of recognition, *desilting – removal of sludge. The replacement follows the pattern de– X –ing/–tion = X + removal/termination; in Lithuanian, the function of the English morpheme “de-” is performed by a separate component (lexical stem), most often removal, termination. Other cases include: multi-seller securitisation scheme – multi-seller securitisation scheme, co-function – auxiliary function, weighting – weighted assessment, *numeracy – mathematical literacy, etc.

3.1.5.3. Lexical expansion. A word in an OC term is replaced by a phrase denoting the same conceptual feature, although the greater number of lexemes conveys more aspects of the feature, for example: respiratory inorganics – inhalable inorganic particles, water-based system – a system operating on a water basis, solar collector – solar energy

¹⁴Many Lithuanian term lexemes are derived forms in Lithuanian, but if they denote a single essential feature in a term, they are regarded as semantically and structurally indivisible term components. For example, gyvavimas (“existence”) is formally a derivative of the verb gyvuoti (“to exist”), formed with the abstract-noun feature suffix –imas, and thus is morphologically complex (two-component). In this article, however, it is considered simple (one-component), since in the term gyvavimo ciklas (“life cycle”) it does not denote any feature not already expressed in the English equivalent life cycle.

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collector, ozone depletion – depletion of the ozone layer, ¹⁾reporting ²⁾threshold – ¹⁾information provision ²⁾threshold (double lexical expansion), etc.

Lexical expansion is determined by established national terminology systems: VK compound terms are formed from existing compound terms, which correspond to simplex terms in OK.

3.1.6. COMPRESSION

The translation method opposite to expansion: a component of an OK term is replaced in the target language by a component of a lower linguistic level.

3.1.6.1. Grammatical compression.

A derivational morpheme or lexeme (or several) in an OK term is rendered in the VK term by a grammatical morpheme, e.g.: business to business – transactions between economic operators. Three translation methods can be observed in this term: lexical expansion: business – economic operator, lexical addition: + transactions, and grammatical compression: the feature expressed in the English term by the construction “A to A” is rendered in the Lithuanian term by the plural. This translation method is probably quite rare—I was unable to find more examples in the translations.

3.1.6.2. Derivational compression. Given the extensive word-formation resources of Lithuanian, this is a fairly common method of translating terms, e.g.: gross calorific value – maximum heat- + -ingness, water storage tank – water capacit- + -y, raw material – raw- + -material, *bio-based – biolog- + -ical, *target-oriented – target- + -oriented, etc.

3.1.6.3. Lexical compression. It differs from derivational compression only formally: the VK equivalent cannot be divided into separate morphemes corresponding to OK lexemes, e.g.: bin-specific coefficient – interval coefficient, ignition burner power consumption – igniter power consumption.

Both expansion and compression are extreme types of equivalence, and it can sometimes be very difficult to distinguish them from addition and omission, respectively.

3.2. Non-equivalence

3.2.1. SUBSTITUTION

In translated documents, the form of terms is determined not only by the concept and its characteristics, but also by context. A term is adapted to other text seg-

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ments, which can determine the essential characteristics of the term. One way of forming words in English is grammatical conversion: the grammatical category of the base word is changed in the text without changing its form, e.g.: to access “to obtain, reach, access” and an access “access, opportunity to obtain,” to turn “to turn” and a turn “a turn,” green “green” and to green “to make environmentally friendly, to green,” and so on. Similar to grammatical conversion is the method of substitution, in which the hierarchy of characteristics is changed in the TL term—the modifier and the head are switched, e.g.: pump power consumption – siurblio vartojamoji galia (literally, siurblio galios vartojimas). Here the modifier power is turned into the head galia ‘power’, while the head consumption becomes the modifier vartojamoji ‘consumptive’.

Also compare *loss of (head) potential years (modifier) of work – prarasti (modifier) galimi darbinės veiklos metai (head). The grammatical class of the corresponding constituents also changes.

3.2.2. REPLACEMENT

A constituent of a source-language term is replaced in the target-language term with a constituent denoting a different characteristic, e.g.: annual non-solar heat contribution – annual non-solar heat contribution, standing loss – standing loss, land use – land use, data point model – data transmission model. Replacement may be used for various reasons: because the terminology of a system is classified differently in different languages; because a concept is interpreted differently; for example, when a translator wishes to express an unclear concept in clearer words; or because a concept has been misunderstood (a translation error). To make a concept more understandable from the term itself, all the constituents of a term are sometimes replaced, e.g.: *timeshare – timeshare rental (the target-language term denotes characteristics of the concept different from those denoted by the source-language term), *free running – a method for detecting explosives directly by smell. In the latter case, a perhaps metaphorical term has been replaced by a shortened definition. Thus, replacement is probably the most suitable method for eliminating extended metaphors (see below in the text).

Sometimes this method is very difficult to distinguish from adaptation (a source-language constituent corresponds to a target-language constituent with somewhat different semantic properties, but the same characteristic of the concept is designated), and assigning a term translation to one group or the other can be quite subjective.

3.2.3. ADDITION

The TL term contains more lexical elements that denote more features, e.g.: part load for heating – partial load in heating mode, bivalent temperature – the temperature for switching to dual-heating mode (double addition)

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), environmental mechanism – environmental impact mechanism, business to consumers – transactions between business entities and consumers (business – business entities – lexical expansion), profit or loss before tax – profit or loss before including tax expenses (double addition).

Like substitution, addition may reflect different language classification systems, e.g., environmental – environmental impact, a translator’s deliberate desire to convey more fully the concept denoted by a term, e.g., bivalent temperature – the temperature for switching to dual-heating mode, or an incorrect interpretation of a concept¹⁵.

3.2.4. OMISSION

The TL term has no lexical element corresponding to the SL term that denotes a particular feature; consequently, the TL term lacks a formal feature element of the concept, e.g.: cycling interval efficiency – cyclic efficiency, useful water flow rate – useful water flow, cash conduit lending transaction – cash lending transaction, portfolio hedging – hedging, solar only system – solar energy system. The last example is a term-translation error: an essential feature distinguishing related concepts has been omitted.

Other reasons for omission are the same as for addition and substitution.

3.2.5. DEMETAPHORIZATION

In the TL, a term word or phrase with a metaphorical meaning in the SL is replaced with elements without metaphorical meaning, which usually denote other features.

Metaphorical terms may be continuous—that is, the whole term is a metaphorical phrase, e.g.: cradle-to-grave – assessment from production to the end-of-life stage, *side-pocketing – transfer of assets to accounts for the segregation of illiquid assets. Such metaphorical terms are particularly difficult to translate. In theory, the translation of such terms can be broken down into individual procedures; for example, the translation cradle-to-grave – assessment from production to the end-of-life stage can be analyzed into the following procedures: 1) substitution cradle – production, 2) grave – end of the cycle – substitution/lexical expansion, 3) stage – addition, 4) assessment – addition.

¹⁵ The probability of term-translation errors in the analyzed texts was relatively low because explanations or definitions of concepts were provided in the same text. In addition, the meaning of a term is also defined by its usage context.

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It is somewhat easier to interpret the removal of metaphors from partially metaphorical terms, in which only one component is used figuratively. Both attribute metaphors and nominative metaphors (Vladarskienė 2012: 85–86) may be replaced or expanded in translation, e.g.: p e a k temperature – h i g h e s t temperature, s t r a w – m a n loan – a loan through a n o m i n e e, *s a n d w i c h generation – a generation b u r d e n e d b y o b l i g a t i o n s, *o r p h a n work – a work w i t h u n i d e n t i f i e d a u t h o r s h i p r i g h t s, *carbon f o o t p r i n t – a carbon dioxide e m i s s i o n i n d i c a t o r, *safe h a r b o u r – a security g u a r a n t e e.

Nevertheless, even this division is not entirely accurate and does not explain the whole complex mechanism of metaphor translation, since words with figurative meanings denote concepts in a different way—not through a logical relationship or systematic categories, but through imagery and associations. Therefore, demetaphorization is not examined in greater detail in this article. This could be the subject of a separate study¹⁶.

3.2.6. M E T A P H O R I Z A T I O N

I have not found instances of metaphorization—in which a concept is expressed in English by words with a literal meaning, but in the Lithuanian term by figurative ones—either in the texts examined or in other translations of EU documents that I have read. This may also be explained by the Lithuanian tradition of terminology, which tends to avoid metaphorical terms.

4. S T A T I S T I C A L R E S U L T S O F T H E T E R M S S T U D I E D

The three EU documents examined present a total of 228 terms in lists. In the first two, these are accompanied by definitions; in the third, some concepts are defined, others are explained in different ways, and some are not explained separately at all¹⁷.

The study excluded single-word English terms that correspond to single-word Lithuanian terms in the translation, such as heater – heater, bin – interval, slotting – sorting. In fact, there are only three such identical single-word terms across all three documents.

The research data calculations also took into account instances in which the same component was translated identically in different terms, e.g., the component environ-

¹⁶ Studies examining the relationship between term metaphors in several languages can also be found in Lithuanian linguistics, e.g., Marinina 2006; Gražytė, Maskaliūnienė 2009.

¹⁷ The list of terms analyzed was published on the “Terminology Theory” page of the Lithuanian Terminology Forum (LTF) website (http://ec.europa.eu/translation/lithuanian/ltf/documents/2014_zaikauskas_article_termlist_lt.pdf).

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mental translated in seven terms as environmental protection or environmental (the form of the Lithuanian element is irrelevant in this case). A total of 41 such recurring elements were found.

In addition, 14 terms were found in which two or even three translation methods could be distinguished, e.g., solar hot water storage tank – solar-energy hot-water tank: solar – solar energy (lexical expansion) and storage tank – tank (derivational contraction). Such terms are in fact composed of several compound terms, so each of them was treated as a separate case.

Thus, 198 cases of term translation were selected for the study.

For illustrative purposes, examples of terms from other European Union texts are provided. They are marked with an asterisk in the text and are not included in the statistical analysis.

Table showing the numbers of translation methods, their shares of all cases studied, and a chart of their quantitative proportions

Translation method | Cases | Share,% | equivalence | 117 | 59.1% | adaptation | 1 | 0.5% | grammatical expansion | 1 | 0.5% | grammatical narrowing | 0 | 0% | grammatical expansion | 1 | 0.5% | derivational expansion | 5 | 2.5% | lexical expansion | 29 | 14.6% | grammatical contraction | 1 | 0.5% | derivational contraction | 3 | 1.5% | lexical contraction | 4 | 2.0% | transposition | 1 | 0.5% | substitution | 7 | 3.5% | addition | 12 | 6.1% | omission | 7 | 3.5% | demetaphorization | 9 | 4.5% | metaphorization | 0 | 0% | Total studied | 198

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Selection of equivalents (equivalence) is by far the most frequent translation method (59%). This is not surprising, since selecting exact equivalents for each element of a term (translating literally) is precisely the easiest way to ensure the identity of the OK and VK texts. The greatest temptation to copy the formal structure of a term in the OK arises when equivalents must be selected for international elements, especially new (new-function) words or morphemes. For example, of the English terms *multimodal transport and *intermodal transport, only four of the 24 official EU languages—Estonian, Finnish, Greek, and Lithuanian (daugia rūšis vežimas and įvairiarūšis vežimas)—have one each among several synonymous terms in which neither element is borrowed directly from English (although they are of Latin origin). And only Greek has no synonym that corresponds, even partly, to the English terms¹⁸. By contrast, as many as 12 languages have equivalents entirely identical to the English terms, though several have them as synonyms. In at least one synonym in fourteen languages, the element transport differs—it is an older international word denoting a more general concept, not specific to this field alone. Meanwhile, most languages tend not to translate new formations with international elements, multimodal and intermodal, but to borrow them.

Of the 198 cases studied, only three Lithuanian terms—all two-element terms—had both elements identical to the lexemes or morphemes of the English terms: product category – produktų kategorija, product system – produktų sistema, ecotoxicity – ekotoksiškumas. Far more Lithuanian terms have at least one element that is an international word, sometimes different from that in the OK term, e.g.: reference design conditions – norminės projektinės sąlygos, flow diagram – srautų schema, specific data – konkretūs duomenys, etc.

The second most frequent method of translating terms is expansion, accounting for almost 18% of cases overall. Together with cases of contraction, they make up nearly 22% of all term-translation cases studied. I believe that rendering equivalent conceptual features by elements of a different linguistic level or by a different number of elements (lexical expansion—more, lexical contraction—fewer) reflects the translator’s efforts to adapt terms to the existing national terminology system, rather than simply translating literally in pursuit of the greatest possible correspondence.

Overall, 81.9% of the studied equivalents between OK and VK terms should be considered equivalent. Excluding the specific method of demetaphorization, cases of non-equivalent term translation amount to 13.6%. This figure by no means indicates poor quali-

¹⁸ Data from IATE.

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Rather than indicating poor translation, such methods as addition, omission, or substitution often demonstrate the translator’s efforts to find a more precise concept, to understand the concept and to provide as clear and systematic a TL term as possible. Of the 198 translation instances (228 terms), only one term translation error was found: the feature expressed by the component only in the English term saulės energijos sistema – solar-only system is not conveyed in the Lithuanian term.

Data are not presented separately for the term lists from the three areas studied because the number of terms is relatively small and the differences between the translation methods used for terms in these three lists are relatively minor. Perhaps the only noteworthy features are those of the financial terms: only 43.1% of terms were translated by equivalence (technical terms: 64.5%; environmental terms: 72.7%), whereas as many as 33.3% were translated by explicitation (technical terms: 11.8%; environmental terms: 10.9%).

5. METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS

Like many methods, this one also has its drawbacks, or at least problems that still need to be addressed. At the same time, I believe that analysing methods of term translation is a promising direction for contemporary terminology research. To make it easier for critics of the method and for scholars willing to test and improve it, I present here my doubts and insights.

It is difficult to determine which terms were created directly through translation and which were taken from terminographic sources and may have been selected after thorough examination, according to criteria other than those of translation. The translation process for legal documents is quite complex (the relevant legislation must be followed; translation memories and semi-automatic term-extraction programs are used; the four-eyes principle of translation quality is applied; Lithuanian-language specialists and terminologists are often involved; texts are frequently reviewed and corrected by subject-matter experts; and the final version is approved by lawyer-linguists, among other things). Consequently, the path taken by terms to reach the final version of a text is winding. Changes at any stage of translation can affect both the methods used to translate terms and the quality of the terms.

Translation is a relatively individual creative act, even for texts such as EU legislation. How a term is translated and which equivalent is selected may depend on subjective factors such as the translator’s personal characteristics, e.g. education, experience, attitude to duty, etc.; the circumstances of translation, e.g. working under time pressure or at home or in the office; and other factors. In practice, these factors are impossible to assess. However, the larger the sample of terms studied, the less significant these subjective factors in translation would be.

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If the source language has synonyms denoting the same concept, the target-language term may have been translated from a term other than the one selected for analysis. This is much less likely when the terms studied come from a specific text rather than from a dictionary or database.

The classification should be compared more closely with other classifications of methods for translating textual elements found in translation theory. This could help to expand it and perhaps consolidate it.

The boundaries between some groups in the classification are not entirely clear, and the group to which a term is assigned may depend on the individual researcher’s interpretation. Examples include explicitation and addition, and substitution and equivalence.

The boundaries of non-equivalent relations are clear, and they are easy to count and summarise. Sometimes several kinds of translation method can be distinguished within a single term. Such cases are counted separately. However, when all the components of a term correspond, the whole term is treated as a single instance, although theoretically many such terms could be divided into separate components or groups of components. This would substantially alter the statistics in favour of equivalence and indicate an even more pronounced tendency to translate terms rather than select equivalents for them.

In this classification, I have identified demetaphorisation as a separate method of term translation. Perhaps, with more examples collected, it might be possible to try assigning the removal of metaphors to one of the other 10 categories or to divide it into several methods.

It is not always clear how certain phenomena in the source language should be classified. For example, should English phrasal nouns such as off mode, draw-off, *built-in, upstream and downstream be treated as derivatives, word combinations, or simplex words? The way the phenomenon is interpreted determines which translation-method group they would be assigned to. The fact that phrasal verbs can be interpreted in different ways is also reflected in English spelling: separately, with a hyphen, or as one word.

Too few terms have been analysed so far to conclude that this list of 12 term-translation methods is exhaustive. A comparison of other source- and target-language terms may reveal additional methods, e.g. French¹⁹ and Lithuanian, or Lithuanian and Russian, from which many terms were translated during a particular historical period.

By analysing more translated terms, it would be possible to compile a more comprehensive inventory of term-translation methods and prepare guidelines for translators and terminological standardisers.

¹⁹ The working language of the Court of Justice of the European Union is French, and many documents are translated into Lithuanian from this language, so there is sufficient, up-to-date material for research.

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CONCLUSIONS

Although compound terms should be understood as denoting a single concept, and translators, following good practice, should select their target-language equivalents after analysing the concept and in accordance with the existing terminology system, in practice, target-language terms denoting new concepts are most often translated component by component, with individual components of the term taken from dictionaries and terminology databases. It is therefore possible to compare the corresponding source- and target-language terms and examine the methods used to translate them.

Classifications of methods for translating textual elements found in translation theory often do not sufficiently take into account the specific nature of term translation, because terms are understood as semantically indivisible, simple textual units. Therefore, drawing on existing classifications and personal experience in terminological work, 12 methods of term translation are distinguished. Two of them—demetaphorisation and metaphorisation—can probably be subsumed under other methods, but are not analysed in greater detail in this article because of their specific nature.

In the three lists of terms examined, taken from recent European Union documents, equivalent translation methods predominate: nearly 82 per cent of the terms studied were translated using one of the equivalent translation methods, and 59 per cent of them have identical structures and directly denote the same features of the concept. Thus, two thirds of the terms studied ideally meet the criterion of interlingual terminological consistency. This figure also indicates, at least in part, the degree of accuracy with which machine translation programs could or should translate terms in specialised fields.

The fact that 13.6 per cent of term translation cases are of a non-equivalent type (excluding demetaphorisation) demonstrates translators’ efforts to find a more precise expression of the concept denoted by a term, their attempts to understand the concept and present a term that is as clear and systematic as possible.

A comprehensive analysis of translated terms would make it possible to compile an inventory of methods for translating terms from the respective languages, which would be a useful methodological tool for translators and terminology managers.

ŠALTINIAI

2013 m. rugpjūčio 2 d. Komisijos reglamentas (ES) Nr. 813/2013, kuriuo įgyvendinant Europos Parlamento ir Tarybos direktyvą 2009/125/EB nustatomi patalpų šildytuvų ir kombinuotųjų šildytuvų ekologinio projektavimo reikalavimai (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/LT/TXT/?qid=1408977883418&uri=CELEX:32013R0813).

2013/179/ES: 2013 m. balandžio 9 d. Komisijos rekomendacija dėl produktų ir organizacijų gyvavimo ciklo aplinkosauginio veiksmingumo matavimo ir pranešimo apie jį bendrų metodų taikymo (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/LT/TXT/?qid=1408977661743&uri=CELEX:32013H0179).

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2014 m. balandžio 16 d. Komisijos įgyvendinimo reglamentas (ES) Nr. 680/2014, kuriuo pagal Europos Parlamento ir Tarybos reglamentą (ES) Nr. 575/2013 nustatomi įstaigų priežiūros ataskaitų teikimo techniniai įgyvendinimo standartai (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/LT/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32014R0680&rid=1).

Piesarskas B. Anglonas: anglų–lietuvių kalbų kompiuterinis žodynas, „Fotonija“, 2006.

Tarptautinių žodžių žodynas, Vilnius: Alma littera, 2003.

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PROCEDURES FOR TRANSLATING TERMS IN TRANSLATIONS OF LEGAL ACTS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION INTO THE LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE

For some time now, English has been a worldwide lingua franca in economics, technology, politics and many other fields. It has also become the default language for the drafting of legal acts in the European Union. Regulation No 1/58 requires all EU legal acts to be published in the 24 official languages of the EU. When translating these texts, translators are expected to follow certain procedures and stick to certain principles. The reliability and legal consistency of terminology is a priority and the best way to achieve this is to translate terms with meaningful components at lexical,

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word formation and grammar levels. In this way, English terms become a basis for national terms. If one regards national terms as building blocks of texts translated from English, it becomes possible to analyse the strategies (procedures) for translating such terms, to determine the level of conformity between corresponding terms in the original language (ORI) and the target language (TARG), and to pick out trends in terminology.

I have identified 12 terminology translation procedures on the basis of ideas from a number of researchers and from my own experience. Half of them, such as equivalence, adjustment, amplification, indicate equivalence between terms at the semantic and formal levels, while the other half involve some deviation from the uniform representation of the concept, e. g. substitution, replacement, addition.

The current research takes three documents translated in 2013 and 2014 in the Lithuanian Department of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Translation and analyses 228 pairs of terms, excluding duplicates. In over 80% of the cases, the equivalence of ORI and TARG terms was demonstrated and 13.6% could be considered as distinct at the formal level, though corresponding to the same concept. Two of the procedures — metaphorisation and demetaphorisation — were excluded from the results, as they require more complex translation procedures and should be dealt with separately.

Comprehensive analysis of translated terminology would allow the compilation of an inventory of term translation procedures, which would be a helpful tool for translators when translating a new terminology.

Gauta 2014-08-29

Egidijus Zaikauskas

Europos Komisija

Bâtiment Jean Monnet C3/115, L-2920 Luxembourg, Luxembourg

E. paštas [email protected]

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