Peculiarities of the theme-rhematic structure of scientific-technical texts

4. Relevance of scientific-technical translation.

            At present time there is a great necessity to emphasize scientific-technical translation not only as a special kind of translation activity and special theory that investigates this kind of activity but as to assign scientific-technical translation a status of independent applied science. From the linguistic viewpoint peculiarities of scientific-technical are spread on its stylistics, grammar and lexics. The main task of scientific-technical translation is a possibly clear and precise bringing of the information to the reader. This can be achived by logical interpretation of actual material without explicit emotionality. The style of scientific-technical materials can be identified as formally logical.

Scientific-technical texts reveal a great number of grammar peculiarities. The most typical lexical feature of scientific-technical materials is terms and terminology saturation as well as presence of lexical structures and acronyms. A special place in such materials are the texts oriented not only for this group language speakers but for representatives of a certain professional group with certain extralinguistic knowledge.

 

In any scientific and technical text, irrespective of its contents and character, can be completely precisely translated from one language to other, even if in an artwork such branch of knowledge is required, for which in language of translation there is no appropriate nomenclature. In such cases the interpreter more often resorts to interpretation, but becoming of a necessary nomenclature of a realization in a sphere of production or those scientific circles, which are engaged in data by problems.

To ensure valuable translation, it is necessary to an interpreter to present the following requests:

1. The substantial acquaintance to a subject, which is treated in the original text.

2. Good enough knowledge of language of an artwork and its lexical and grammatical features in comparison to the native language.

3. Knowledge of the bases' theory of translation, and also receptions of technical translation and skill to use them.

4. Legible introducing about the character of scientific and technical functional style both in language of the original, and in the native language.

5. Acquaintance to accepted conventional signs, abbreviations (cuttings), systems of measures and weights, both in language of the original and in the native language.

Good possession of the native language and the right use of a nomenclature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

II. Peculiarities of the theme-rhematic structure of scientific-technical texts

2.1. The characteristic of the scientific and technical language

 

Having studied the material of scientific-technical texts some of the characteriscts can be determined:

1. The absence of emotional colouring.

This feature basically also causes absolute convertibility of the scientific and technical texts, as the reader should not have stranger associations, he should not read between lines, be admired by the game of words and calamburs. The writer's purpose of the text is to describe either or other phenomenon or operation, this or that subject or process.

It is necessary to mark, that the English language differs by figurativeness, which cannot be transferred to Russian translation.

E. g. “The mother company bore a daughter in the Far East, granted her a dowry of 2.000.000 pounds and christened her…”

If to translate literally, it will sound so:

"Компания мать  родила на Дальнем Востоке  дочь, дала ей приданное в 2 млн. фунтов стерлингов и окрестила ее…"

After processing is obtained:

"Эта компания  организовала на Дальнем Востоке  дочернюю компанию и выделила  ей капитал в 2 млн. фунтов  стерлингов; новая компания стала  именоваться…"

2. Rushing to clearness and shortness.

The rushing to clearness discovers expression in application of legible grammar constructions and lexical units, and also in the wide use of a nomenclature. As a rule, the placed terms will be utilized conventional,, though meet and terminoids (terms, having circulation in a narrow orb), which considerably hamper translation. The rushing to a multiplicity expresses in wide application of infinitive, gerundial and subordinate clauses, abbreviations (cuttings) and conventional signs.

3. The special semantic load of some words of ordinary colloquial speech.

The rethinking of words of ordinary speech is one of productive methods of the new terms' construction.

E. g. to put out - in ordinary speech "гасить огонь", but for sailors - "выходить в море"

Stroke - in ordinary speech "удар", but for mechanic - "ход поршня"

Hoe - "мотыга", but for builders - "обратная лопата"

This property of words is an especially dangerous source of difficulties and errors for an initial translator.

4. Rate, distinct from literary language, of the words' use of the basic dictionary fund.

The lexicon of the scientific and technical literature is much poorer than lexicon of art products. Therefore rate of separate elements of common lexicon of the scientific and technical literature is higher than rate of elements of lexicon of art products, thus the literary - book words and expressions, foreign drawings, scarcity of portable and contextual meanings treat to characteristic features of scientific and technical style.

5. Distinction from the literary language rate of the use and relative importance of some grammar shapes and constructions.

In the engineering literature Passive Voice is used in 16 times more often, than in art. The definition in the engineering literature is used in 3 times more often, than in art.

6. Scarcity of the idioms' use.

The idiomatic word collocations are original irresolvable expressions having particular sense, frequently independent from elements, included in them. The idioms always have some emotional colouring and consequently are not entered in the scientific and technical texts.

7. Application of abbreviations (cuttings) and conventional signs.

About some features of language of the scientific and technical literature and technique of tutoring translation.

Concept " the scientific and technical literature " combines, as is known different kinds of literature; the monographs, different textbooks, journal papers, descriptions, quick references. These aspects of the scientific and technical literature differ on language. In scientific and technical operations the material is stated briefly, exact and logically and at the same time completely enough and demonstrative. For all aspects of the scientific and technical literature is present much common, as enables to speak about common lexical and grammar features of the scientific and technical literature [17; 49].

The lexicon of the scientific and technical literature consists of common words and great many of the special terms.

One part of common words such as to work, to know, place, new is known for the pupil from school or other original course of the English language.

Other part of common words is unknown by the pupil and represents that basic lexical reserve, which they should acquire in learning process. This part of common words can conditionally be subdivided on some groups:

Words used in the scientific and technical literature in meanings, distinct from what pupils have acquired in original course. For example verb to offer in the scientific text more often is used in value "оказывать", instead of "предлагать".

To same group it is necessary to refer and some auxiliary words such as for, as, since, after. A feature of these words is that they can execute functions of different parts of speech. For example word for can be a preposition and conjunction, and is translated as "для", "в течение", and as a conjunction "так как".

Words, which on the first stage of tutoring usually are not studied.

E. g. to regard - рассматривать, считать.

to design - конструировать.

Here it is necessary to refer a great many of auxiliary words, not studied before, "on account of" - из-за, “due to “ - благодаря.

Words and word-combinations providing logical connections between separate parts of the text and providing the logic of an account.

E. g. to begin with - прежде всего

Furthermore - кроме того

Summing up - говоря вкратце

Word and word combinations serving for relational expression of the writer to the stated facts or for clarification of these facts.

E. g. needless to say - не вызывает сомнения

strictly speaking - строго говоря

The meanings of such words should be learnt.

Phraseological word combinations.

The feature of phraseological word combinations used in the scientific and technical literature is that they more or less neutral on colouring.

E. g. to be in a position - быть в состоянии

to be under way - осуществляться

to bring into action - начинать действавать

Phraseological word combinations play the important role in the offer and they are necessary for knowing.

The second stratum of the scientific and technical literature are the terms.

E. g. guidance - наведение

combustion chamber - камера сгорания

force of gravity - сила тяжести

If the expert well knows Russian nomenclature, having met in the text the unfamiliar term, he can guess without the dictionary by what appropriate Russian term is necessary to translate.

The greatest difficulty for understanding and translation is represented by the terms consisting not of one word, but from group of words. Disclosure of their meanings requires (demands) particular sequence of operations and knowledge of a method of translation of separate components. It is possible to recommend to start translation from the last word. Then under the order on the right to the left to translate words, facing to it, taking into account the semantic relations between the components.

E. g. If we translate the term "liquid-propellant power plant" - first of all it should be translated "power plant" - силовая установка, and then “propellant" - топливо, and the last word is “liquid" - жидкий. And we can easily translate the whole word combination:

"Силовая установка на жидком топливе"

It is necessary to take into account that many terms are polysemantic.

E. g. stage - in radiotechnics has several meanings:

1.Каскад;

2. Фаза, стадия

And in the rocket engineering - ступень ракеты.

Thus summing up, it is necessary to underscore, that the mastering of a strictly select and rather restricted amount of words enables the specialist to read the scientific and technical literature, not reverting to common English-Russian language and using only by special dictionaries. Some more examples are submitted in the Appendix 1.

2.2. Analysis of terminology in scientific-technical style

 

The purpose of science as a branch of human activity is to disclose by research the inner substance of things and phenomena of objective reality and find out the laws regulating them, thus enabling man to predict, control and direct their future development in order to improve the material and social life of mankind. The style of scientific prose is therefore mainly characterized by an arrangement of language means which will bring proofs to clinch a theory. The main function of scientific prose is proof. The selection of language means must therefore meet this principle requirement.

The genre of scientific works is mostly characteristic of the written form of language (scientific articles, monographs or textbooks), but it may also be found in its oral form (in scientific reports, lectures, discussions at conferences, etc); in the latter case this style has some features of colloquial speech.

The language of science is governed by the aim of the functional style of scientific prose, which is to prove a hypothesis, to create new concepts, to disclose the internal laws of existence, development, relations between different phenomena, etc. The language means used, therefore, tend to be objective, precise, unemotional, and devoid of any individuality; there is a striving for the most generalized form of expression.

The first and most noticeable feature of this style is the logical sequence of utterances with clear indication of their interrelations and interdependence, that is why in no other functional style there is such a developed and varied system of connectives as in scientific prose. The most frequently words used in scientific text are functional words; conjunctions and prepositions.

The first 100 most frequent words of this style comprises the following units:

a) prepositions: of, to, in, for, with, on, at, by, from, out, about, down;

b) prepositional phrases: in terms of; in view of, in spite of, in common with, on behalf of, as a result of; by means of, on the ground of, in case of;

c) conjunctional phrases: in order that, in case that, in spite of the fact that, on the ground that, for fear that;

d) pronouns: one, it, we, they;

e) notional words: people, time, two, like, man, made, years.

As scientific text is restricted to formal situations and, consequently, to formal style, it employs a special vocabulary which consists of two main groups: words associated with professional communication and a less exclusive group of so-called learned words. Here one can find numerous words that are used in scientific text and can be identified by their dry, matter-of-fact flavour, for example, comprise, compile, experimental, heterogeneous, homogeneous, conclusive, divergent, etc. Another group of learned word comprises mostly polysyllabic words drawn from the Romance languages and, though fully adapted to the English phonetic system, some of them continue to sound singularly foreign. Their very sound seems to create complex associations: deleterious, emollient, incommodious, meditation, illusionary.

A particularly important aspect of scientific and technological language is the subject-neutral vocabulary which cuts across different specialized domains. In particular, a great deal of scientific work involves giving instructions to act in a certain way, or reporting on the consequences of having so acted.

Several lexical categories can be identified within the language of scientific instruction and narrative:

Verbs of exposition: ascertain, assume, compare, construct, describe, determine, estimate, examine, explain, label, plot, record, test, verify.

Verbs of warning and advising: avoid, check, ensure, notice, prevent, remember, take care; also several negative items: not drop, not spill.

Verbs of manipulation: adjust, align, assemble, begin, boil, clamp, connect, cover, decrease, dilute, extract, fill, immerse, mix, prepare, release, rotate, switch on, take, weigh.

Adjectival modifiers and their related adverbs: careful (y), clockwise, continuous (ly), final (ly), gradual (ly), moderate (ly), periodic (ally), secure (ly), subsequent (ly), vertical (ly) (see Appendix 1).

The general vocabulary employed in scientific text bears its direct referential meaning, that is, words used in scientific text will always tend to be used in their primary logical meaning. Hardly a single word will be found here which is used in more than one meaning. Nor will there be any words with contextual meaning. Even the possibility of ambiguity is avoided.

Likewise neutral and common literary words used in scientific text will be explained, even if their meaning is slightly modified, either in the context or in a foot-note by a parenthesis, or an attributive phrase.

A second and no less important feature and, probably, the most conspicuous, is the use of terms specific to each given branch of science. Due to the rapid dissemination of scientific and technical ideas, particularly in the exact sciences, some scientific and technical terms begin to circulate outside the narrow field they belong to and eventually begin to develop new meanings. But the overwhelming majority of terms do not undergo this process of de-terminization and remain the property of scientific text. There they are born, develop new terminological meanings and there they die. No other field of human activity is so prolific in coining new words as science is. The necessity to penetrate deeper into the essence of things and phenomena gives rise to new concepts, which require new words to name them. A term will make more direct reference to something than a descriptive explanation, non-term. Furthermore, terms are coined so as to be self-explanatory to the greatest possible degree.

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion

            The theory of actual division of the sentence is connected with the logical analysis of the proposition. The principal parts of the proposition are the logical subject and the logical predicate; these two parts correlate with the theme and the rheme of the sentence respectively. Logical analysis deals with the process of thinking and the actual division reveals the corresponding lingual means of rendering the informative content in the process of communication.

The logical subject and the logical predicate, like the theme and the rheme, may or may not coincide, respectively, with the subject and the predicate of the sentence. When the actual division of the sentence reflects the natural flow of thinking directed from the starting point of communication to its semantic core, from the logical subject to the logical predicate, the theme precedes the rheme and this type of actual division is called “direct”, “unspecialized”, or “unmarked”. In English, with its fixed word order,  direct actual division means that the theme coincides with the subject (or the subject group) in the syntactic structure of the sentence, while the rheme coincides with the predicate (the predicate group) of the sentence, as in Charlie is late. - Charlie (theme) is late (rheme). In some sentences, the rheme may be expressed by the subject and it may precede the theme, which is expressed by the predicate, e.g.: Who is late today? – Charlie (rheme) is late (theme). This type of actual division is called “inverted”, “reverse”, “specialized”, or “marked”. The last example shows that actual division of the sentence finds its full expression only in a concrete context of speech (therefore it is sometimes referred to as the “contextual” division of the sentence).

The close connection of the actual division of the sentence with the context, which makes it possible to divide the informative parts of the communication into those “already known” by the listener and those “not yet known”, does not mean that the actual division is a purely semantic factor. There are special formal lingual means of expressing the distinction between the meaningful center of the utterance, the rheme, and the starting point of its content, the theme. They are as follows: word order patterns, constructions with introducers, syntactic patterns of contrastive complexes, constructions with articles and other determiners, constructions with intensifying particles, and intonation contours.

The connection between word order and actual division has been described above: direct actual division usually means that the theme coincides with the subject in the syntactic structure of the sentence, while the rheme coincides with the predicate. Inverted word order can indicate inverted actual division, though the correlation is not obligatory. For example: (There was a box.) Inside the box was a microphone; the adverbial modifier of place at the beginning of the sentence expresses the theme, while the subject at the end of the utterance is the rheme; the word order in this sentence is inverted, though its actual division is direct. Reversed order of actual division, i.e. the positioning of the rheme at the beginning of the sentence, is connected with emphatic speech, e.g.: Off you go! What a nice little girl she is!

Constructions with the introducer ‘there’  identify the subject of the sentence as the rheme, while the theme (usually it is an adverbial modifier of place) is shifted to the end of the utterance, e.g.: There is a book on the table. The actual division of such sentences is reverse without any emotive connotations expressed. Cf.: The book is on the table; in this sentence both the word order and the actual division are direct: the subject is the theme of the sentence.

 

Emphatic identification of the rheme expressed by various nominative parts of the sentence (except for the predicate) is achieved by constructions with the anticipatory ‘it’, e.g.: It is Charlie who is late; It was back in 1895 that Popov invented radio.

The opposed nominative parts of the sentence are marked as rhematic in sentences with contrastive complexes, e.g.: Charlie, not John, is absent today.

Articles and other determiners, in accord with their either identifying or generalizing semantics, are used to identify the informative part “already known“, the theme (definite determiners) or the “not yet known” information, the rheme (indefinite determiners). E.g.: The man (theme) appeared unexpectedly. – A man (rheme) appeared. But this correlation is not obligatory, because the theme is not always the information already known; it may be something about which certain information is given, so, the indefinite article may be used with the theme too, e.g.: A voice called Mary.

Various intensifying particles, such as only, just, merely, namely, at least, rather than, even, precisely, etc., identify the nominative part of the sentence before which they are used as the rheme, e.g.: Only Charlie is late today. Similar is the function of the intensifying auxiliary verb ‘do’, which turns the predicate into the rheme of the sentence, while the rest of the predicate group is turned into the transition or even the theme, e.g.: I did help your sister (cf.: I helped your sister).

  The major lingual means of actual division of the sentence is intonation, especially the stress which identifies the rheme; it is traditionally defined as “logical accent” or “rhematic accent”. Intonation is universal and inseparable from the other means of actual division described above, especially from word-order patterns: in cases of direct actual division (which make up the majority of sentences) the logical stress is focused on the last notional word in the sentence in the predicate group, identifying it as the informative center of the sentence; in cases of reverse actual division, the logical stress may indicate the rheme at the beginning of the utterance, e.g.: Charlie (theme) is late (logical accent, rheme). - Charlie (logical accent, rheme) is late (theme). In written speech the logical accent is represented by all the other rheme-identifying lingual means, which indicate its position directly or indirectly. They can be technically supported by special graphical means of rheme-identification, such as italics, bold type, underlinings, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

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