Technical Translation: Usability Strategies for Translating Technical Documentation

Technical Translation and Equivalence 
Source-based approaches, as exemplified by the various types and levels of 
equivalence briefly mentioned above, represent a problematic foundation 
upon which to base technical translation. While referential equivalence can 
ensure that a translation accurately conveys the intended information, con-
notative equivalence can help avoid the introduction of inappropriate regis-
ter or terms and textual equivalence can benefit the flow of information and 
cohesion of texts, the fact that source-based approaches do not consider the 
full communicative situation in which technical texts are translated and 
used poses significant problems for the technical translator. Since technical 
translation is a communicative service aimed at providing information to a 
new audience, the concentration on the source text and not on those in-
volved in the communication means that a crucial part of the translational 
situation is simply not considered. If we do not consider the purpose of the 
communication, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to tell whether it was 
successful. 
Linguistic approaches - of which Nida’s theory is one, its sociological 
dimension notwithstanding - presuppose some form of equivalence be-
tween the source text and the target text. This is fine as long as we are 
solely interested in the text and we are content that the target text, as a 

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30 Technical Translation 
communicative value of a translation and what people do with texts (see 
Robinson 2003:142), equivalence-based theories have difficulty in account-
ing for the changes, alterations, additions and omissions etc. which are 
needed in professional translation projects. Koller (1995:196) acknowledges 
this when he talks about the “contradictory and scarcely reconcilable lin-
guistic-textual and extra-linguistic factors and conditions”. 
Source-based approaches also fail to take into account the fact that trans-
lations, once they have been “released into the wild”, so to speak, become 
subject to the norms, standards and requirements of contemporary texts 
originally produced in the target language. In other words, the translation is 
no longer regarded by the target audience as a translation and instead is 
measured against other target language texts. Rather than providing us with 
a means of producing independent and autonomous target language texts, 
equivalence, because of its need to maintain a close link between source 
and target texts, provides us with texts that can only be evaluated on the 
basis of a source text which the target audience will usually not know 
about. Apart from this, if the target audience was in a position to compare 
the translation with the source text, they would be unlikely to need a trans-
lation in the first place. 
Problems also arise from the fact that the various typologies of equiva-
lence rarely provide any real guidance as to how we should go about actu-
ally translating texts. While equivalence typologies such as Komissarov’s 
above are useful in highlighting the different levels of equivalence which 
may be achieved by a translator, when it comes to the actual process of 
translating they are difficult to implement because they do not specify 
which type of equivalence could or should be used under which circum-
stances. For instance, in the case of a user guide, should the translator strive 
for denotational equivalence alone or denotational and textual equivalence? 
As Fawcett (1997:62) says “it is only a little more helpful than the old trans-
lation adage ‘as literal as possible, as free as necessary”. Some source-based 
approaches, do in fact, provide some form of prescriptive rules to be applied 
during the translation process, for example Schveitser (1987). Though in-
teresting and enlightening, they are not particularly useful for practical ap-
plications because they are generally too cumbersome and numerous for 
one person to remember and implement. In any case, in schemes such as 
Schveitser’s which has some 55 rules, only a small proportion of the rules 
will apply in any one translation job. The time spent by a translator trying 
to decide which of these rules applies to the various parts of the text would 
be better spent actually reading the text or researching parallel texts. 
reflection of the source text, is an end in itself. But if we are interested in the 

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Theory in Technical Translation 31