Technical Translation: Usability Strategies for Translating Technical Documentation

Clarity and Word Choice 
Reminiscent of the old adage “less is more”, a commonly held tenet of 
technical writing is that texts should be as brief and concise as possible and 
writers (not to mention translators) should eschew verbosity (D’Agenais & 
Carruthers 1985:100-101; Weiss 1985:148-9, 152). According to Weiss 
(1985:148) the most frequent “offenders” with regard to verbosity are what 
he calls “smothered verbs”. A smothered verb, also known as a nominaliza-
tion, is a verb that has been converted into a noun, e.g. “they conducted an 
investigation” instead of “they investigated”. Nominalisations involve using 
a phrase where a single word would have sufficed and also encourage the 
use of unwieldy passive constructions.
Conversely, however, it is possible to be overly concise and compress 
text to such an extent that it becomes incomprehensible or ambiguous. The 
notion that text can become ambiguous as a result of excessive compression 
is echoed by Ramey (1989) who describes the incidence of Escher effects in 
texts. Escher effects - named after Escher's famous two faces / one glass pic-
ture – result in a phrase or piece of text having two or more possible mean-
ings and force readers to truly study the text in order to ascertain or deduce 
which meaning of the text is the intended one.
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Technical Communication 
The following examples illustrate Escher effects in text: 
input mode 
operating system file specification rules 
programming error messages 
Each of these examples can have a number of possible interpretations. Tak-
ing the first example we can see that “input” can be read either as a verb or 
as a noun. So it is conceivable that one reader will regard “input mode” as a 
command – that the reader is required to input or specify the mode. 
Meanwhile, another reader may regard “input mode” as a state where “in-
put” modifies or qualifies “mode”. 
The specific type of words used in a text can play an important role in its 
quality. D’Agenais & Carruthers (1985:106) suggest that positive words be 
used instead of negative words because, presumably, negative words have 
an undesirable effect on readers. The authors give the following example 
which is admittedly a little contrived but which does illustrate the point: 
Lock the door when you leave. 
Don’t neglect to lock the door when you leave. 
D’Agenais & Carruthers (
ibid.
) go on to say that words can be used to 
smooth the transition from idea to idea, sentence to sentence and paragraph 
to paragraph. The purpose of this is to avoid abrupt changes which can 
leave readers wondering where to go next. This idea is consistent with the 
theory behind the Müller-Lyer Illusion (Coe 1996:29). Figure 4 shows two 
lines, A and B. Both of these lines are of equal length, and each has arrow-
head tails: on line A they point back over the line and on line B they point 
away from the line. 
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Software User Guides & Quality
Figure 4: Müller-Lyer Illusion 
Although both of these lines are the same length, the way our brains per-
ceive the lines tricks us into thinking that line B is longer than line A. The 
reason for this is that the arrowhead tails on line A direct our attention back 
onto the line while the arrowhead tails on line B direct our attention away 
from the line. Similarly, textual transitions provide a link between ideas or 
stretches of text and offer a pointer directing the reader where to go next 
(Coe 1996:29). 
Returning to more general aspects of word choice, it is, perhaps, useful 
to remember that a key goal of user guides is that they should present
information in a simple manner. Simplicity of language can be obscured by 
a
number of word choice factors: jargon, euphemisms, neologisms and ab-
breviations / acronyms. 
Jargon 
Each and every discipline, be it biology, precision engineering, electronics 
or meteorology has its own vocabulary of specialised terminology. This 
terminology is frequently referred to as jargon (White 1996:191; Mancuso 
1990:186). Indeed, specialised terminology is essential in order to avoid 
ambiguity and to accurately communicate ideas and concepts. However, 
this terminology can also be an irritation and hindrance when misused 
(White 1996:192). The problem is, according to Mancuso (
ibid.
) that “ex-
perts use too much jargon in documents meant for less well informed audi-
ences”. The general consensus is that jargon should be used in a way that is 
appropriate to the abilities and level of knowledge of the audience 
(Mancuso 1990:186-7; White 1996:192). Where it is essential or unavoid-
able that jargon be used, the specialised terms should be properly defined 
(Mancuso 1990:186).