Technical Translation: Usability Strategies for Translating Technical Documentation

The Basis of Knowledge 
Although it may seem obvious, when we learn we are acquiring new 
knowledge or, more specifically, meanings. But what is meaning? Novak 
presents the terms 
concept
and 
proposition
as the basic units of knowledge 
and meaning. Concept is defined as “a perceived regularity in events, ob-
jects or records of events or objects designated by a label” (Novak 1998:22). 
A concept is, therefore, a name given to a series of things or events that we 
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Learning
observe to have certain similarities. Propositions, on the other hand, consist 
of two or more concepts which are combined to form a statement about an 
event, object or idea. They are the principal units of meaning. Propositions 
can be valid, invalid or nonsensical. Novak (1998:40) likens propositions to 
molecules while concepts are compared to atoms. 
The Components of Meaningful Learning 
There are, naturally, several stages involved in meaningful learning and it 
would be impractical to discuss all of them here. However, we will discuss 
three of the key components of learning here: 
concept learning
, 
representa-
tional learning
and 
propositional learning
. 
Concept Learning 
If concepts are the smallest meaningful units of knowledge, it holds that 
they are the first thing that will need to be acquired in order to learn new 
information. This process is called concept learning and it is the subject of 
much debate. There are those such as Piaget who maintain that in order to 
acquire a new concept, we must first perceive the regularity to which the 
concept refers before we can acquire the label. This may or may not be 
true. Theorists such as Vygotsky (1962) believe that having a label already 
stored in memory can actually assist in the acquisition of the concept.