Technical Translation: Usability Strategies for Translating Technical Documentation

To connect to the Internet you will need: 
Parallelism is not just important in avoiding grammatical and comprehen-
sion problems, it is also very useful in reinforcing ideas and learning. The 
grammatical symmetry of parallelisms helps readers remember information 
more easily (White 1996:183). The notion of parallelism is closely related 
to that of Iconic Linkage which we will discuss later in Chapter 4. 
Style 
When we speak of style, we really mean the overall tone of the text and 
how authors express themselves – essentially, how the authors relate to their 
readers. It is generally acknowledged that a conversational style of writing is 
the best approach when producing and translating user guides. Mancuso 
(
ibid.
) ventures by way of an explanation, that the way we normally write is 
generally unsuitable for explaining ideas. When we explain ideas orally, we 
are concise, to the point and we avoid awkward or complicated construc-
tions. Indeed, D’Agenais & Carruthers (
ibid.
) maintain that most people 
communicate better when they are speaking than when they are writing. A 
possible reason for this is, according to the authors, that people tend to 
“write to impress rather than to express”. Mancuso and D’Agenais & Car-
ruthers agree that the best way of avoiding “stilted prose, using passive 
voice verbs and other awkward constructions” (Mancuso 1990:149) is to 
explain things orally or in speaking mode rather than in writing mode. 
Using a conversational style does not, however, give authors free rein to 
use slang, to be excessively informal or to be imprecise or ambiguous. 
While oral communication has the benefit of instant feedback from the re-
ceiver’s reactions, written communication does not have this aid and so the 
potential for misunderstanding must be minimised. 
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The Close button should be pressed to close a file.
- 
a modem to connect to your PC
- 
drivers for your modem
- 
a telephone line must be available.
- 
also, contact an ISP to get a dial-up account

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Technical Communication 
Verbs 
Verbs are the engines of sentences – they make the sentences meaningful 
and make a text more than just a list of words. The way in which verbs are 
used affects the way the text works and how easily the reader assimilates in-
formation. We can categorise our examination of verbs as follows: 
Strong / weak verbs 
Active / passive voice 
Imperatives 
Compound verbs