Dr. Carlos F. Márquez Linares Dr. Enrique F. Quero Gervilla Doctoral Programme in Languages, Texts and Contexts Faculty of Translation and Interpreting university of granada

Translating Coporate Governance Terminology

1. Business Term Translation

LSP can be described as “the diversity of different abbreviation types , the preference for certain syntactic structures over others, the characteristic way certain grammar constructions are translated” and elliptical forms for the expression of ideas (Lukina, 2006, p. 141). This is coupled with the term formation requirements. All of these factors determine the translation of LSP units. The special nature of term translation is analyzed in the works by Y. Vannikov (1984), Е. Bazalina (2009), А. Anisimova (2009), G. Mel'nikov (1991), E. A. Bassey (2007), R.

Temmerman (2000, 2014) and P. Faber (2009, 2012, 2014) and others.
In special fields of knowledge attention is given, firstly, to the content of a term and the precise expression of its meaning. For this reason, strict denotation prevails in terminology. This excludes any additional content connotation, which is necessary for the translation of fictional literature. The translation of specialized texts bears, above all, a concrete practical value. Term form selection should be carried out objectively and independently. Terms are the semantic cores of specialized literature. Terms codify, organize and structure the information contained in specialized texts.

The challenge for term translation lies in the fact that term components in the source and the target languages often do not coincide. Information weight differs in both. As a rule, the translators strive to transfer all the semantic components. For this reason, DT is often considered acceptable, although it is an undesirable method from the perspective of term conciseness and the convenience for use.

The translation of terms should be oriented at the target language and preference for the native language should be taken into account. The main stipulations for term translation are the disclosure of “content accuracy of the source language units” and “the fulfillment of the absolute identity of the concepts, expressed by the terms of the source language and translation language” (Bazalina, 2009, pp. 3-4).

The key issue for any type of translation is equivalence or correspondence: “equivalence, based on shared conceptual meaning in the form of interlinguistic and intertextual correspondence, is the objective that translators ultimately pursue when they perform their professional activity” (Faber & Ureña Gómez-Moreno, 2012, p. 74).

A translator of technical texts undoubtedly focuses on adequacy and consistency. The semantics and etymology of terms should be considered; the process of term nomination and development should be followed. According to Shirokolobova, adequate translation assures the success of translation within LSP, and the translation of terminology is of great importance. For this reason, a translator should focus on “internal cognitive structures, reflected in the nomination in the source language” (Shirokolobova, 2010, 108 (the translation from Russian)). According to Faber and Ureña Gómez-Moreno, it is important to take into consideration the following “components of the communication process: (i) text sender; (ii) text receiver; (iii) specialized text and its purpose” (Faber & Ureña Gómez-Moreno, 2012, p. 79).

Translation should aim for correctness, accuracy, lexical compatibility and it should take into account the special nature of the term system and its connections with LGP and other fields for specific purposes. Lexical, grammatical, semantic and stylistic differences in the source and the target languages should be identified. It is also important to establish the conceptual links between all the text components.

Sometimes a term can denote a concept which already exists in the target language, or it can be based on a LGP unit or another special field unit. In such a case the term can be translated by means of an existing equivalent. If the concept is new in the target language, the translator deals with non-equivalent translation. In both situations the main aim of the translation is to ensure a perfect match between the contents of the source and the target terms. In addition to this, the stylistics of the context should be taken into account, which is mainly confined to that of scientific and technical texts.

The translation of Business terminology, in our case Corporate Governance terminology, shows certain trends in its use, functioning and creation which represent clear challenges for the translator, e.g.:

• 
  The globalization of Economics has triggered the massive use of Calque and Direct Loan (see sections “Term Formation” and “Term translation as basic method of Corporate Governance terminology formation in Russian”);
  
• 
  Innovative forms of neonyms are widespread (see “Term Formation”);
  
• 
  The term forms are indeterminate. Contextual or occasional translation is used (see 6.1.1.)
  
• 
  Homonyms and synonyms are not well-defined (see 6.1.2);
  
• 
  Attributive combinations of complex or compound terms proliferate in the field (see 6.1.3.);
  
• 
  Figurative meaning terms use certain conceptualizing patterns (see 6.1.4);
  
• 
  Various abbreviations are employed (see 6.1.5).
  

Bilingual dictionaries, glossaries and corpora are the main lexicographic tools for consistent translation. These sources can solve a lot of issues connected to the translation of Corporate Governance terminology.

1. The indeterminacy of Business terminology. Contextual or Occasional Translation.

In theory, terms should be “distinguished from words by their relative precision and semantic circumscription, even if no longer by their complete context-independence” (Rogers, 2007, p.15). This is difficult to implement in practice, although “the conventional wisdom of text authoring in scientific and technical domains is to avoid any variation in the selection of terms, such as the use of synonyms or hyponyms, particularly in safety-critical technical fields and generes”

The choice of a translation equivalent cannot be based on a translator’s subjective opinion. There are certain glossaries and international documents that regulate the standards of term use, define term units and give examples of their use.

The choice of a term is made in accordance with the characteristic features of technical and scientific texts, closely related to the requirements for term formation. Terms ensure the consistency, accuracy and objectivity of LSP.

The translation of terms is not an easy task, because the lexical composition of LSP is under constant development: different components are being borrowed and the layer of “preterms” (provisional terms) must be taken into account. The latter function as an interim stage of term formation, until its final term form is coined. Changes in specialized vocabulary are connected to the unstable form and content of words, because a verbal expression is being constantly equaled to the meaning of a term. In addition to this, “because of its inherent fuzziness, meaning has always been more difficult to analyze than syntax or grammatical form” (Faber & Ureña Gómez- Moreno, 2012, p. 75). That is the reason for the existence of synonyms in terminology.

Translators of specialized texts sometimes deal with ad hoc equivalents. Terms and concepts can change, because “scholarly areas are subject to different kinds of external pressure” (Kristinasen, 2014, p. 252). Some concepts appear so fast in specialized fields that term forms appear to not be fixed in codified resources. According to Faber and Ureña Gómez-Moreno (2012), the job of a translator as a terminologist consists in rebuilding the conceptual system partially or even entirely on the basis of some fragments given in a text (Faber & Ureña Gómez- Moreno, 2012, p. 85).

According to Pecman, “variation can serve as a support for constructing knowledge” (Pecman, 2014, p. 21). The author illustrates how “the unit can subliminally switch from its term-like structure — the synthetic frozen form, for instance ice age meteoric waters — to its expanded-term structure — the analytic form, for instance meteoric waters precipitated during the ice age” (ibidem). “Expanded- term” form can be used in scientific discourse (ibidem). In addition to this, the “unfolding of term structure in the heart of the text” is of a great importance for “the process of constructing scientific knowledge” (ibidem). The explanation of a source term can trigger descriptive forms of a target term, which can be fixed in codified resources (see Descriptive Translation).

In theory, a term should not depend on a context and should correspond to a single concept; in practice, however, terms are often retrieved using contextual translation.

The same source term can be translated with different term forms in the target language depending on the context: “data variability –авриативность данных; variability of prices – неустойчивость цен” (Аnisimova, 2009, p. 5) (data variability – variativnost' dannyh; L.t.: the variability of data; variability of prices – neustojchivost' cen; L.t.: instability of prices). Context plays an important role for the development of translation variation (Grinev-Grivevich, 2008,

p. 117). Context can make a term either concrete, or abstract. In addition to this, the same word can be a term and a general language unit in different contexts. A term should always denote a specific object, characteristic or an action.

Confusion could also stem from occasional translation equivalents, included in the dictionaries by mistake. The appearance of occasional terms is a natural outcome of the way LSP functions. Dictionaries should not include new entries on the basis of the occasional use of a term in one text. A term is often used for the nomination of a new phenomenon, which can receive another form over the course of time. Synonyms and DT are used to substitute a certain term, in order to prevent repetition in the text. These forms can be wrongly regarded as terms and included in the dictionaries or glossaries.

According to M. Rogers (2007), “indeterminacy in the translation of lexical terms” can be regarded as “the absence of exclusive one-to-one relations such that term A is always translated by term B and vice versa” (p. 18). In addition to it, “indeterminacy in any particular text is understood as non-functional synonymy as well as shifts between specific (hyponymic) and generic (hyperonymic) designations” (ibidem).

Even a strictly defined context can contain different term form variations. For example, the comparison of the document “Principles of Corporate Governance” (G20 OECD, 2015) composed by OECD in English and its translation into Russian (G20 OECD, 2016) revealed certain variations of term forms. The term performance appears in the English document 31 times; while in the Russian document it has different forms:

•