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

Introduction

This study focuses on the Descriptive Translation of terms within Corporate Governance Terminology. Descriptive Translation is a formal explanation of the content of a source term. It differs from conventional definitions in that its form is crystallized and relatively convenient to use. However, Descriptive Translation is a contradictory phenomenon within the study of terminology. Language for Special Purposes gives priority to innovative, international and concise term forms. Correspondingly, although transliteration, transcription and Calque are considered as preferable term creation and translation methods, in many cases a less desirable technique, i.e. Descriptive Translation, is used.

Corporate Governance focuses on the ruling of a company or a corporation and adheres to the field of Management. Corporate Governance Terminology has been under close examination for only the last few decades. The emergent concepts belonging to this field are not clear-cut. In addition to this, English-speaking countries generate the majority of Corporate Governance Terms, create Corporate Governance codes and implicitly determine the development of terminology in other languages. English exerts an enormous influence over the form of Russian terms. In turn, Russian struggles with unclear and non-transparent term forms. This is exactly why the descriptive form of a term appears in Russian.

The hypothesis of this work is that Descriptive Translation can be considered as a full-fledged term formation method and translation technique into Russian. The following arguments are put forward for this study:

• 
  A proper descriptive term form should meet the main term formation requirements. Conciseness will not necessarily be violated, because descriptiveness does not imply redundancy;
  
• 
  Descriptive Translation is not a pure description of term content. A term retrieved by Descriptive Translation should be fixed in codified resources. Occasional term forms should be neglected and excluded from lexicographic sources;
  
• 
  Descriptive Translation can employ other term creation processes, such as Calque or Direct Loan to shape the form of a term.
  

The main objective of this study is to carry out the classification of descriptive terms and justify their practical use. The grouping of descriptive forms is based on the supposition that Descriptive Translation can focus either on the content or on the form of a source term. Once all the terms are grouped into major categories it is essential to show how they function within LSP. It is important to limit the field of study to the specialized area of Corporate Governance terminology, so that Descriptive Translation can be logically and consistently organized.

The specific aims of this study are as follows:

• 
  to show how English terms are integrated into the Russian LSP using Descriptive Translation;
  
• 
  to identify the reasons for the use of Descriptive Translation;
  
• 
  to focus on the purposes of Descriptive Translation and on its characteristic features.
  
• 
  to analyze whether it is necessary to restructure and harmonize the whole system of Management terms, based on the example of Сorporate Governance terminology;
  

This work consists of two major sections: theoretical background and case study.

The first section is based on the theory of Terminology in general, and Corporate Governance in particular, and the implications of Descriptive Translation use and its function within Language for Special Purposes. The section is subdivided into the following chapters:

1. 
   Terminological Units;
   
2. 
   Guidelines for Term Formation;
   
3. 
   Term Formation;
   
4. 
   Basic Principles of Term Formation in Russian;
   
5. 
   Terminology for Corporate Governance;
   
6. 
   Translating Corporate Governance Terminology;
   
7. 
   Defining Descriptive Translation of terms;
   
8. 
   Descriptive Translation and Term Formation Requirements;
   
9. 
   The Descriptive Translation groups within the field of Corporate Governance;
   
10. 
    Harmonization of Terminology.
    

The discussion of the theoretical background is necessary for the disclosure of the nature of terminological units (chapter 1). The understanding of concept-term relationships is essential to

understand how new terminology is formed. This is impossible without the guidelines for term formation, which regulate both form and content (chapter 2).

The Term Formation chapter (3) has been organized around the main term creation patterns within Monolingual and Interlingual Activities. Term formation as an Interlingual Activity is of great importance for the study of Descriptive Translation within Corporate Governance Terminology, because this method deals with the integration of source language units into the target language.

In the chapter devoted to the Basic Principles of Term Formation in Russian (4), special attention was given to the morphological patterns used in Russian for the creation of new forms. The analysis of Russian term creation patterns contributes to the understanding of basic assimilation patterns used for the integration of borrowed words into the Russian language system.

The first sections consider term formation patterns in English and in Russian, the guidelines for term formation and the terminological units. This information was applied to the sections devoted to the field of Corporate Governance. The chapter “Terminology for Corporate Governance” (chapter 5) deals with the historical background of Corporate Governance; its definition, and dynamic development; while the chapter “Translating Corporate Governance Terminology” focuses on the main issues relevant for term translation. The latter chapter contains the analysis of the main challenges for Terminology Translation:

• 
  The indeterminacy of Business terminology, resulting in occasional or contextual translations, which undermine the strict nature of terminology;
  
• 
  the violation of the monosemanticity requirement, the problem of polysemy and homonymy, which may trigger ambiguity within the field of Corporate Governance;
  
• 
  the abundancy of attributive semantically-dense combinations in English as opposed to the restrictions for these structures in Russian, which cannot be reproduced without additional elements or changes;
  
• 
  the conceptual patterns in both languages, which do not often coincide, and complicate the translation of figurative terms, especially metaphorical ones;
  
• 
  the existence of innovative types of abbreviations, which are considered as modern in Corporate Governance terminology.
  

The chapter also contains a brief review of lexicographic tools which can help solve these translation problems. The chapter ends with the classification of term formation in the special field of Corporate Governance in Russian.

The analysis of Corporate Governance terminology and its translation into Russian is followed by the chapters dedicated to the Descriptive Translation of terms (chapters 6, 7, 8 & 9). These chapters include the definition of Descriptive Translation, its functions and characteristic features, and also provide the classification groups of the Descriptive Translation method. The concluding chapter of the Theoretical Background section is devoted to the Harmonization of Terminology (chapter 10), which is important for structuring and organizing terminology. Harmonization and its aims highlight the importance of this research for combating the disorder of descriptive terms within Corporate Governance Terminology.

The classification groups which were proposed in the Theoretical Background section have been applied in the second section “the Case Study”, revealing the patterns of Descriptive Translation use, its dependence on English term forms and content. The Case Study includes a methodology section, which provides essential information about the research: scope, sources, objectives and tools. The chapter on Methodology is followed by the analysis of Descriptive Translation methods. The following chapters reveal the main characteristic features of each Descriptive Translation method, which is illustrated by the analysis of specific Corporate Governance terms. The findings of Case Study are expressed in the section on Statistics and Results. The statistics focus on the translation which can be recommended for each descriptive term, retrieved from the sources. The results reveal the reasons for the use of Descriptive Translation: the form or figurativeness of a source term. Each Descriptive Translation method has been analyzed to disclose its competitiveness and practical use.

This study can be considered innovative because it focuses on the use of Descriptive Translation within LSP and terminology, claiming to prove that Descriptive Translation can be one of the most effective means of translation and term formation. The Descriptive Translation of terms is, per se, a contradictory topic, because a term is a strict notion, and Descriptive Translation is a conventionally free translation method.

The theory proposed can prove practical because it develops a classification for the Descriptive Translation of terms. The classification groups of Descriptive Translation of terms are based on the characteristic features of both target and source terms. These classification groups have no precedent in terminological studies. The classification is meant to show the importance of the use of the Descriptive Translation of terms and the statistics retrieved are meant to highlight the most effective means of translation.

The analysis of the reasons for the use of Descriptive Translation can lead to the future harmonization of terminological systems, outlining and defining the patterns of Descriptive Translation. The comparison of Descriptive Translation with Direct Loan and Calque is essential for all terminology, because it shows the advantages and disadvantages of term formation/translation methods which are generally accepted as the leading ones. The analysis of Descriptive Translation patterns is important for stating a universal formula for eliminating additional and irrelevant terms within terminology.

The specific area chosen for the study, Corporate Governance, has, without any doubt, great potential for practical use and innovation, especially during this era of international business relations. The main contribution of this work to the study of terminology is the international nature and practical use of the research.