3.

2 Typical text types

While there are numerous types and variations of texts, the same
general types appear regularly.

3.2.3 Reports and scientific papers

Perhaps even more so than proposals, scientific papers are a hybrid
of science and technology, as they usually combine
theoretical information with practica!, applied information. Scientific
papers and reports can take a number of structural forms but the
main ones are:
• lntroduction - Materials and methods - Results - Discussion
(sometimes referred to as IMRAD).
• Abstract - lntroduction - Materials - Procedure - Results -
Conclusions - References.

Abstracts are one of the most important aspects of a text as they

can determine whether or not the main text will be read. An abstract
is a condensed summary of the main text and, together with the title,
needs to function as a text in its own right in arder to allow potential
readers to accurately determine whether the paper contains the
information they are looking far. lf something is awkward or unclear
in an abstract, as a translator you cannot simply shrug it off and
assume that it will become clear when the reader reads the rest of
the text because they may not read the text as a result of this
ambiguity.
The lntroduction seeks to provide background information to
readers to show the context within which the current work was
carried out. This will often involve the use of references and quotes
from related literature which require particular attention from the
translator when it comes to reproducing, translating or transcribing
the information.
The Materials section contains a detailed summary of all of the
materials in the study. This can often be quite technical and may
contain various technical terms, including proprietary or trademarked
names so correct spelling and orthography is essential.

CD Translating brand names

Texts may refer to materials by brand name only. If that
particular brand is unknown or non-existent in the target
language culture, we may have a problem. The
instinctive solution might be to replace the SL brand
name with a comparable TL brand name, if one exists,
but this may be even more problematic than leaving the
SL brand name in the translation. This is because the
two products, although similar and possibly identical in
most aspects, may have different characteristics,
properties or chemical compositions, which in the case
of a chemistry paper could have significant implications
for the repeatability or even safety of the study. One of
the safest ways of dealing with brand names which do
not exist in the TL is to reproduce the brand name and
accompany it with a brief phrase [in square brackets]
which describes its function. Of course, this means you
may have to do some research to find out what the
product does in the first place. But this is part of a
translator's job, isn't it?

The Procedure section contains relatively straightforward step-by-

step procedural descriptions of the activities carried out. The key
problems presented by this section include abbreviations, acronyms,
units of measure and ellipsis. Other considerations include the need
for consistency and absolute clarity; there can be no room
whatsoever for inaccurate or unclear information, as it may affect the
repeatability of an experiment, for example, and most significantly,
render the study unreliable.
The Results section is an objective statement of the facts
uncovered by the study. There is no discussion but rather a
presentation of statistics, events, findings or other data. Such a
section may include numbers, statistics (and standard statistical
phrases regarding probabilities etc.), physical descriptions or
reported speech from interviews (where you should translate exactly
what is written, as it is written, even if it does not make perfect
grammatical sense).
The Discussion section is where this information is analyzed,
interpreted and explained. This section will more than likely recap on
the hypothesis presented earlier in the document and will compare,
contrast and interpret the data. It will contain set phrases which
scientists use to express opinions, beliefs, probabilities and doubts.
As such, the language will be much more complex. Good
researchers will also use the discussion section to highlight and
discuss any weaknesses or limitations with the methodology used.
Not all papers will contain a Conclusions section but where one
does exist, it will provide a summary of the hypothesis, the results
and the key conclusions derived from the discussion. It may also
present ideas for future research.

References are not typically something we think about from a

translation perspective, but from a practical translation perspective
they are worthy of mention. While most journals will stipulate the
preferred bibliographic style to be used, such as Harvard, MLA or
APA, and it is not the translator's job to change these, the content of
the bibliography is something where our expertise is required. When
translating between European languages, we can generally leave
the references alone, but when translating from Chinese into English
or from Russian into Arabic we are faced with a situation where the
target audience is going to be presented with information in a script
that they cannot decipher.
 We may, therefore, need to decide ourselves or ask the client
whether we need to transliterate the author names and book titles so
that the target audience can read them. An ISBN number, if present,
can be a very useful tool in finding out whether there is an official
"gloss" or descriptive TL explanation 1 or method for transcribing this
information. A small point, but one worth checking nevertheless.
An interesting variation on the report is the case study. This is a
text which is used primarily for marketing purposes, but combines
much of the content found in a technical report or paper with
marketing and journalistic language. A case study is aimed at
showing the benefits of a technology and/or the expertise of a
company in a specific context. Such documents have a fairly
standardized format which typically consists of identifying the client,
explaining its needs (this can be regarded as the "problem"), and
describing the solution and how it was put into effect.
This set structure is then typically followed by a testimonial section
where the client expresses satisfaction with the company's solution
and states how it has improved their operation or fulfilled their
requirements. These sections will frequently be interspersed with
journalistic-style quotes from key personnel involved in the project.
The final part of a case study will often consist of paragraphs
describing the companies involved, along with contact details. Such
paragraphs generally have a more formal, less journalistic style,
which is at times legalistic, and will be standard text for which there
is usually an existing translation.
What makes case studies so interesting from a translation point of
view is that they use a broad range of different writing styles to
convey different information, such as highly complex technical data
together with subjective personal opinions, reported speech and
persuasive devices. Helpfully, they are incredibly easy to find on the
Internet, and companies such as IBM, Avocent, Siemens and
Hewlett-Packard have extensive repositories of case studies on their
websites. Chapter 4 provides an example of a technical case study.

3.2.4 Presentations
Although not frequently acknowledged, the PowerPoint presentation
has been identified as a specific text type by both technical writing
and translation scholars (Myers 2000; Rosenberg 2005). For
professional translators, presentations crop up with surprising
frequency and apart from the technical challenges of translating
these files, they can present problems which are more significant
than their friendly, multi-coloured, animated and graphics-filled
appearance would suggest.
PowerPoint files, when properly constructed, will consist of text,
graphics, figures and animations, which all work together to convey a
message, or to support the speaker in conveying a message
verbally. The constraints of space, time and legibility mean that most
good presentations will be highly summarized and consist largely of
bullet points - only bad presentations are crammed with paragraphs
of text like a printed document. While this is good for the audience
and the presenter, it is potentially bad news for the translator
because there may be a lot of potentially ambiguous sentences in a
presentation.
If you have ever seen handouts from a presentation you will know
that most of the time, the slides only make complete sense if you
have heard the presentation; on their own, they are not completely
clear. In an ideal situation, you would be able to ask the client for
clarification or, even better, for speaker's notes or the full version of
the paper, but this is not always possible.
When translating these files, translators need to keep an eye on
how long their translations are. Since presentations consist of text
boxes which do not automatically resize, a translation which is longer
than the original ST text will automatically be displayed in a smaller
font. This is quite helpful, but if you add a lot of text, the font may
become too small to be seen clearly when projected onto a screen.
In the worst-case scenario, your ever-expanding translation may spill
over the edge of the page, and this can clutter the presentation,
harm the readability of the presentation and make the speaker look
unprofessional. In case you were thinking that you can simply add a
new slide ... don't! At least not without checking with the client first
because there may be limits on the number of slides they can use, or
there may be timing or simply design issues.
 CD Finding texts on the Internet
Using a combination of searches on the different
language versions of websites, you can find parallel
texts on the same topic in your target language. Parallel
texts are similar texts on the same topic in your target
language which can help you find target language
equivalents for terms in the source text or give you a
better insight into the style used in typical documents.
For this reason, it is usually best when they are not
translations. In the majority of cases they are much
more useful than consulting a dictionary because they
show how terms are used in context and they are often
more up-to-date. To find parallel texts you firstly need to
think carefully about your search keywords. Then think
about things like which format the text is likely to be
published in as it can help narrow your search.
Documents like presentations are often published in
PowerPoint (.ppt) or HTML format while case studies,
reports and user guides are typically published on the
web in PDF format. You can use Google to search only
for those files which are in specific formats. To do this,
type "filetype:" alongside your search terms. This has
the added advantage of helping to narrow down your
search and weed out some of the lower quality
examples: filetype:pdf "case study".

3.2.5 Regulatory documents

Regulatory documents, also referred to as normative documents, are
explicit sets of rules governing the requirements for products,
materials or services. Documents of this type are essentially
specifications which provide clear, comprehensive and unambiguous
descriptions of, for example, what a product is required to do, what
characteristics a material should have or the way in which a service
is to be provided. Specifications can take a more formal form in the
shape of directives, laws or standards which are written by standards
organizations (such as ISO, DIN or 851), by trade organizations or
government bodies. Standards seek to normalize and homogenize
the design of products or materials or to regulate and standardize
certain activities.
In both cases, regulatory documents may have a legal dimension,
whether as a means of enforcement, as a justification of necessity or
prevention. As such, there is a certain amount of overlap with legal
translation and the documents may contain varying amounts of legal
terminology and constructions as well as highly specific and detailed
technical descriptions. The legal dimension is particularly apparent in
the case of patents, where the aim is to protect or license an
invention, i.e. the inventor's intellectual property, by giving the
inventor the right to exclude others from making, using, selling or
importing the invention (see DeMatteis et al. 2006).
Translating such documents requires meticulous attention to detail
to ensure factual accuracy in the first instance, as well as
compliance with specific linguistic requirements. An example of this
comes in the form of what are known as "EMEA templates" 2 . These
are quality review templates produced by the European Medicines
Agency and used to ensure the quality of documents by defining the
format, layout and wording of product information for medicines.
Product information must be produced in accordance with these
templates as it forms an integral part of the licensing and approval
process and, if it is deficient in any way, the medicines may be
withdrawn. The standards are very strict and they stipulate specific
headings, spellings 3 , phrases which have established meanings in
22 official European Union languages, as well as Icelandic and
Norwegian. The fact that the templates are available in such a wide
range of languages makes them quite useful for translators, as they
constitute a ready-made and approved terminology resource.
Another example of a regulatory or normative text, again relating
to medicine, is the British National Formulary. This document
provides scientific definitions and descriptions of medicines before
giving practical, technical information (including prices) relating to
medicines. Similarly, national and international pharmacopoeias set
out precise instructions for preparing medicines and explain which
compounds are currently permissible.

Practical Exercise 16: Find out more about standards

Visit the ISO website and use the /SO Catalogue to find out
what types of products and processes are regulated by
international standards. Once you have done this, try to identify
at least five standards relating to any subject and find out if they
have been translated into one or more of your working
languages.
Next, identify the organization responsible for managing and
regulating these standards in the country where you are based.

3.2.6 Popular science

Popular science is a generic term consisting of science writing and
science journalism. The aim of popular science is to provide an
interpretation of scientific material for a general audience who are
outside the mainstream scientific community. Whereas popular
science books are broad in their choice and treatment of topics,
science journalism such as that seen in the likes of the Popular
Science tends to focus on specific themes and recent developments.
In contrast to scientific writing such as journal papers and
monographs, popular science seeks to present the observations,
data and conclusions produced by scientists in an accessible way.
The aim is to entertain and to educate, possibly even to provoke, but
the end result is that much of the modality or cautious "hedging" that
occurs in scientific texts is often absent from popular science texts
because of the need to simplify or generalize scientific principles.
An interesting dimension of popular science is that it can be
written either by scientists or by journalists with varying levels of
scientific knowledge. The result is that certain examples of popular
science may closely border what could be regarded as literary
works, with all of the rhetorical devices and creative language that
this entails.
In terms of identifying features, popular science texts will combine
terminology, abbreviations and equations etc. from scientific texts
and combine it with the linguistic features common in either literary
or journalistic texts. The hybrid nature of popular science as a whole
may even result in the use of unusual devices such as dialogues,
story-telling, metaphors, role-plays, cartoons, extracts from other
document types such as recipes, songs, poems, diaries, dramatic
texts and so on, in order to ensure that texts are informative and
entertaining. The flexibility required in order to convey complex
information in an easy-to-understand way means that popular
science texts can be particularly demanding for translators.

3.2. 7 A word on how texts are structured

Understanding how and why texts are structured in a particular way
can help you decide on the most appropriate translation strategy.

The way in which technical documentation is structured is not

(usually) some random occurrence as a result of a writer's whims or
preferences. The function of the text and the circumstances in which
it will be used have as much to do with it as the idea of a logical
progression of topics. To make matters even more complex, cultural
preferences and norms also play a role. Some documents are
written in a linked, cohesive way with individual sections which build
on those previous and lead into those subsequent. Examples of this
type of text would include popular science books, technical
specifications, proposals, or student textbooks. Scientific texts
introducing formulae, for example, might begin by stating the rule
formally in words before giving the formulae in scientific notation.
This is then followed by a definition of the rule and the notation to
ensure comprehension and then several examples or exceptions to
the rule. This logical sequence aids comprehension and fulfils what
has come to be an expectation among readers of this type of text.
Other texts, however, are composed of various, more or less
discrete sections which are designed to be read individually and in
no particular order. Very often, it is impossible to predict the entry
point from which readers will start reading and they may only read a
small subset of the whole document. Examples might include
reference manuals, task-based tutorials, trouble-shooting guides and
online help. When translating texts like this, it is advisable to avoid
anaphoric and cataphoric references (i.e. references which point
backwards or forwards to content in other sections of the document)
as they may be unclear or unfamiliar to the reader. It is usually
possible to make the reference more specific, to simply refer to a
particular chapter or, in some cases, to repeat the necessary
information and delete the reference altogether.

CD Structure is culture-dependent
Unfortunately, once you have learned how texts are
structured in your target language, for example, you
then need to learn how they are structured in your
source language because, even with closely related
languages, they may vary considerably. In 1995, Ulijn
conducted a study to establish whether culture plays a
role in readers' responses to texts. His study involved
242 French and Dutch speakers whom he asked to read
an English language table of contents from a user guide
for a coffee maker and then to arrange the table of
contents into an order that made most sense to them.
While the two groups agreed on the placement of some
sections, there was a significant difference in their
placement of others. The results clearly showed that the
cultural context in which a text is used affected readers'
perceptions of whether or not the text made sense.
While this type of restructuring may not always be the
job of the translator, the sequencing can impact on local
translation strategies. In any case, it is certainly
something worth mentioning to clients.
 Of course, there are times when texts can be described as hybrids
- texts that display features of more than one type of text such as
task-based tutorial, cookbook and reference manual. This is not as
far-fetched or as uncommon as you might think. There may be cases
where a document jumps back and forth between scientific and
technical text, or technical and marketing text, or technical, financial,
legal and promotional text. Proposals, tenders, reports, case studies
and marketing material are good examples of this. Susanne
Gopferich recognizes the blurred border between scientific and
technical texts in her attempts to classify LSP texts (1995:307). For
the translator this means you will need to recognize the change in
function of a particular section and adapt your translation strategies
accordingly.

Practical Exercise 17: Identifying a "logical" document

structure
Recreate Ulijn's experiment by writing the chapter headings
from a user guide on separate pieces of paper and asking
different people or groups of people to arrange them in the
correct order. Compare the results and discuss them. This task
also works well as a class activity.

3.2.8 Making sense of text types in translation

Different texts are produced for different purposes and audiences,
and translating them means you have to understand how they are
analyzed and categorized. As translators, however, we need to look
at the idea of text types in more detail. The main reason is that, as
translators, we need a more in-depth understanding of the workings
of a text and because we are dealing with two language/text
systems, and we need to assess the compatibility of the two.
There have been various attempts to create text typologies for the
purpose of classifying and profiling texts, examining specialized
terminology and understanding how texts work, and there is a vast
amount of literature on text typologies, particularly in the field of
LSP. While it simply would not be feasible to look at all of these, or to
discuss the issue in anything other than a relatively superficial way, it
will become apparent that by grouping texts into categories and
identifying types, we can hopefully arrive at strategies for translating
them.
If nothing else, the very process of analyzing and categorizing
texts in this way will help us to understand them better and, as
Trosborg (1997:iix) points out, help us to "develop strategies that
facilitate [our] work and provide awareness of various options as well
as constraints". Bell (1991 :206) says that the importance of creating
a comprehensive and plausible text typology cannot be over-
stressed because "[w]ithout the ability to recognize a text as a
sample of a particular form [ ... ] we would be unable to decide what
to do with it; we could neither comprehend nor write nor, clearly,
translate". This point is echoed by Schaffner (2000:214) who says
that a knowledge of the cross-cultural similarities and differences
regarding genres and conventions is crucial to the translator.
Schaffner (2000:211) also explains that genres or individual,
specific types of texts are "embedded in sociologically-determined
communicative activities", but that some are more culture-specific
than others. Certain genres may be highly culture-specific genres
and can vary significantly from culture to culture while others may be
less culture-specific and may even be regarded as "supra-cultural" or
universal (ibid.), meaning that they are basically the same from
culture to culture. However, Schaffner also points out that, even
where texts and their conventions are ostensibly universal, individual
languages may require us to use different microlevel strategies when
translating individual parts of a text to ensure these conventions are
observed. She illustrates this by saying that giving instructions in
English typically requires the use of imperative verb forms while in
German it requires the use of infinitive forms.
Similarly, Nord (1995:264) examines text functions in translation
and uses titles and headings as an example. She identifies six
functions for titles and headings, namely distinctive, metatextua/,
phatic, informative/referential, expressive or appellative. Assuming
that we are translating a text from one language where titles are
typically expressive into a language where titles are purely
informative, our strategy when translating the title may require us to
eliminate any parts of the text which are not purely informative. For
example when translating a journal paper, the expressive title "When
pets attack: Why does my dog hate me?" may need to be translated
as "A clinical study into aggression and psychosis among domestic
Chihuahuas." in order to conform with target culture conventions and
expectations.
While the six functions of headings and titles described by Nord
(ibid.) can be applied to technical documentation, a more useful
means of classifying texts is provided by Gopferich who highlights
normative, actualizing, didactic and compilatory as categories for
classifying technical text functions (1995:308). These text functions
provide a more detailed and specialized framework within which we
can classify texts and to help us to understand what it is certain text
types are supposed to achieve.
Many of the texts which we discussed previously fall into
Gopferich's didactic-instructive category. This means that many of
the text types described earlier (which also form the basis of much of
what technical communicators produce) fall into a category where
the target audience is highly heterogeneous (Gopferich 1995:311)
and as such can pose the greatest number of problems for us. It is
for this reason that, when using the strategies described in Chapter
2, we need to understand more about the people at whom these
texts are aimed.

Text Category Communicative Function

Juridical- Like the regulatory texts described earlier, texts in
Normative this category are used to establish a legal basis
or an unambiguous standard of reference. These
texts always involve legal claims or some effort to
impose uniformity.
------
Progress- These texts are used to communicate information
orientated for the purposes of advancing science and
Actualizing technology by presenting new results or
knowledge or a critical evaluation of existing
 knowledge. This category gives rise to the
subcategories of plain presentation, which
incorporates reports, dissertations, conference
proceedings etc., and sophisticated presentation,
------
which includes articles in learned journals.
Didactic­ Didactic-instructive texts convey information far
instructive educational or entertainment purposes or far
practica! application. This category gives rise to
various first and second arder sub-categories.
The first sub-category is humanltechnology
interaction orientated texts which are practica!
texts aimed at providing step-by-step instructions
to help readers perform a task. Theoretica/ texts
provide a unidirectional flow of information and
the reader concentrates solely on the text. Such
texts can be described as mnemonical/y
organized (such as text books) or interest­
arousing (such as popular science articles,
------
product information)
Compilation These texts provide an accessible summary of
knowledge contained in texts of the other three
text categories. There are two sub-categories:
encyc/opaedic which includes encyclopaedia
------
entries, reviews, and dictionary-type documents.
Example 18: Gopferich's text categories and sub-categories