Investigating Translation of Cultural Elements in Scientific-Technical Texts

Abstract

Nowadays, a major amount of translation work being done all over the world is scientific-technical translation. It has been estimated that technical translation accounts for some 90% of the world's total translation output each year (Kingscott, 2002). Scientific-technical translation is mostly considered a straight forward process depending solely on a competent knowledge of subject matter and terminology. In other words, it is referred as acultural (free from cultural features). The main aim of the present study is to show that cultural elements do exist in scientific-technical texts and needs attention. The focus is on English and Persian and the researcher refers to Stolze (2009) who discusses culture in scientific-technical translation under five headings: terminology, language form, syntax, text structure and pragmatics. The researcher also refers to another place where cultural differences can be traced, .i.e., stylistic differences. Out of the author’s experience, stylistic and syntactic cultural differences (at least in English and Persian pair languages) can be called the most deceiving parts for scientific-technical translation. Findings of this study can also be alert to unwitting scientific-technical translators not to render strange terms and structures into Persian.