Linguistic principles of UI terminology
The system of terms
The peculiarity of scientific and technical translation and translation of terms of user interface in particular are determined by accuracy and clarity in terms. The right and correct translation of terms determines the quality of translation. As this takes place, there are certain requirements:
- On-to-one correspondence between English and Russian term;
- Consistency;
- Coherence and logicality.
On-to-one relationship between the terms in different languages is needed, if for no other reason than most of the readers, at varying degrees, have known terms in English. So different translations for one English term (used with the best intentions, for example, to clarify the meaning of text in foreign language), as a rule, leads to poor results, when target audience has problems with understanding all text in whole, although can better comprehended the meaning of single sentence. A classic example of violation of this principle is a long using by Microsoft two Russian terms "щелкнуть" and "нажать" for one English term - "to click." This history began in the Windows 95 operational system: in a printed manual the "нажать" term was used exclusively and there was no one "щелкнуть" word, but in online help system, for the most part, the "щелкнуть" term was used. And at that time, however, dividing into audience groups did not exist. Error was coping in all subsequent versions of the operating system, and for many years had raised continuing debates about that term.
The terms translation system should not conflict with accepted terms norms. But this concept is too vague, so we can speak only about the terms system adopted for localized products of one company. You should not rely on magazines and other periodicals, as well as for publishing houses, because the people working there use the terms adopted for this organizations. This local terms system helps to collectively work on the text for several staff members (translator, scientific editor, proofreader, stylist, etc.), but its change in the light of new developments taking place not so quickly and, usually, be slightly behind the current state of industry terminology. If we again return to the "click" term, we can found in third-party publications following translations: "кликнуть", "клямкнуть", etc, apart from "нажать" and "щелкнуть".
Of course, used Russian equivalent should bear a certain meaning that helps to properly interpret the term. This is especially important for new terms coined by the translator himself. We should not think that any new term is worse then term commonly used in the past. Today, not many people recall that the "correct" term in GOST for printer was "устройство печати", but the new term "принтер" successfully took place instead of old one.
The technical terms and professional jargon
As already stated above, the terms system is specific to individual companies and individual software product. However, there are common terms that are uniformly interpreted within the industry-wide knowledge (for example, an object-method paradigm in programming). Formalization of such terms is usually made by scientific and educational organization, but registration of these terms is provided in specialized technical dictionaries. In addition, there are professional jargons, the terms of which do not belong to a common industry terms system and are slightly different from corporate terms. Very often, professional jargon used in speech and private correspondence.
The boundaries between formal professional terminology, corporate terminology and jargon in individual product are not clear and permanent. The terms are often moved from one area to another violating the main principle of technical documentation - uniform and unambiguous understanding of the text by wide and diverse audiences. The terminology of marketing materials shows an example. These publications are poorly understandable by technical specialists, whom these materials are addressed (can you see any technical meaning in the new buzzwords, such as leverage or enforce?)
During translation, it is important to clearly classify the terms under three types mentioned above (common industry terms, corporative terms, and jargon), and do not substitute the formal English term by Russian slang. That is why arguments "specialists say so" and "the term is often used in Internet publications" have no any value as arguments. To test and remove English slang terms the Microsoft company recommends own vocabulary [2] and terminology websites, for example http://www.webopedia.com and http://www.whatis.com, as well as sites of industry standards, http://www.w3.org. Beside this, in English help systems, the list of terms (glossary) has become a generally accepted norm. For marketing materials Microsoft recommends: "Use in the marketing materials the same terms as in product."
Grammatical and lexical characteristic of technical terminology
There are three ways to use American English:
- Standard English, formal usage - They have done nothing.
- Standard English, informal usage - They've done nothing.
- Nonstandard usage - Dey ain't done nothin'.
From a formal point of view a description of the user interface, like any other technical description, is classified as "Standard English, informal usage", which also includes most of the books, magazines, newspapers, corporate publications, etc. Therefore, to describe the typical user interface we use standard verbs, adverbs with –ly endings, the words from ordinary dictionaries, standard punctuation, abbreviations and corporate terms system, but not professional jargon.
I can bet on anything - in all software products from Microsoft (without new products such as Windows Vista and MS Office 2007) there is no any odious "ain't" contraction in full compliance with the American schoolboy wisdom: "Ain't ain't in the dictionary, so ain't ain't a word". By the way, the frequency ratio of using "can't" and "cannot" is about 1:7. In descriptions (help systems) of user interfaces a passive voice is widely used, which is typical for any technical publications.
In general, user interface of software product conforms to the "Standard English: informal usage" category, with minor defects that nobody have already notices. For example, the list of menu items (commands) requires grammatical consistency. Consequently, in the File menu of Microsoft Word 2003 word processor after Save, Save as and Save as Web Page should be the Find Files item, not File Search.
Additionally, English language is not state language in US, usually it is considered as de-facto standard (Russian language is the state language of the Russian Federation according to RF's Constitution). In the US there is no official organization governing the rules of the English language, like French or Italian academies, struggling unsuccessfully with English words in these languages. But the user interfaces are written in American version of English (for example, "program" and "dialog" instead of "programm" and "dialogue") simply because nearly all software developers are American, not British companies. In this regard, always amusing to read the requirements for software technical writers who "shall have an excellent British English" or even the BBC English.
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