ABSTRACT
Translation helps transcend language barriers and interact with people in different countries. This chapter focuses on technical translation, a sub-type of specialized translation involving “technology based” texts—or texts produced by technical communicators and relating to technological subjects. It introduces technical communicators to the key translation processes, practices, and approaches and provides them with the understanding essential to working more effectively with translators and translation. In technical translation, the medium involved is usually written text, and translators are typically asked to translate whole documents, not just portions of them. Three basic stages of the translation activity lead to the translated text. These stages are: analysis of the source-language text, transfer of the source text into the target language, and revision of the translation. The chapter examines each of these stages in more detail so that technical communicators can better understand each stage of the overall translation process.
