On Cosmological Terms : A Study on Terminological Equivalence and Insufficient Terminologies

Abstract: Terminology is an aspect of scientific-technical texts that can be quite problematic to deal with for a translator, depending on the subject. In many fields of study, the terminology is highly specific and each term clearly defined as relating to a certain concept. The problem for the translator then is to find a term within the terminology of the target language that relates to the same concept. The purpose of this paper is to examine the issue of translating terminology in an advanced text on cosmology. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses are used in order to indicate the frequency of various problems relating to the translation of terminology and what strategies can be used to solve the various problems in a satisfactory manner, respectively. These analyses involve a study of terminological equivalence as well as the challenges that arise when the terminology of a given field lacks certain terms in a given language. The paper will show that a certain lack of terminological equivalence between English and Swedish as well as the greater issue of a limited development of the cosmological terminology in Swedish are two considerable problems when translating an advanced cosmological text from English into Swedish.