Metaphoric Term as Translation Unit of Technical Text

Abstract

The article considers the technical metaphoric term as a dynamic cognitive structure, which contains a fragment of the global technical picture. The author starts with a critical review of the existing approaches to the definition of a translation unit and suggests that this term should be considered as a dynamic unit of the text’s semantic structure. In this regard, the procedure is not limited to a simple extraction of a translation unit in the source text, but it leads to a complex linguistic analysis at the pre-translation stage. To extract the translation unit, the author suggests using a criterion of an unexpected collocation, which is why the metaphoric term is the subject of the study. Having justified the approach, the author presents the stages of the carried out linguistic analysis. Based on the results, the author formed fourteen thematic groups and described typical collocations of the structural elements. In the course of the analysis, the following functions of the metaphoric terms were singled out: 1) operational function, 2) shaping function, 3) intermediary function, 4) transfer function, 5) comprehension function, and 6) interpretation function. Such integrated approach to the analysis of the translation unit ensures adequate translation and minimizes critical translation errors.