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Article published In:
The terminological impact of pandemics: COVID-19 and beyond
Edited by Maria-Cornelia Wermuth and Paul Sambre
[Terminology 29:2] 2023
► pp. 351–382

Conceptual deviation in terminology translation

A case study on translating COVID-19 terminology in multilingual news media

| Southwestern University of Finance and Economics , People’s Republic of China

Viewing the conceptual dynamicity of terminology as a major challenge in translation practices, this article proposes a framework for studying conceptual deviation in terminology translation. A case study based on a multilingual parallel corpus of journalistic translation is carried out to examine the conceptual deviation in Chinese and Spanish translations of several COVID-19-related terms in health communication via international news media. The results suggest that conceptual deviation occurs to varying degrees in translation and the Chinese translation conceptually deviates more from the source text than the Spanish translation does. Based on the premise that conceptual deviation may occur because of the sociocultural constraints on journalistic translation as an activity of cross-linguistic and -cultural health communication, the causes and impact of conceptual deviation in terminology translation are also discussed.

Keywords: conceptual deviation, translation, terminology, COVID-19
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Conceptual variation and the challenges for terminology translation
  • 3.Theoretical framework
    • 3.1Term, concept and equivalence
    • 3.2Establishing equivalence in terminology translation
    • 3.3Conceptual deviation in terminology translation
    • 3.4Approaching cognitively motivated terminological variation
      • 3.4.1Descriptive approach to interlingual conceptual variation
      • 3.4.2Frame-based approach to terminology
  • 4.Methodology
    • 4.1Corpus
    • 4.2Towards a framework for describing conceptual deviation
      • 4.2.1Conceptualizing the STUs in a pandemic frame
      • 4.2.2A frame-based analysis of conceptual deviation
  • 5.Results and discussion
    • 5.1Occurrences of the STUs
    • 5.2Conceptual deviation in Spanish translation
    • 5.3Conceptual deviation in Chinese translation
    • 5.4General tendencies of conceptual deviation
    • 5.5Causes and impact of conceptual deviation
  • 6.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 26 October 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/term.00073.li
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