Creating a bilingual glossary (English-Spanish) based on Moodle for the teaching and learning of Scientific and Technical Translation

[Seghiri Domínguez, Míriam. 2013. «Creating a bilingual glossary (English-

Spanish) based on Moodle for the teaching and learning of Scientific and Tech-nical Translation». Cultural Aspects of Translation (eds. María del Mar Rivas-Carmona y María del Carmen Balbuena Torezano). Tübingen: Gunter Narr. 357-372 URL:

http://books.google.es/books?id=zYJLAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA357&dq=%22Creating+a+bilingual+glossary+%28English-Spanish%29+based+on+Moodle+for+the+teaching+and+learning+of+Scientific+and+Technical+Translation%22&hl=es&sa=X&ei=k1rJU5L7ENTZ0QXht4AI&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Creating%20a%20bilingual%20glossary%20%28English-Spanish%29%20based%20on%20Moodle%20for%20the%20teaching%20and%20learning%20of%20Scientific%20and%20T

echnical%20Translation%22&f=false]

Miriam Seghiri

Creating a bilingual glossary (English-Spanish) based on Moodle for the teaching and learning of Scientific and Technical Translation

1 Introduction

The syllabus of the annual subject “Specialized Translation English/Spanish, Spanish/English (Scientific-Technical Texts)” of Translation and Interpreting

Studies at the University of Málaga is partially based on the use of the Moodle Platform in order to improve the teaching of this course and to bring

the teaching and learning of scientific-technical translation near the actual professional world.1 Terminology management is one of the most important stages in a translation project. For this reason, we will train our students to

create their own glossaries through the Moodle platform.

1 The research reported in this paper has been carried out in the framework of two

research projects: on the one hand, the European TELL-ME project (Ref. no. 517937-LLP-2011-UK-LEONARDO-LMP), which has been funded with support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein; on the other, the national R&D pro-ject INTELITERM: Sistema Inteligente de Gestión Terminológica para Traductores (ref. no. FFI2012-38881, 2012-2015).

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2 Methodology for Corpus Design and Compilation

In the following section we will describe the methodology followed in class,

and it is divided into the following stages: First of all, the teacher creates the web page of the subject, based on Moodle. The web page has different modules (see Figure 1):

Creating a bilingual glossary (English-Spanish) based on Moodle 3

Figure 1: Course homepage based on Moodle

This course homepage is divided into two main sections: on the one

hand, technical translation and, on the other hand, scientific translation. Technical translation is taught during the first semester while scientific translation is taught during the second semester. Both sections, scientific and

technical, have the same modules in the webpage of the course, mainly: a)

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General information (‘Información general’), where relevant documents

about the course are published as the syllabus, grades, etc.; b) The Private Forums (‘Foros privados de equipos’) where each group has its private

forum in order to communicate with each other; c) Selected readings (‘Lecturas’) on specialized translation that are made accessible electronically; d) Selected original texts (see Fig. 1, sections 4 and 5) on technical (or

scientific) topics to be translated into English or Spanish. Once the text has been translated, each team will create its own private glossary with the standardized terminology (see Fig. 1, section 3); e) The Free Forum (‘Zona de

intercambio de información’) has been created for all the students to interchange documents, general information, etc; and, f) The Assignment

module (‘Entrega de tareas’) is an easy way to allow students to upload digital content for grading.

Secondly, once the web page has been created, the source text in English

which is going to be translated into Spanish is published on the course website, for instance, in section 5 (see Figure 1). This technical text is about the ‘Procedure for Shifting the Stator’ (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Source text

Creating a bilingual glossary (English-Spanish) based on Moodle 5

Thirdly, once the text has been published, students read the instructions

provided (skopos) −‘Descripción del Encargo 2’− which affect the translation process. The skopos theory focuses on translation as an activity with an aim

or purpose and on the intended addressee or audience of the translation (see Figure 3):

Figure 3: Description of the skopos

Forthly, after reading the source text and the skopos, each group starts with the documentation and translation process in its Private Forum (see Figure 4). The discussions made through the virtual private forum are

always followed by the teacher.

Figure 4: Private Forum

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Fithly, each group uploads a draft verion of the target text in its private

forum (see Figure 4) and, next, translations are revised in class, by means of the following procedure: a group presents its translation using audiovisual

materials (such as Word or PowerPoint), while the rest of the groups propose corrections or improvements. The final version is always revised by the teacher.

Sixthly, during the revision stage each team appoints a carefully selected reviser to check the translation for accuracy and appropriate style, terminology and phraseology. The reviser uses the Word revision marks

tools (see Figure 5). Importantly, the translation is reviewed against the original document, rather than being read in isolation to avoid the risk of the

translation being plausible but inaccurate. Other activities during the revision stage include ensuring that all late changes and additions to the original document have been incorporated into the translation, that issues

which may have arisen are resolved and that the format corresponds to the output format requested by the client.

Figure 5: Revision Stage

Seventhly, the last step during the revision stage is producing a final

target text, free of errors (see Figure 6).

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Figure 6: Target text

Once the final target text free of mistakes is produced, it is time for the

last stage: terminology management.

3 Creating a bilingual glossary of specialized terms

Terminology management is one of the most important stages in the

translation process. Thus, each group is responsible for the creation of its own online private glossary based on Moodle. We are going to illustrate this

methodology by creating an English-Spanish glossary with technical terms based on the text ‘The procedure of Shifting the Stator’. The main characteristics of this text are that it is quite short (179 words) but highly

specialized. So, first of all, each group choses the terminology and phraseology that posed major problems during the translation process in order include them in the glossary. Each member of the group helps in this

task. For this reason, the group indicates in its private forum the terms (and phraseology) selected and the member of the group that has to upload a

particular term or phraseology in order to create the glossary (see Figure 7).

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Figure 7: Terminology and phraseology selected by a group work

The Moodle platform has proved to be a very useful platform, which

allows the students to introduce the terms in an easy and fast way. Some guidelines are recommended by the teacher in order to standardize all the

parts and the format of the entries: a) Headword in source language (SL) (Arial 12, bold, regular style). If the headword in SL is an abbreviation or an

acronym, another entry has to be added with the abbreviation or acronym in SL with a brief definition; b) Grammatical category of the SL headword (Arial 12, italic); c) Definition in SL (Arial 12, regular style), accompanied by

the source, if possible; d) One example of the headword contexts in SL, accompanied by the source, if possible (Arial 12, bold); e) One example of the equivalent context in target language (TL), accompanied by the source, if

possible (Arial 12, bold); f) Equivalent(s) of the headword in TL, accompanied by the source, if possible (Arial 12, bold, italic). If the

headword in TL is an abbreviation or an acronym, another entry has to be added with the abbreviation or acronym in TL and a brief definition in TL; g) Comments (Arial 12, regular style, in another paragraph, with underlined

title). Once students have a standardized way to upload the terms, each group is ready to start creating the glossary (see Figure 8).

Creating a bilingual glossary (English-Spanish) based on Moodle 9

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Creating a bilingual glossary (English-Spanish) based on Moodle 11

Figure 8: Example of glossary created by the group Engine

If students need it, it is possible to attach images to an entry, in order to clarify concepts (see Figure 9):

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Fig. 9: An entry with illustration

Finally, it is important to mention that each group cannot see the entries of the glossary until they are corrected by the teacher who corrects, modifies, clarifies, eliminates or, simply, approves the entry. All the corrections,

improvements or precisions are often explained by a comment (see Figure 10):

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Figure 10: Corrections and comments by the teacher

The glossary contains some terms whose translation does not appear in general dictionaries but are found due to documentation tasks of students

(mainly online). Corrections, improvements, as well as precisions often go with a justification or a comment, and consequently, our students will be aware of their mistakes. Once all the entries have been checked by the

group, first, and by the teacher, at the end, the glossary will be used as another tool for future translations, as for instance, the final test that takes

place at the end of the semester.

4 Conclusions

Creating a glossary of approved terms is essential. It will not only save time

for the students but ensures a consistent style and voice, an accurate rendering of the original text and a level of translation quality that is even throughout. Online glossaries created by the students based on Moodle have

shown many advantages for the teaching and learning of scientific-technical translation: first, the platform has allowed the students to have a complete

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and reliable glossary for future translations made by their own, and checked

by the teacher; second, the platform allows more direct interaction between students, and between students and the teacher, since their contributions are

revised or commented; finally, creating glossaries helps to introduce our students into the terminology management stage, essential for professional translators.

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