Divergências no inventário das línguas e na constituição dos elementos lexicais equivalentes como fonte de discordãncias interculturais na tradução de textos destinados ao ensino e divulgação da ciência

Abstract

Explicit or implicit references to circumstances pertaining to the source linguistic system make up a frequent category of cultural specificities in translating didactic and popularizing scientific texts, to which due consideration has not yet been given in translation studies. Based on the analysis of a number of published and unpublished (author-made) translations into Portuguese (and Spanish) of passages of English and German encyclopedia articles, textbooks, popularizing articles and popularizing books with scientific content, the present study addresses the problem of selecting the most adequate translation strategy for the two types of intercultural incongruences that arise from the aforementioned cultural specificities, viz., those derived from divergence in the language inventories and those derived from divergence in the constitution of the equivalent lexical units. In addition to avoiding nonsensical calques, three translation strategies are shown here as (varyingly) adequate to tackle such intercultural incongruences within the framework of communicative translation: reformulation, omission, and explanation.