Polysemy in technical translations

Abstract

Translators may find Polysemy: coexistence of several meanings for a single word, as a challenge since it complicates the task of the translator. This situation gets worse if the translation is technical where the message should be depicted as it is in the Source Text unlike a literary translation which gives the translator more freedom. This paper intends to examine how Polysemy can affect a technical translation when the translator is unable to apply the most appropriate term for the original text. Similarly, it aims to explore how a translator can choose the relevant words for the Target Text when doing a technical translation. Accordingly, few technical documents and their translations will be analyzed in order to discover the situations where Polysemy has appeared and whether the translator has successfully tackled the polysemic situation. Thus, this paper will shed some light on how to work on Polysemy in Technical translations