Terminological challenges in the translation of science documentaries: a case-study

Abstract

This article aims to describe some of the main terminological problems audiovisual translators have to face when dealing with the translation of science documentaries, specifically in the English-Catalan combination. The first section of the article presents some theoretical concepts which underlie this research and which are taken, for the most part, from Cabré's Communicative Theory of Terminology. Then, specific terminological problems audiovisual translators have to solve are described using the data provided by a corpus of four science documentaries lasting approximately 50 minutes each. These challenges include identifying a term, understanding a term, finding the right equivalent, dealing with the absence of an adequate equivalent, solving denominative variations, choosing between in vivo and in vitro terminology, and overcoming mistranscriptions