Agentes antimicrobianos

This chapter concludes with the recurrent theme of linguistic underdeterminacy, this time viewed from a cognitive linguistic perspective. In this context, I would like to repeat the quote from Faber Benítez (2009:108) which was already cited in 2.8. Faber Benítez works in the field of frame-based terminology, which is a terminological approach with a specific cognitive linguistic bias. Her description of linguistic underdeterminacy in scientific and technical translation is therefore in line with the cognitive linguistic perspective taken in this chapter:

The information in scientific and technical texts is encoded in terms or specialized knowledge units, which can be regarded as access points to more complex knowledge structures. As such, they only mark the tip of the iceberg. Beneath the waters stretch the tentacles of a many-splendored conceptual domain, which represents the implicit knowledge underlying the information in the text.

The idea of specialized knowledge units providing access points, or prompts, to more complex knowledge structures should sound familiar from the discussion of the encyclopaedic approach to linguistic meaning in 4.2.3. From this perspective, linguistic surface structures, representing the visible tip of the iceberg, provide such “partial and impoverished prompts upon which highly complex cognitive processes work giving rise to rich and detailed conceptualisation” (Evans/Green 2006:368).47

47 _{In the theory of domains, these “partial and impoverished prompts” would take the form of the profile,}

which “stands out in bas-relief” (Langacker 1987:183) against a much broader base/domain matrix.

The complex knowledge structures which are accessed by these linguistic structures in the process of conceptualization (or meaning construction) – and which represent the larger part of the iceberg hidden under water – are organized in the form of “a many-splendored conceptual domain” or, with specific reference to the cognitive semantic discussion in the previous

sections, in the form of frames and domain matrices. Which part of this knowledge will actually be relevant and thus needs to be accessed in the understanding of specific texts is subject to various contextual factors and will be elaborated in more detail in the next chapter. Frames and domains therefore describe, from a theoretical point of view, the locus of the knowledge assigned to the larger part of the iceberg under water.

The different common ground configurations in expert-to-expert, expert-to-semi-expert and expert-to-layperson communication are also functionally related to the underdeterminacy of a given text (see the discussion of linguistic underdeterminacy and STT in 2.8). Basically, the broader the common ground between the discourse participants is, the less information has to be explicitly verbalized in the text. The actual linguistic makeup of a text, which contributes directly to a higher or lower degree of linguistic underdeterminacy, can also be captured in the cognitive linguistic framework, namely in the form of linguistic construal (see Faber/San Martín Pizarro 2012:200). Of special relevance in this context is Langacker’s construal operation of specificity/schematicity

(2008:55), which describes the level of detail at which a given situation is linguistically encoded. The link to linguistic underdeterminacy should be quite obvious. The more schematic a certain construal, the more linguistically underdetermined it is, requiring potentially extensive contextual input to arrive at a more fine-grained conceptualization. To take up the example from chapter 1 again, the construal the CO2 generated from a

primary fossil fuel is schematic or underdetermined with regard to the actual production of the CO2 (possibly because this information is deemed to be common ground between the

discourse participants). If this construal is intended to communicate the more fine-grained conceptualization the CO2 generated from the combustion of a primary fossil fuel, it has to

be contextually enriched with this information (which can be claimed to be part of the frame/domain matrix of CO2) in the process of conceptualization. On the other hand, the

more specific a construal, the more linguistic underdeterminacy recedes to the background since more specific construals encode, at the textual surface, much of the information that would otherwise stay schematic or hidden under water.48

48 _{Tabakowska (1993:37) points out in this context that “conceptual limits of specificity cannot be matched}

by the level of specificity of linguistic expression”, meaning that humans can always conceptualize a given scene at a much finer granularity than can be achieved by linguistic expressions. This fundamental gap between conceptual structure and semantic structure as a subset of conceptual structure (see 4.5.3) can be seen as the basic prerequisite of linguistic underdeterminacy.

dimension of linguistic construal will be revisited in the cognitive linguistic discussion of explicitation and implicitation in chapter 6.

4.7 Chapter summary

This chapter provided a detailed overview of the framework of cognitive linguistics. It was illustrated that CL subscribes to a conceptualist and hence encyclopaedic approach to linguistic meaning, which led cognitive semanticists to develop fine-grained toolsets for modelling the organization of potentially open-ended knowledge configurations evoked by linguistic expressions in discourse. These toolsets should prove useful both for the knowledge-intense field of scientific and technical translation in general and for the discussion and investigation of more microscopic concepts such as explicitation and implicitation. Also, cognitive linguistics highlights the usage-based character of grammar hence assigning prime importance to instances of language use (such as translation) and thereby bridging the sometimes considerable gap between linguistic theories and translation studies. The theory of mind as a coordinating device between participants in verbal communication serves to ensure both the overall stability of a conceptualist approach to meaning and, more specifically, the potential stability of textual meaning, which is of crucial importance to both STT and to explicitation and implicitation. In much the same context, cognitive linguistics subscribes to a weak version of linguistic relativism, conceding that language may act as a shaper of thought but at the same time postulating a universal human conceptualizing capacity that allows us to understand and to compare conceptual systems encoded in different languages. Again, this is important for both the (interlingual) stability of meaning and for the feasibility of investigations into explicitation and implicitation. It was also shown that cognitive linguistics provides specific theoretical components with direct relevance to scientific and technical translation and explicitation and implicitation. Among these are the toolsets covered by the term linguistic construal, which can be used to model linguistic aspects of STT (such as explicitation and implicitation) from a cognitively plausible perspective, the concept of common ground, which captures the shared knowledge of specific discourse communities, and the field of

cognitive semantics (and here in particular frame semantics and the theory of domains). As stated at the beginning of this section, cognitive semantics provides tools for modelling the organization of (implicit) knowledge in translation and in communication in general. The next chapter will attempt to apply the cognitive linguistic framework illustrated in the present chapter to relevant aspects of scientific and technical translation.

5 Scientific and technical translation from a cognitive linguistic

perspective

This chapter intends to illustrate the specific potential that cognitive linguistics holds for the field of scientific and technical translation. To structure this discussion, a model of the scientific and technical translation process will be introduced below and both the various elements and the process represented by this model will be elaborated from a cognitive linguistic perspective. Following this macroscopic approach, we will focus on specifically relevant aspects of this model, for example, epistemological aspects of STT and – more pertinent to actual translation – the notions of text and context in STT, again seen from a cognitive linguistic perspective. At several points in this discussion (particularly in the context of epistemological aspects of STT in 5.2), I will not only draw on the cognitive linguistic framework introduced in the previous chapter but also on the embodied realist basis of this framework sketched in chapter 3. This discussion of STT from a cognitive linguistic perspective will again also take up several issues raised in the general context of scientific and technical translation in chapter 2, for example, the ideas of stable frames of reference, narrow scopes of interpretation and the ensuing stability of meaning and invariance of meaning in STT. In chapter 2, the epistemological and linguistic tools required for a sound theoretical discussion of these aspects had still been missing. However, now that the philosophical and linguistic foundations of the thesis have been laid, we will attempt to tackle the complexities involved in these notions. A second and subordinate aim of this chapter – besides exploring the interface between scientific and technical translation and cognitive linguistics – is to lay the foundation for the subsequent discussion and analysis of explicitation and implicitation as potential indicators of text- context interaction in STT. Especially the discussions of context and invariance of meaning in STT will include considerations that will be taken up again in the following chapters concerned with the theoretical and methodological aspects of explicitation and implicitation.