Estandarización de la concentración de la suspensión

Firstly, on a basic epistemological note, it follows from the discussion of embodied realism in chapter 3 that humans do not have any uninterpreted direct access to reality from an

10 _{An often discussed example in this context is the translation of German operating instructions for a}

washing machine to be used in Indonesia (Kußmaul 1995:75, see also Göpferich 1998a:325; Reinart 2009:273). However, both Koller (2002:49) and Reinart (2009:273) point out that this is a rather marginal example that may not adequately represent the professional everyday reality of translators.

objectivist God’s Eye perspective. Hence, the reduction of human epistemology to the search for “one fully correct way in which reality can be correctly divided up into objects, properties, and relations” (Lakoff 1987:265) will not be reflected in the present account of scientific and technical translation. Instead, it was argued that this access to reality is a function of the human coupling with the world via our embodiment. This dialectical relationship between humans and the world is reflected in the STT model above by the bidirectional arrows running between the various agents and the notion of reality. Furthermore, it was argued that our epistemic access to reality is always perspectivized in the form of a specific conceptualization of reality.11

In science and technology, the conceptual systems in which our conceptualization of the domain-related reality is codified can be claimed to be tightly structured, hence providing a stable frame of reference for scientific and technical discourse to operate upon. Since conceptualization usually takes place based on pre-existing conceptual systems, this stable frame of reference (in the form of tightly structured conceptual systems) will probably limit, to a significant extent, the admissible scope of variation in the conceptualization of the domain-related reality. Other parts of reality, for example our everyday reality, may be structured on the basis of less rigid conceptual systems and correspondingly less stable frames of reference and may hence allow for a greater scope of variation in their conceptualization. It was argued in the discussion of embodied realism and science in 3.3 that the stability of the conceptual systems in science and technology results, among other things, from the nature of the phenomena found in the domain-related reality

Therefore, in the model above the arrows do not run directly between the agents and reality but pass through an intermediary stage of conceptualization. While this emphasis on an indirect access to reality via conceptualization may entail a certain variation in the way reality is conceptualized by different people, this scope of variation was argued to be crucially limited by human embodiment.

12

11 _{In cognitive linguistics, this insight is reflected, for example, in the categories of perspective and}

perspective/situatedness in the models of linguistic construal operations developed by Langacker and Croft/Cruse (see 4.5.1.1 and 4.5.1.2).

, the rigour associated with the scientific method and our technologically extended basic-level abilities for perceiving, observing and manipulating such phenomena. This last point entails that the

12 _{This means that we experience these phenomena at the sensory level and not at the introspective or}

general conceptual stability which is characteristic of the human basic level is imported into the conceptual systems of science and technology.

Since basic-level perception is claimed to be a universal feature of human cognition as a result of our shared embodiment, this embodied account of science can be taken to be one factor contributing not only to the perceived stability of scientific knowledge but also to its relative universality, resulting in a high congruence of the respective conceptual systems in different cultures (Brekke 2004:620). Furthermore, several authors (e.g. Reinart 2009:43- 44, 277; Siever 2010:213) have pointed out that scientists in various fields form rather homogeneous diacultures – which are bound by their shared expertise or common ground with regard to their common research field – across national and linguistic borders. These

scientific communities, their joint scientific efforts and the expert knowledge acquired through these efforts may therefore be less amenable to particular influences from their respective national cultures than other cultural communities. The link between the common ground of specialized discourse communities and the relative congruence or commensurability of SL and TL conceptual systems is also highlighted by Scarpa (2002:136), who claims that there is

[...] a tendency for the conceptual systems of the SL and the TL to get closer to commensurability as the [scientific or technical] text is being aimed at an increasingly specialized readership (where communication is best ensured by a large shared amount of specialized knowledge).

The characterization of these scientific communities as international diacultures bound together by a very broad specialized common ground can thus be taken to be another factor contributing to the stability and relative universality of scientific knowledge.13

However, despite the assumed universality and stability of human basic-level capacities as imported into science and technology and further universalist influences due to the work of scientific communities as international diacultures, there is of course still room for – and evidence of – intercultural conceptual variation. The reason is that basic-level experience and cognition, although providing a straightforward philosophical link between human epistemology and the formation of stable scientific and technical conceptual systems, are

13 _{This universalist tendency will be reinforced by the international efforts aimed at the harmonization of}

of course not the only factors influencing the formation of such systems.14 Indeed, if this was the case, all the efforts of terminology geared to the international harmonization of conceptual systems would, in fact, be redundant. However, as standard ISO 860 “Terminology work – Harmonization of Concepts and Terms” points out, “[c]oncepts and terms develop differently in individual languages and language communities, depending on social, economic, cultural and linguistic factors” (see also Arntz et al. 62009:180).15

An often cited example of such conceptual variation in science and technology is the trivial case of the German Schraube, which has no 1:1 equivalent at the same level of abstraction in English, where we find a lexicalized distinction between bolts (which are fastened with a nut) and screws (which have a pointed thread and are screwed directly into a given material) (see, for example, Göpferich 1998a:23). In this case, the English conceptual system exhibits a “generalization gap” (Schreiber 1993:38) compared to the German system. Of course, German can reflect this conceptual difference expressed in the lexicalized distinction between bolts (Schrauben mit Muttern) and screws (Schrauben ohne

Muttern) but not with the same ease and economy of expression as English. Apart from

such rather straightforward examples of cross-linguistic terminological inclusion (i.e. the German hypernym/schema Schraube includes or can be instantiated by the two English hyponyms/instances bolt and screw), there are also more difficult cases in which source and target language conceptual systems are structured asymmetrically, as illustrated for example by Schmitt (21994:259-260) in his discussion of German Löten vs. Schweißen and English soldering vs. welding. Also, Franck (1980) illustrates various cases of incongruence between the scientific and technical conceptual systems of English and German. In such cases, there is usually a partial overlapping between the different SL and

It therefore seems that concept formation in science and technology takes place based on epistemological basic-level stability and is to some extent shielded from influences by a particular national culture as illustrated above. However, beyond this stable basis the process will be subject to a certain degree of socially, economically, culturally and linguistically induced variation.

14 _{As Lakoff (1987:310) puts it, “experience does not determine conceptual systems, but only motivates}

them.”

15_{An interesting research field that cannot be explored within the bounds of this thesis is socioterminology}

(Gaudin 2003), which investigates social and ethical parameters of terminological (and hence conceptual) variation (see also Faber Benítez 2009:113).

TL concepts but no conceptual identity. This issue of conceptual variation will be further discussed in the context of invariance of meaning in scientific and technical translation in 5.5.