Methodology and Technique for Assessing the Terminology Consistency in Translations: Based on Latvian and Russian Economic Texts

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Introduction

Over the past 30 years, economic texts in the post-Soviet space have performed and continue to fulfill, among others, an ‘ideational metafunction’ [1], with the help of which a connection between Latvian-speaking and Russian-speaking readers is constructed with the experience of countries of the so-called developed market economy (primarily — the USA), which in their history had no experience of the Soviet economy. Thus, the economic texts that emerged in Latvia and Russia during the transition from a planned economy to a market economy are a vivid example of the fact that “between the level of readers’ knowledge, which the author of the original expects, and the preliminary awareness of the target groups (presuppositions of the text), which the translator expects there may be a noticeable difference” [2. P. 63]. This is the reason for a terminology inconsistency in translations of economic texts, representing a completely new social and economic discourse for the target audience.

Economic science, and also economic terminology, in Latvia and Russia during the 19^th—21^st centuries moved from the discourse of the capitalist economy of the late 19^th — early 20^th centuries to the discourse of the planned socialist economy of the mid-20^th century, then to the discourse of the transitional economy at the end of the 20^th century and finally — to the discourse of the modern market economy at the beginning of the 21^st century. Parallel to this process, the terminology in economic texts and their translations has been changing too. This justifies the topicality of the terminology consistency issue on economic texts, despite the fact that Latvia and Russia have been following the path of a market economy for several decades. The relevance of the terminology consistency in translations of economic (and not only) texts is currently emphasized by the Latvian State Language Centre, which outlines the following main issues in translating terminology: the use of synonymous terms, arbitrary expansion, narrowing or clarification of concepts [3], as well as the influence of other languages  on national terminology, in particular, “enormous influence that English as the main lexical donor to other European languages exerts in these [business and economics] fields” [4. P. 651].

This study is aimed to elaborate methodology and technique for assessing the terminology consistency in translations based on Latvian and Russian economic texts. The object of the study is Latvian and Russian textbooks on economics of three generations (1990s, 2000s and 2010s), and in addition to them — bilingual and multilingual dictionaries of economic terms published in Latvia and Russia since 1990. The authors believe that the terminology consistency in translations of economic (and not only) texts can be assessed and compared (between text corpora and time periods) using scientific methodology and a special technique.

The scientific approach used in this study is not a critical, but rather an explanatory assessment of the terminology consistency in translations of economic texts, named by the authors a ‘normative-descriptive’ methodology and referring to the methodology of linguistic discourse analysis, widely used in linguistic and translation studies [5–11].

The next sections of the paper are devoted, firstly, to the definition of the very concept of the terminology consistency in translations of economic texts and its [consistency] specifics, secondly, to the analysis of methodological approaches to assess the terminology consistency in translations of economic texts, and, thirdly, to developing methodology and technique for assessing the terminology consistency in translations based on Latvian and Russian economic texts. Finally, the further application of the developed methodology and technique in empirical research is substantiated.

The concept of the terminology consistency  in translations of economic texts and its specifics

Investigating economic terminology, linguists stress that the wide use of terms is the main distinguishing feature (from a lexical point of view) of the language of economic texts — the share of terminological vocabulary in economic texts is about 25 % [12]. Since economic texts are saturated with terms that carry the main load [12] and differ in the terminological density [13], it is quite understandable that many researchers [12; 14] are interested in how the meanings of terms follow the rules of logical classification, clearly defining the relevant concepts, avoiding ambiguity or inconsistency.

The specifics of the issue of the terminology consistency in translations of economic texts is determined by the fact that many economic terms appeared in Latvian and Russian relatively recently and were mainly calqued from English within the wake of the ‘terminological flood’ [15] in the early 1990s, and the relevant concepts to which they correspond, either were absent altogether at the time of the entry of these terms into Latvian and Russian, or were only formed under the influence of the social and economic realities of the post-Soviet space [16]. For example, books on the labour market in Russia were already published in the early 1990s [17], but the labour market itself in the country did not yet exist. Thus, special attention of linguists deserves terminology consistency in translations of economic texts for the period of the late 20^th — early 21^st century.

The authors will start defining the concept of the terminology consistency in translations of economic texts by searching for those main characteristics that distinguish the terminology consistency from its inconsistency.

One of such characteristics is lexical congruency [18]. Congruency in linguistics is traditionally considered as a kind of concordance. However, unlike concordance, which is the relationship of two grammatical units, congruency is a semiotic relationship [19]. The lexical congruency of terminology in translations is responsible for ensuring that the translated terms are presented in the same form and content throughout a text or text corpus (depending on what is the object of research is), and it is expressed in maintaining the so-called one-to-one correspondence, which has several aspects, each of which is very important in translations [18; 20]:

1. lexical congruency in translations suggests that, once translating a concept with a certain term, it is necessary to continue using this particular term, and not a synonymous one, since “the phenomenon of terminological synonymy is considered undesirable” [14. 74];
2. lexical congruency in translations also presupposes an unambiguous correspondence of terminological combinations, which should not change throughout the entire translated text. It means that the simultaneous use of terminological combinations such as, for example, рост экономики and экономический рост [21], violates the terminology consistency in translations;
3. lexical congruency in translations also presupposes one-to-one correspondence of terms that indicate exactly the corresponding concepts, since “the ability of a term to designate a concept is its most important feature” [22. 14].

The authors believe that when assessing the lexical congruency of terminology use in translations of economic texts, it is necessary to dwell on the aforementioned and widespread phenomenon of terminological synonymy [4; 23], i.e. the use of parallel terms when referring to the same economic concept. The fact is that, along with real (absolute) synonymy (or terminological doublet) [22; 23] in economic texts, terms often used as synonyms in reality are not interchangeable, i.e., they are so called pseudo-synonyms [23]. Furthermore, the specifics of economic texts of any transition period (for example, from a planned economy to a market economy) is the terminological quasi-synonymy [13] — a situation of using parallel terms from ideologically different terminological systems. For example, the term ‘means of production’ (from the Marxist terminological system) is used in economic texts of the late 20^th — early 21^st century in parallel with the term ‘factors of production’ (from the market terminological system) [24; 25]. Thus, the authors can supplement the aforementioned statement by Romanenko on the undesirability of terminological synonymy [14] by the statement that in addition to real terminological synonyms, it is even more undesirable to use terminological pseudo-synonyms and quasisynonyms in translations of economic texts.

In the authors’ opinion, lexical congruency is the main characteristics of the concept of the terminology consistency in translations of economic texts, overshadowing terminology equivalence in translations, i.e. the terminology consistency in translations of economic texts does not necessarily mean the ideal equivalence and accuracy of the translated term, but it necessarily means the lexical congruency in the use of the term (albeit not always absolutely equivalent to the original) in the entire text or text corpus. In other words, when assessing the terminology consistency in translations of two economic texts, in one of which the translated terms are not entirely equivalent to the original, but are used lexically congruently throughout the text, and in the second, the terms are translated absolutely equivalently to the original, but are used in the text without one-to-one correspondence (for example, using several synonyms), the first text will receive a higher score in the terminology consistency.

Thus, the terminology consistency in translations is conceptually understood as the structural component of the overall quality of terminology translation. When assessing the terminology consistency in translations of economic (and not only) texts, we do not imply the overall quality of terminology translation, but only one of the components of it — the terminology consistency. In turn, the terminology equivalence in translations of economic (and not only) texts is another component of the overall quality of terminology translation. Obviously, there are also other components of the overall quality of terminology translation, but the subject of this study is limited only by the terminology consistency in translations of economic texts, and the object of this study narrows it down to the corpus of textbooks on economics and dictionaries of economic terms.

It should be stressed that the terminology consistency in translations of economic texts is assessed not only in the one translation, but also in all translations within one branch [3], i.e. within the corpus of textbooks on economics and dictionaries of economic terms. Thus, assessing the terminology consistency in translations of economic texts, it is necessary to work at least in two planes , at least — in the plane of the text and in the plane of the corpus of texts, since situations are possible when there is the terminology consistency in translation at the text level, but not at the level of text corpus. For example, the term полные издержки presented in Table 1 is lexically congruently used within one textbook on economics [30], but incongruently — within the corpus of Russian textbooks on economics and dictionaries of economic terms. In particular, within the aforementioned text corpus the English term ‘total costs’ is translated as общие расходы [27], полные издержки [30], общие издержки [25; 28], совокупные издержки [21; 32], oбщепроизводственные расходы [33], cовокупные затраты [34], cовокупные расходы [35], cовокупные (валовые) издержки [21].

Table 1. Possible combinationss of terminology consistency / inconsistenc  with terminology equivalence / unequivalence in translations of economic texts

Components of the overall quality  of terminology translation	Termiology consistency	Terminology inconsistency
	In  translations
Terminology equivalence in translations	The terminology in translation is equivalent and lexically congruent Practical example: the term ‘division of labour’ [26] is translated equivalently into Latvian (darba dalīšana) and Russian (разделение труда) [27] and is used lexically congruently in translations of economic texts [24; 28]	The terminology in translation is equivalent, but lexically incongruent Practical example: the term ‘marginal costs’ within one textbook is translated into Latvian as robežizmaksas=пограничные издержки and as galējās izmaksas=предельные издержки [29] — in both cases the translation is equivalent, but used lexically incongruently throughout the text
Terminology unequivalence in translations	The terminology in translation  is unequivalent, but lexically congruent Practical example: the term полные издержки is an imprecise translation of the English term ‘total costs’, and the term продажная цена is an imprecise translation of the English term ‘market price’, but both are used lexically congruently throughout the text [30]	The terminology in translation is unequivalent and lexically incongruent Practical example: the term ekonomēšana is used incongruently throughout the text — in parallel with the terms saimniekošana=хозяйствование and uzņēmējdarbība=предпринимательская деятельность [31], and at the same time is equivalent to another term — экономия [27]

Source: elaboated by the authors based on [14; 18].

Another characteristic that distinguishes the terminology consistency in translations of economic texts from its inconsistency is the terminological homogeneity — the sameness, belonging to the same genus, category [36]. Since, as already outlined at the beginning of this section, at the end of the 20^th century, a large number of economic terms — calques from English occurred in Latvian and Russian economic texts, the authors will understand the terminological homogeneity as the absence of terminological calques, for example, such as экономикс [21; 32], директ-костинг, контроллинг [37], менеджмент [30; 37], контокоррентный счёт [38], левередж [30] and others.

Considering the specifics of economic terminology and the distinctive features of terminology consistency in translations, analyzed in this section of the paper, the authors propose the following definition: the terminology consistency in translations of economic texts is the lexically congruent use of homogeneous terms (without calques) within a text (for example, a particular textbook on economics) or within text corpus (for example, the corpus of Latvian textbooks on economics of the 1990s).

Methodological approaches to assessing the terminology consistency  in translations of economic texts

In linguistics, there are two main approaches to assess the use of terminology — normative and descriptive [39]. In general, the normative approach in linguistics (as well as the normative analysis in economics [28]) deals with the categories of ‘goodbad’ or ‘norm-deviation’, and the descriptive approach (In economics, a similar approach is called positive economic analysis [28]) — with a real situation, describing and analyzing it without regard to the categories of ‘good-bad’ or ‘norm-deviation’.

The essence of the linguistic normative approach to assess the use of terminology lies in the fact that, as its supporters [40; 41] believe, a term appears to be a static, unchanged element, a kind of ‘ideal term’ [41]. The normative requirements for a term were first formulated by the founder of the Russian terminological school D.S. Lotte and include the systemism of terminology, the independence of a term from a context, brevity of a term, its absolute and relative unambiguity, accuracy, simplicity and comprehensibility [41].

Although it is believed that modern linguistics has freed itself from the dogmatic idea of the inviolable norm, it is still generally recognized that each stage of language development is a continuation of the previous stage and has its own norms [42]. When applied to terminology in translations of modern economic texts, this means that there are certain norms of the language of a market economy, just as in the Soviet period there were certain norms of the language of a planned economy. Thus, the concept of norm has become firmly established in modern linguistics and is in the focus of attention of scientific research [42; 43]. The results of modern research indicate that, while maintaining the structure of the language, its grammatical structure and the basic vocabulary fund, at each new stage of the development of society, its own relationships of linguistic means are formed and, as a result, their own norms [42].

One of the characteristics of an ‘ideal term’ in the normative approach is considered to be monosemy, i.e. within a given terminological system, a term must indicate one concept, be unambiguous. However, the tendency to polysemy inherent in the entire lexical system of the language is manifested in the ability of the term to develop additional meanings, which reflect the logical-meaningful connections of interdependent and interacting concepts, and to keep them in synchronous use along with the main meaning [44]. Furthermore, as was already mentioned in the previous section of this paper, the specifics of modern economic texts in the post-Soviet space lies precisely in the fact that very often they contain parallel terms not from the only one, but from ideologically different terminological systems, for example, Marxist and market systems, which further increases terminological polysemy in translations of economic texts. For example, the terms ‘means of production’ and ‘productive forces’ from the Marxist terminological system have a doublet synonym in the market terminological system — ‘factors of production’, which are either used in parallel in some textbooks on economics [25; 31], or the authors of textbooks try to include them in a unified terminological system [24].

In turn, supporters of the descriptive approach [45; 46] believe that the specifics of a term lies precisely in the fact that it is not a special word (it only acts as a word in a special function), that a language unit receives a special meaning only within particular terminological space, and this meaning is not inherent in its general literary use. The consequence of this interpretation is the assertion that any word can become a term, and any term can leave the sphere of its special functioning and return into the sphere of general vocabulary [39]. The authors of this paper support the ‘functional’ definition of a term given by Vinokur: “Any word can act as a term … a term is not a special word, but only a word in a special function, the function of naming a special concept, a special object or phenomenon” [45]. Thus, many words from common language, such as ‘money’, ‘labour’, ‘elasticity’, ‘growth’, ‘factors’, ‘wealth’, ‘expenses’, ‘resources’ and many others in economic texts acquire a special meaning, a ‘special function’ [45], becoming a terminology; for example, the word ‘factor’ from the combination of words ‘factor of production’ in economic texts has a function of a term and a special meaning that is completely different from the meaning of the commonly used word ‘factor’ (“the cause, the driving force of a process or a phenomenon that determines its essence or specific traits” [47]). Economic terms (not only Latvian and Russian, but, for example, English too [48]) are characterized by such lexical and semantic processes as polysemy, synonymy, antonymy and hyper-hyponymic relations [39], and, in the authors’ opinion, this must be considered when assessing the terminology consistency in translations of economic texts.

Thus, the polysemy of the term is the result of the historical development of a language, when, due to semantic transfers, a term, in addition to designating one object (phenomenon), begins to be used to designate another, similar to it in some features / properties. Researchers have stressed that polysemy is not an indicator of inaccuracy of a term [44]. The situation is exactly the opposite: the more developed polysemy in terminology, the more accurately the associative connections between general scientific, intersectoral and highly specialized concepts are established [39].

In the authors’ opinion, a unique linguistic feature of economic discourse, which objectively complicates the achievement of the terminology consistency in translations of economic texts, is that the word экономика alone has at least five meanings in Latvian and Russian (it can be argued that no other science or field of human activity has this) (Table 2).

Table 2. Meanings of the word экономика in economic texts

Meanings	Parallel terms in Russian
Economics	Экономическая теория Экономикс
Economy	Экономика (страны, национальная) Хозяйство (народное, национальное, рыночное, мировое)
Economy as a specific system of organizing economic relationships in a society	Рыночная экономика  Цивилизованная рыночная экономика Рыночная экономическая система Рыночные отношения Путь рыночного развития Конкурентная экономика
	Командная экономика Централизованно планируемая экономика Централизованная плановая экономика Командно-административная система Командно-административная система хозяйства Командная экономическая система
Economics as an aspect of any area of human activity	Экономика туризма Экономика народного хозяйства Экономика предпринимательства
Economy as a political direction of economic thought	Экономика свободного предпринимательства Экономика знаний Зелёная экономика

Source: elaborated by the author based on [25; 28; 32; 35; 37; 38; 47; 49].

As can be seen from the analysis of the multiplicity of meanings of the word экономика (Table 2), the polysemy of economic terminology is so common that, at first glance, it is impossible to achieve any terminology consistency in translations of economic texts. Nevertheless, the authors believe that, despite a certain degree of inevitability in the existence of terminology inconsistency in translations of economic texts, this phenomenon must be investigated and assessed, since it may go too far. For example, this is the case with the use of terms ražīgums=производительность and produktivitāte=продуктивность in the articles of the Latvian scientific monograph “Increasing Efficiency: Trends and Challenges for the Future” (Latvian: Produktivitātes celšana: tendences un nākotnes izaicinājumi) [50], analyzed by Korshenkov. He found that within just one economic text of a scientific monograph, and even within almost every article in this monograph, there is no even minimal terminological consistency in relation to these terms. “As a result, it becomes impossible to qualitatively and scientifically correctly investigate something that does not have a clear terminological definition and empirical interpretation” [51. P. 27].

Moreover, the scientific monograph, the title of which contains the term produktivitāte=продуктивность, does not provide a systemic justification for the use of this term (as well as for the use of the term ražīgums=производительность which often occurs in the text of the monograph). In the opinion of Korshenkov, “this testifies to the inaccurate dealing with terms in the Latvian economic science” [51. P. 34].

For the sake of fairness, it should be noted that in the Latvian economic scientific space there is also a positive example: in the scientific monograph edited by Academician Rivzha “Knowledge Economy — for the Livability of Rurals and Regions of Latvia”) (Latvian: Zināšanu ekonomika Latvijas lauku un reģionu dzīvotspējai) [49], the book introduces the reader to a Latvian-English glossary of the main research terms (although without defining the relevant concepts), which indicates the terminology consistency in this economic text and is a certain basis for the high quality of a scientific research in economics.

The original technique for assessing the terminology consistency  in translations of economic texts

To develop a methodology and technique for the empirical assessment of the terminology consistency in translations of economic texts within this study, first of all, it should be stressed that the authors will not separate terms from nomens and professionalisms, methodologically based on the understanding of the essence of a term within the cognitive-discursive paradigm of knowledge: “If in the definition of a word no special knowledge is used, but a knowledge that is understandable to ordinary consciousness, this word is a common language word. If special knowledge is used in the explanation and definition of the word itself, this word most likely has already become a term” [46. P. 49]. Thus, all those terms, nomens and professionalisms that will be encountered in translations of economic texts and for the understanding of which (at least in the framework of an economic text, where even such common word as ‘labour’ can perform the function of a term [45]) special economic knowledge is required, in this research will be considered as terminology.

Further, the authors have to decide on the choice of a methodological approach to assess the use of terminology. As indicated at the beginning of the previous section, there are two such approaches in linguistics — normative and descriptive [39]. Since the authors deal specifically with the assessment (also in the sense of evaluation), it would seem advisable to use for this purpose the normative, i.e. evaluating approach. Nevertheless, due to the high level of the polysemy of economic the terminology (shown in the previous section of this paper), the authors would not like to evaluate terminology consistency in translations of economic texts in the categories of ‘good-bad’ or ‘norm-deviation’ (although this cannot be completely avoided). The authors consider it more appropriate to assess it in the categories ‘consistent’ or ‘inconistent’, which are ambivalent to the norm, trying not to assert that the terminology consistency is good and normal, but the inconsistency is bad or deviates from the norm. As the Russian literary critic Bykov said in one of his lectures on Russian literature, “sometimes, for an epoch to remain in the text, the text has to be bad”.

To interpret the results of assessing the terminology consistency in translations of economic texts obtained primarily on the methodological basis of the normative approach, the authors consider it appropriate to further use the methodology of a descriptive approach that describes and analyzes the real situation regardless of the categories of ‘good-bad’ or ‘norm-deviation’, but with the aim of identifying and explaining what happened and is happening in the investigated economic discourse [6].

Thus, for their methodology and technique for assessing the terminology consistency in translations the authors will use a ‘normative-descriptive’ methodology: normative — to assess the use of the terminology in the categories of ‘consistent’ or ‘inconsistent’, descriptive — to explain the real processes occurring in economic discourse. Such a methodological position of the authors inevitably refers to the methodology of linguistic discourse analysis (analysis of discourse, discourse studies) [5–11].

The authors believe that, in order to better perceive the specifics of linguistic discourse analysis, one, first of all, must have a good understanding of what a discourse means in linguistics. Kibrik, in his doctoral dissertation in Philology “Discourse Analysis in Cognitive Perspective” (Russian: Анализ дискурса в когнитивной перспективе) (2003) in Philology, defines discourse as “the unity of the process of linguistic activity and its result, that is, the text. Discourse includes text as an integral part. Text is a static object that arises in the course of linguistic activity. It can be written text, i.e. a sequence of graphic symbols, and maybe an oral text — an acoustic signal that can be recorded, for example, on a magnetic carrier. The discourse, in addition to the text itself, also includes the dynamic processes of its creation and understanding” [8. P. 4]. Here a short definition given by Chernyavskaya can be mentioned too: “discourse is the aggregation of texts” [10. P. 32]. Considering the course of thought of Chernyavskaya, it can be assumed that discourse is not a simple summation of texts, but their synergistic combination. “The linguistics of discourse establishes how the aggregating individual texts create common meanings” [10. P. 32]. The following scheme (fig.) schematically shows the authors’ understanding of the essence of discourse in linguistics as applied to translation, i.e. in translation studies.

The scheme of understanding the essence of discourse in translation studies
Source: elaborated by the authors based on the analysis of [5; 8; 10].

In the authors’ opinion, the above scheme also helps to solve the issue of separating the concept of text from the concept of discourse [9]. “Usually discourse and text are opposed to each other using a number of criteria: functionality/structurality, process/product, dynamics/statics and actuality/ virtuality” [7. P. 24]. The authors believe that in accordance with the views of Van Dijk, who singled out two aspects in discourse analysis — textual and contextual [5], it is possible to define discourse in linguistics very briefly — as “a text in a context”. Moreover, in the authors’ opinion, such a definition of discourse can be applied for any science or art, understanding the concept of text more broadly — as a product of any human activity (In linguistics, this is a linguistic activity [8]). Then discourse in music will be a piece of music in the context of the social reality in which it is created (and/or in which it is perceived), in painting — a piece of art in the context of the social reality of its creation and/or perception, in sociology — a social status in the context of its receiving and/or perception, in economics — a property in the context of its creation and/ or perception. Indeed, a study in any science or art will be much deeper and more qualitative if one investigates not only the ‘text’ itself, but also the context of its creation and/or perception. Then, for example, the novel “War and Peace” can act both as a text and as a discourse — depending on whether this novel is investigated in the socio-historical context of its creation and/or perception, or only textual material by itself (for example, its structure, style, grammar, etc.) is investigated. The text and the context within the discourse mutually influence each other, i.e. the text is created and perceived within the context and under its influence, but at the same time the created and perceived text also affects the surrounding context, and if the context of the text creation and the context of its perception represent different historical periods, then the text is a kind of bridge between these historical periods, allowing the past to influence the present, i.e. connecting the times.

Further, the authors will present the technique of linguistic discourse analysis, with the help of which the empirical research can be implemented. Returning to the authors’ methodological position described at the beginning of this section, the core of which is not a critical but explanatory assessment of the terminology consistency in translations of economic texts, the authors accept the point of view of Chernyavskaya, showing that for the purposes of discourse analysis in its ‘non-critical’ forms, it is possible to use the opportunities of corpus linguistics, employing quantitative statistical methods in processing linguistic material [10] (for example, comparative analysis of average values, regression or correlation analysis).

In turn, to implement a qualitative approach to the investigation of the terminology consistency in textbooks on economics and dictionaries of economic terms, as well as to the investigation of the social and economic context of translation and perception of terminology in economic texts, the authors use the lexical and semantic approach, often used by linguists for analyzing discourse [5; 9; 52] and aimed at studying the semantics of linguistic structures and lexemes [9] used in translations of economic texts. In the opinion of Chernyavskaya, semantization, i.e. revealing the meaning of a linguistic unit, in discourse linguistics is associated not with a lexical(word)-centric explanatory conception and not (only) with a text-centric conception, but with a discourse [10], expanding “the explanatory possibilities of discourse analysis” [10. P. 31] and giving it the character of ‘non-critical’ discourse analysis in contrast to the concepts of critical analysis of discourse [10. P. 33]. Furthermore, to analyze the social and economic context of translation and perception of terminology in textbooks on economics of the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s and dictionaries of economic terms, the authors use a descriptive analysis [53], which is also quite often used in linguistic discourse analysis [5; 6; 8].

The following table presents a comprehensive technique of linguistic discourse analysis, which can be applied in future for the implemention of the empirical research.

As it has been already outlined in the first section of this paper, the terminology consistency in translations of economic texts is assessed not only in the only one text, but also within the corpus of economic texts, i.e., it is necessary to work at least in two planes — in the plane of the text and in the plane of text corpus.

Table 3. Linguistic discourse analysis technique for the implemention of the empirical research

Methods of the analysis	Analysis of the text, specifically — the terminology consistency in translations of textbooks on economics and dictionaries of economic terms	Analysis of the context of translation and perception of the terminology in textbooks on economics and dictionaries of economic terms
Methods used in the qualitative approach to linguistic discourse analysis	Lexical and semantic analysis of the terminology consistency in translations of textbooks on economics of the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s as well as in dictionaries of economic terms	Descriptive analysis of the social and economic context of translation and perception of the terminology in textbooks on economics of the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s as well as in dictionaries of economic terms
Methods used in the quantitative approach to linguistic discourse analysis	Statistical comparative analysis of the mean values of the indicators of the terminology consistency in translations of textbooks on economics of the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s as well as in dictionaries of economic terms	Correlation analysis of the dependency of the indicators of the terminology consistency in translations of textbooks on economics on a year of the textbook issue

Source: elaborated by the authors based on the analysis of the scientific literature mentioned in this section of the paper.

The lexical and semantic approach can be used to analyze the terminology consistency in translations of textbooks on economics of the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s as well as in dictionaries of economic terms, initially when assessing the terminology consistency in the translation of each text, in order to then move on to the use of a quantitative comparative analysis of the mean values of the indicators of the terminology consistency in translations of textbooks on economics of the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s as well as in dictionaries of economic terms, i.e. in text corpora.

In accordance with the definition of the term of the terminology consistency in translations of economic texts proposed by the authors at the end of the first section, the terminology consistency in the framework of empirical research can be measured quantitatively (based on results of the lexical and semantic analysis of the terminology consistency in each textbook on economics selected for analysis) according to the following criteria:

1. terminological synonymy, i.e. use of parallel terms (doublets, quasi-synonyms, pseudo-synonyms);
2. lexical incongruency of terminology use, i.e. non-compliance with the so-called one-to-one correspondence in the use of terms throughout the text (especially in the case of terms-phrases);
3. inhomogeneity of terminology translation, i.e. presence of calqued terms;
4. presence and quality of terminological glossary.

The assessment of the terminology consistency in each textbook on economics selected for analysis can be carried out on a sample of 10 randomly selected terms (approximately 60 % of them are repeated in all textbooks on economics), mainly representing the following groups of economic terms:

• names of economic systems (market economy, planned economy, etc.);
• general economic terms (economy, entrepreneurial activity, economic entities, etc.);
• terms of production (factors of production, costs, productivity, etc.); • terms of international trade (comparative advantage, customs duties, etc.);
• financial terms (investment, rate of interest, etc.).

The following table presents the technique for quantitative assessing terminology consistency in each of the surveyed textbook on economics.

Table 4. The technique for quantitative assessing terminology consistency in each of the surveyed textbooks on economics

Assessment criteria	What is specifically assessed	Rating scale
Terminological synonymy	The number of cases of using parallel terms (doublets, quasisynonyms, pseudo-synonyms)	From 0 to 10, where 0 — no cases of terminological synonymy, 10 — all selected terms are used with synonyms
Lexical incongruency of terminology use	The number of cases of lexically incongruent use of terms throughout the text	From 0 to 10, where 0 — no cases of lexically incongruent use of terms, 10 — all selected terms are used lexically incongruently throughout the text
Inhomogeneity of terminology translation	Number of calqued terms	From 0 to 10, where 0 — no calqued terms, 10 — all selected terms are calqued from English
Presence and quality of terminological glossary	The presence of a glossary — is there or not at all The quality of the glossary in terms of the number of translation languages of terms, definitions of terms, page indication	From 1 to 3, where 1          — very high quality glossary, 2          — there is a glossary, but it is of modest quality, 3          — there is no glossary at all
Overall terminology consistency	Total amount of scores by all four criteria	From 1 to 33: the higher the score, the lower the level of terminology consistency

Source: elaborated by the authors.

In accordance with the technique for assessing the terminology consistency presented in Table 4, for each of the surveyed textbook on economics, quantitative indicators can be obtained according to four criteria and the overall indicator of terminology consistency (by simple summation of the indicators for all four assessment criteria), and then — the mean values of indicators for each of the three generations (1990s, 2000s, 2010s) of textbooks on economics can be calculated. These mean values of indicators will then be compared for statistical significance of difference using the nonparametric Kruskal-Wallis Test (the test for defining statistical significance of difference between the mean values for more than two independent samples) [54] in SPSS, a computer program for processing and analyzing quantitative data.

Table 5. Format for presenting the overall results of the assessment of terminology consistency  within the corpora of textbooks on economics of the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s

Assessment criteria	Textbooks on economics			Statistical significance of difference between corpora mean values
	1990s	2000s	2010s
Terminological synonymy	X1[1]	Y1	Z1	р-value[2]
Lexical incongruency of terminology use	X2	Y2	Z2	р-value
Inhomogeneity of terminology translation	X3	Y3	Z3	р-value
Presence and quality of terminological glossary	X4	Y4	Z4	р-value
Overall terminology consistency	X	Y	Z	р-value

Source: elaborated by the authors.

Based on the results of a quantitative assessment of the terminology consistency in translations of economic texts, the technique of which is presented in Tables 4 and 5, the study hypothesis — since the beginning of the transition of Latvian and Russian economies to the market, there is a shift towards a greater terminology consistency in translations of economic texts into Latvian and Russian — can be empirically proved or rejected. The hypothesis can be proved (In a whole or partly) if at least one of the following inequalities turns out to be true (In both parts or in one of the parts):

1. X₁ > Y₁ > Z₁ (with a statistically significant difference) — this means that terminological synonymy in the corpus of surveyed Latvian and Russian textbooks on economics decreases over time since the beginning of the transition of Latvian (and Russian) economy to the market (and the terminology consistency by the criterion of terminological synonymy, accordingly, increases);
2. X₂ > Y₂ > Z₂ (with a statistically significant difference) — this means that lexical incongruency of terminology use in the corpus of surveyed textbooks on economics decreases over time (and the terminology consistency by the criterion of lexical incongruency of terminology use, accordingly, increases);
3. X₃ > Y₃ > Z₃ (with a statistically significant difference) — this means that inhomogeneity of terminology translation in the corpus of surveyed textbooks on economics decreases over time (and terminology consistency by the criterion of inhomogeneity of terminology translation, accordingly, increases);
4. X₄ > Y₄ > Z₄ (with a statistically significant difference) — this means that the frequency of presence and quality of terminological glossaries in the corpus of surveyed textbooks on economics increases over time (and terminology by the criterion of presence and quality of terminological glossary, accordingly, increases);
5. X > Y > Z (with a statistically significant difference) — this means that the overall terminology consistency in the corpus of surveyed Latvian and Russian textbooks on economics increases over time since the beginning of the transition of Latvian (and Russian) economy to the market.

For the stability of the obtained data on the dynamics of the terminology consistency indicators in translations of textbooks on economics of the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s, a correlation analysis of the dependency of the terminology consistency indicators on a year of the textbook issue can be conducted, the format for presenting the results of which is shown in table 6.

Table 6. Format of presenting the results of a correlation analysis of the dependency³  of the terminology consistency indicators in the corpus of textbooks  on economics on a year of the textbook issue

Assessment criteria	The strength and direction of the correlation between a criteria and a year of the textbook issue	Statistical significance of the correlation
Terminological synonymy	r1 — Pearson correlation coefficient, from -1 to +14	p-value5
Lexical incongruency of terminology use	r2 — Pearson correlation coefficient, from -1 to +1	p-value
Inhomogeneity of terminology translation	r3 — Pearson correlation coefficient, from -1 to +1	p-value
Presence and quality of terminological glossary	r4 — Pearson correlation coefficient, from -1 to +1	p-value
Overall terminology consistency	r — Pearson correlation coefficient, from -1 to +1	p-value

Source: elaborated by the authors. * Despite the fact that theoretically the correlation analysis shows not the dependency of one variable on another, but their two-way interdependency [54], in this case the result can be logically interpreted as one-way dependency, since a year of the textbook issue is a given (factorial) variable, but terminology consistency is potentially dependent variable.

The authors have also worked out a quantitative technique to assess the terminology consistency in translations of economic texts within the corpora of dictionaries of economic terms and Latvian and Russian textbooks on economics of the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s, which is presented in the following table. It is based on a unified assessment of the number of parallel terms used in the corpora of textbooks on economics and dictionaries, which [parallel terms] are equivalent to 10 analyzed terms selected by the authors. These terms are among the most frequently used in economic texts and represent different topics of economic theory — finance, production, marketing, employment, pricing, international trade, economic growth.

Table 7. Format for presenting the overall results of assessing the terminology consistency within the corpora  of dictionaries of economic terms and Latvian and Russian textbooks  on economics of the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s

Analyzed terms	The number of parallel terms used in the corpora of dictionaries and textbooks on economics
	in Latvian			in Russian
	1990s	2000s	2010s	1990s	2000s	2010s
Investment	x1lv	y1lv	z1lv	x1ru	y1ru	z1ru
Productivity	x2lv	y2lv	z2lv	x2ru	y2ru	z2ru
Labour market	x3lv	y3lv	z3lv	x3ru	y3ru	z3ru
Marketing	x4lv	y4lv	z4lv	x4ru	y4ru	z4ru
Production possibilities curve	x5lv	y5lv	z5lv	x5ru	y5ru	z5ru
Market price	x6lv	y6lv	z6lv	x6ru	y6ru	z6ru
Factors of production	x7lv	y7lv	z7lv	x7ru	y7ru	z7ru
Total costs	x8lv	y8lv	z8lv	x8ru	y8ru	z8ru
Comparative advantage	x9lv	y9lv	z9lv	x9ru	y9ru	z9ru
Growth	x10lv	y10lv	z10lv	x10ru	y10ru	z10ru
Average number of parallel terms in the corpus	xlv	ylv	zlv	xru	yru	zru

Source: elaborated by the authors.

Within the technique elaborated by the authors and presented in Table 7, x_i, y_i and z_i (where i is the ordinal number of the term in the sample of analyzed terms) are quantitative indicators of the terminology consistency in translations of economic texts, calculated separately for each corpus of dictionaries and Latvian and Russian textbooks on economics of the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s by simple summation of the number of parallel terms used in the surveyed corpus of texts, which [parallel terms] are equivalents (precise or not very precise — it does not matter so much for this research (this is explained in the first section of the paper)) of the corresponding English terms (Table 7).

For example, if only рынок труда is used as an equivalent to the English term ‘labour market’ in the corpus of dictionaries and Russian textbooks on economics of the 1990s, then the quantitative indicator x_3ru (Table 7) is equal to 1, and since both darbaspēka tirgus=рынок рабочей силы and darba tirgus=рынок труда are used in the corpus of dictionaries and Latvian textbooks on economics of the 1990s, the quantitative indicator x_3lv (Table 7) is equal to 2. Thus, a higher number of parallel terms indicates a greater terminology inconsistency in the corresponding corpus of dictionaries and textbooks on economics. In turn, mean values of the indicators of terminology consistency for a sample of 10 analyzed terms are calculated using the following simple arithmetic mean formulae:

x = (x₁ + … + x₁₀) / 10,

where x — a mean value of the number of parallel terms used in the corpus of texts of the 1990s;

 y= (y₁ + … + y₁₀) / 10,

where y — a mean value of the number of parallel terms used in the corpus of texts of the 2000s;

z = (z₁ + … + z₁₀) / 10,

where  z — a mean value of the number of parallel terms used in the corpus of texts of 2010s.

As a result of the practical application of the above-described technique for to assess the terminology consistency in translations of economic texts within the corpora of dictionaries and Latvian and Russian textbooks on economics of the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s, six mean values of the estimates of thе terminology consistency can be obtained and compared: 1) for the corpus of dictionaries and Latvian textbooks on economics of the 1990s; 2) of the 2000s; 3) of the 2010s; 4) of the 1990s; 5) of the 2000s; 6) of the 2010s.

The results of assessing thе terminology consistency in translations of economic texts within the corpora of dictionaries of economic terms and Latvian and Russian textbooks on economics of the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s, the technique of which is presented in Table 7, can become additional basis for proof or rejection of the research hypothesis. The proof of the hypothesis can be strengthened if at least one of the following two inequalities turns out to be true (In both parts or in one of the parts):

1. x_lv > y_lv > z_lv — this means that the number of parallel terms in the corpus of dictionaries of economic terms and Latvian textbooks on economics decreases over time since the beginning of the transition of Latvian (and Russian) economy to the market (and thе terminology consistency within this corpus of texts, accordingly, increases);
2. x_ru > y_ru > z_ru — this means that the number of parallel terms in the corpus of dictionaries of economic terms and Russian textbooks on economics decreases over time (and thе terminology consistency within this corpus of texts, accordingly, increases).

After a quantitative assessment of thе terminology consistency in translations of economic texts in two planes — in the plane of a text and in the plane of a text corpus — a lexical and semantic diachronic analysis of thе terminology consistency in textbooks on economics by individual authors can also be carried out (separately for Latvian and Russian textbooks on economics) in order to trace the dynamics of changes, if any, in thе terminology consistency in translations over time since the beginning of the transition of Latvian and Russian economies to the market. This result of the analysis within the qualitative approach will illustrate the results obtained in the course of applying quantitative methods to analyze the terminology consistency in translations of economic texts, and can be designed to help the authors answer the following questions traditionally put forward in empirical research in the framework of linguistic discourse analysis (formulated by the authors based on [8; 11]):

• How was the linguistic aspect of economic discourse formed over time since the beginning of the transition of Latvian (and Russian) economy to a market economy?
• What changes have been recorded in it over the period of time since 1990?
• To what audience is it addressed and in what social spheres is it involved?
• What explicit and hidden plots, genres and scenarios (cognitive schemes, ideological programs, moral assessments) are realized in it?
• What is the specifics of expressive means of communication manifested, and who is their bearer (producer of speech practice)?
• In what relationship with other discourses (perhaps competing) are they [expressive means of communication]?
• How successful (effective) is the economic discourse and what is the strength of its influence on the target audience?
• What are the deep principles of constructing economic discourse, revealed with the help of linguistic discourse analysis?

Conclusions

The relevance of the terminology consistency in translations of economic texts is due to dynamic and contradictory development (In connection with the transition from a planned economy to a market economy) of the social and economic context of translation and perception of economic terminology of the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s. Moreover, this social and economic context is represented in texts, which main distinguishing feature from a lexical point of view is the terminological density: the share of terms in economic texts is about 25 %, and these terms carry the main semantic load.

The aim of this study was to developed methodology and technique to assess the terminology consistency in translations based on Latvian and Russian economic texts. As a study hypothesis which could be proved or rejected using the developed methodology and technique, the authors put forward the assumption that since the beginning of the transition of Latvian (and Russian) economy to the market economy, there is a shift towards a greater terminology consistency in translations of economic texts into Latvian and Russian.

The developed methodology and technique include quantitative statistical methods (corpus linguistics tools): a comparative analysis of the mean values of the terminology consistency indicators, a correlation analysis of the dependency of the terminology consistency indicators on a year of the textbook issue, as well as qualitative methods: a lexical and semantic approach to assess the terminology consistency in textbooks on economics in Latvian and Russian by individual authors, a descriptive analysis of the social and economic context of translation and perception of terminology.

Based on the results of the study, the main conclusions of the authors about the methodology and technique to assess the terminology consistency in translations of economic texts are as follows:

1. the terminology consistency in translations (which is conceptually understood as the structural component of the overall quality of terminology translation) is the lexically congruent use of homogeneous (without calquing) terms within the economic text or the corpus of texts;
2. it is advisable to assess the terminology consistency not in the categories of ‘good-bad’ or ‘norm-deviation’, but in the conditionally ambivalent categories of ‘consistent-inconsistent’ (for the incidental identification of processes occurring in the studied economic discourse);
3. in translation studies, the essence of discourse is the target text within the background processes of social reality that determine the creation (synthesis) and perception (analysis) of the translation.

 

 

^{1 For all indicators X, Y and Z the higher the score, the lower the level of terminology consistency according to the corresponding criterion or overall terminology consistency.}

^{2 If the p-value is less than 0.05, then the difference between the corpora average scores according to the corresponding criterion (or according to the overall terminology consistency) is statistically significant [54].}

^{[3] Despite the fact that theoretically the correlation analysis shows not the dependency of one variable on another, but their two-way interdependency [54], in this case the result can be logically interpreted as one-way dependency, since a year of the textbook issue is a given (factorial) variable, but terminology consistency is potentially dependent variable.}

^{[4] A positive sign for the correlation coefficient denotes the direct relationship (the more/less one, the more/less the other), a negative — the inverse relationship (the more/less one, the less/more the other).}

^{[5] If the p-value is less than 0.05, then the correlation is statistically significant [54].}

About the authors

Vera Komarova

Daugavpils University

Author for correspondence.
Email: vera.komarova@du.lv
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-9829-622X

Dr.oec., Mg.translat., Leading researcher, Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences

13, Vienibas str., Daugavpils, Latvia, LV-5401

Svetlana Koroļova

University of Latvia

Email: svetlana.korolova@lu.lv
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-1777-4825

Mg.philol., Lecturer, Department of Contrastive Linguistics, Translation and Interpreting, Faculty of Humanities

19, Raina blvd., Riga, Latvia, LV-1586

Oksana Ruža

Daugavpils University

Email: oksana.ruza@du.lv
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-6194-3841

Dr.oec., Docent, Researcher, Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences

13, Vienibas str., Daugavpils, Latvia, LV-5401

References

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