Translation of Patent Documents: Language of Descriptions and Claims

Abstract

Technical advancements and new inventions highlighted the importance of technical translation, particularly patent translations as a specialised sub-field. In this respect, translation of patent application documents has emerged as a practice requiring specialisation, especially because the translated text is bound by the legal rules and restrictions in language use. The regulations governing the writing and wording of Claims and the textual characteristics in the patent documents require more attention. The main aim of this study is to provide a description of the general textual characteristics of patent documents as a subfield of technical translation, and particularly to provide examples to illustrate the characteristics of Claims with reference to related legal requirements. The focus of analysis is on English and Turkish language pair. The linguistic, contextual, structural and terminological properties of Turkish and English patent documents are introduced; then, Turkish and English versions of Claims are compared, to exemplify different sentence structures and translation requirements pertaining to specific textual conventions in TL. In the analyses of the translations, discussions centre not only on the translation itself, but also on what governs the translators’ decision process in terms of technically appropriate and legally acceptable text characteristics. It is claimed that it is not merely the technical and terminological knowledge, but in fact the expertise in this specific genre and style of writing that brings quality in the translation of patents. The discussions regarding the translation process and examples of textual conventions might be beneficial for professional and prospective translators who are interested in the translation of patent documents.