However, over the years there has been a movement away from this traditional approach to a focus on the purpose of the translation and on the intended audience.
[8] Research has demonstrated that technical communicators do, in fact, create new meaning as opposed to simply repackaging (198) old information.
[15] Along with previous subject knowledge, research helps the translator understand the basics of the text.
[13] This includes working with all types of workers in certain technological and industrial fields, such as engineers, managers, etc.
The translation process also depends on the laws and ethics codes put into place in certain regions, as well as any censorship, which might affect the outcome of the text.
Transfer-based machine translation systems, which are quite costly to develop, are built by linguists who determine the grammar rules for the source and target languages.
Due to the nature of developing rules for the system, this can be very time-consuming and requires an extensive knowledge base about the structures of the languages on the part of the linguist; nonetheless, the majority of commercial machine translators are transfer-based machines.
In one article, researchers looked at the success of online machine translators in retrieving appropriate search results.
The results of the experiment showed that human interaction is a vital supplement for overall accuracy in machine translations.
In fact, a mutual understanding of cultural components is just as important as linguistic knowledge in technical translation.
Encountering discrepancies in rhetorical writing strategies, differentiation in tones, document formatting issues, and conflicting conceptual goals for engineering reports, the author emphasizes cultural practices, outside of the direct realm of linguistic forms, that can impede proper communication in technical translation.
[25] In an example using a commonly translated document, the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a researcher used correlation analyses, including semantic network analysis and spatial modeling, to interpret data describing differences among seven different translated versions of the document.
As with any type of non-MT, it is still a process completed by human beings, making it impossible for total objectivity.
Considering how differing knowledge paradigms as a result of cultural factors can prompt people to respond in a variety of ways to different rhetorical strategies, particularly when communicating messages containing warnings of hazards or risks, understanding culture must be a priority in technical translation.
One researcher found that a variance of definition of terms and inconsistent paradigms of cultural knowledge highlight the need for a new delineation of what technical writers consider as the target audience while communicating risk factors.
However, demonstrating the difficulty of such a task, one researcher addressed the assumption that unambiguous wording eases effective communication.
In an age where technology allows for increased accessibility and faster communication, the technical translator must understand the role that culture plays in how people interact with, react to, and utilize technology and how these culturally related concepts can affect communicated messages.
Demonstrating how technology use differs across cultures, one researcher created a presentation that took a holistic look at preparing documents for ethnically diverse audiences, pointing out other non-linguistic topics that require special attention in communication across cultures.
The author also pointed out significant differences that would affect communication among English languages including paper layouts, spelling, meaning, and use of humor.
Additionally, technical translation involves understanding how the Internet has influenced different cultures across the globe.
Varying languages, cultural influences on Internet usage patterns, and media preferences force professionals in the field of technical communication to utilize a number of different strategies in order to effectively reach diverse populations across the globe.
With international online populations the technical translator must be culturally diverse in a technological sense.
[31] Technical translation is the medium through which language, discourse and communication can exist in a global world.
[34] The concept of maintaining technical communication in languages other than English is of particular significance in countries with high volumes of multilingual speakers.
For example, research has shown that the English-speaking bias, due to the language's position as the lingua franca, within technical translation and communication has negatively affected native Spanish speakers in the United States.
Lacking both in quality and quantity, user manuals for various electronic devices exemplified sub-par translations into Spanish, demonstrating the limited accessibility of certain technical documents to speakers of languages other than English, perhaps partly as a result of English as the lingua franca.
[35] Finally, when discussing English as a lingua franca it is noteworthy to mention what some researchers call "untranslatable" words[36] and what that means for technical translation.
It is notable that technical documentation contains multilingual lexical language, such as use of Latin and Greek terms in English such as "subdural hematoma" referring to "blood clot under the skull", drawing from Latin "sub", "duro", "hematoma"; and the use of Japanese in Chinese terms, e.g. "急性直腸炎開刀手術" in which "盲腸" "blind instestine" first appeared in Japanese as "蟲垂" "hanging worm".