What is terminological and lexical consistency?
Terminological consistency means
consistent use of terms within a text and across relevant texts. For
example, term pin can mean штифт, палец, булавку, шплинт and a lot more.
Some of these translations are interchangeable because the same part
can be correctly called both штифтом и палец и шплинт.
However, in technical text this translation should be selected once and
forever (e.g. штифт) and use it through the text, otherwises the reader
will be confused what object was meant.
There are often a few translators working on a text and each of them can
translate a term correctly but different. In the space industry term
feathering (rotation of a solar array) is correctly called флюгирование.
Engineers, however more often use term “разворот” (a turn). Regardless
of what option is selected it should be the same through the text.
But this is not all. Projects may contain many documents where same
objects are mentioned. Naturally, one should seek consistency of terms
in all such documents.
Lexical consistency is the same as the terminological one, only it deals
not with special terms, but ordinary lexical units. For examples, last
names or titles of publications can be translated differently (Вильям
или Уильям), but should be the same as in all occurences in the
documents.
Language Interface Inc. takes special measures to ensure terminological
and lexical consistency. To achieve that a number of methods of software
and organizational nature is used.
