Translation of several terms (for discussion)
1) Domain Engineering: 领域工程 (google search)2) Specification of Systems and Languages (the title of second volume): 系统描述与语言
The original translation (provided by Liu) is "系统与语言的规范", however, Ithink the word "specification" should be translated into "描述" rather than "规范" here. For example "formal specification" is usually translated into "形式化描述", and the book (volume) is mainly focued on formal system specifications and related formal languages.
---------------------------------------
BTW, please reply comments directly to this post.
posted by Jianwen Xiang @ 11:07 AM
6 Comments:
1. I agree with the translation of Domain Engineering.
2. For the second one, the orignial meaning of Speicification of Systems and Languages is that the object of "of" above is both systems and languages which is illustrated by the first sentence in section overview of preface, that is, "for specifying languages and systems".
Whether specification should be translated as "description(描述)", or the original meaning of "specification(规范)" sometimes depends on the context. Let us discuss this in detail in the future.
google search "formal specification + 形式化规范" and "formal specification + 形式化描述"，both of them are supported.
However, slight difference exist, that is, though "形式化规范说明" is an acceptable translation (notice here "说明" is needed in most cases), we usually say "形式化描述语言" rather than "形式化规范语言" and "形式化规范说明语言" (although the latter two translations also exist in a few cases).
To my understanding, I prefer to "形式化描述" 和 "形式化描述语言"。
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
After consideration, I strongly prefer "规范" instead of "描述". The reason is as follows:
1. The fact that "描述" is identified with "description" is agreed by everybody. For specification , Chinese has its correspondence "规范". But it is different from description in that description means you only describe something as it is but specification besides the description it also includes the meaning of requirement. Some Chinese translation of formal specification language as "形式化描述语言", in my personal view, this is their sloppy style, not precise. The correct translation should be "形式化规范语言".
2. I give an example to illustrate the necessity of the distinguishment of description and specification. In volume 3, Part I, OPENing, it says "Please note our use of the tree terms descriptions, prescriptions, and specification". They are different and we should reflect this in Chinese, and Chinese already has a candidate for such translation, that is "规范".
3.Thus for the consistency of the translation, the same word denoting the same meaning should be treated consistently. (Some rigourous readers would check our work by comparing the English version and Chinese version.).
In conclusion, I admit some translation of "描述" exists for the formal specification, but I still believe we should use "规范".
It is my personal view. We need to let all the member join this discussion thread and reach a agreement on this point.
formal specification -> 形式规约
formal specification language -> 形式规约语言
----------------------------------
reasons are below:
google search
“形式化规范语言”：486项
“形式化描述语言”：3550项
both of them are not strongly supported.
英汉计算机名词词典（第2版，2002，名词委员会审定，金山词霸2006）："formal specification" -> "形式规约"。
google"形式规约语言"：20,100项！
google"形式规约"：1,610,000项！
---------------------------------
It seems “规约” is the best translation of "specification" in this context.
I totally agree with this translation with "规约" although it seems the same as "规范". My argument is that this translation(published in 2002) is done by China National Committee for Terms in Science and Technology. We should follow this convention. But as we can see, they are not well observed by the translation of Chinese researchers. "规范","描述" is abused widely. Let us go for this target that conforms to the standard given by this committee.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home