últimas corrientes teóricas en los estudios de traducción - Gredos ...

MICHAEL GRADE–IMPACT OF THE GROWTH OF SCI AND TECH KNOWLEDGE IN TRANSLATION
data processing methods is also greater in the high-tech direction, as is the impact of
miniaturization and the reduction of energy and materials requirements.
Industrial significance
The long-term industrial significance of high-tech products and services will be
greater than that of low-tech products as far as the highly industrialized countries are
concerned. At present, though, there seems to be a state of balance in which the hightech
sector has not yet overtaken the low-tech sector and products and developments
from both domains are of equal importance in industrial application and for the export
sector. Thus, both classic engineering systems (e.g. machine tools, rolling mills,
construction and transport equipment) and new product areas like telecommunications
systems (e.g. mobile phones, GPS-systems) play an equally important role for the German
export economy. The long-term significance for the employment sector will be on the side
of the high technologies, though, as this area will prove decisive for securing Germany’s
competetive and strategic position on the global markets of the future.
Development trends
The rate of development of new fields and the innovation rate within these fields
is clearly to the advantage of the high-tech direction. The extent of penetration into other
fields is also far greater in the high-tech sector. Thus, computer technology has spread
into virtually all areas of modern technology; and the classic field of medicine has been
revolutionized by developments like diagnostic imaging, miniaturized endoscopy,
telemedicine, virtual surgery training; the laser has spread into telecommunications,
manufacturing, medicine, telemetry and home electronics. This expansion of new
technologies into many other fields lends the high-tech sector an extremely high potential
of interdisciplinarity in contrast to the (in this respect) more limited low technologies.
Education
The number of established and currently existing academic curricula in Germany
is still higher in the low-tech than in the high-tech domain, although new university
curricula are being created at a rapidly increasing rate in the faculties of science and
engineering. In the German college/university education of translators, however, the
knowledge contribution of science and technology to translation curricula is still strongly
rooted in traditional low-tech subject areas like mechanics, conventional automotive
engineering, classic electrical engineering.
Two additional aspects
The degree of standardization in technology is stronger in the low-tech direction
than in the high-tech domain. This also applies to scientific and technical terminology.
The absolute growth rate of specialized terminology is, of course, far greater in high-tech
fields, while the extent of terminology standardization in the older low-tech fields
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