Some Class Formants in Technical Literature

Summary At attempt is made to classify the bulk of scientific and technical literature. It is found that each class is governed by a varying set of linguistic formants; thus, for instance, the class of Instructions for Operation is characterized, among other things, by the use of the imperative mood in English, the infinitive in Russian, and the passive voice in German. Examples are given to show the application of class formants in actual work. While some classes are briefly sketched and some others only mentioned for the sake of a survey of all technical literature (books, congress papers, articles for journals, patent applications, invoices, etc.), one class—the Descriptive Leaflet —is investigated in greater detail. The class formants listed apply only to English and German as source and target languages; other class formants may apply to other languages. The examples were taken from actual work in the field of electrical engineering. The references were selected with the view of famil-iarizing the translator with the actual usage, i. e. the actual frequency of technical terms in their context.