Inconsistency in Technical Terminology: A Problem for Standardization in Arabic

Standardization is one of the basic elements of technical translation for proper communication among the users of the target language text. Consistency in signifier-signified correspondence is vital to maintain proper tandardization. However, there are many instances (in translation) in which stylistic variation and inconsistency in using lexical items are confused. The problem arises and becomes serious when inconsistency is mistakenly considered as stylistic variation. Stylistic variation is a very well known literary device to avoid repetition in texts by employing synonyms. Inconsistency arises when a signifier which has been employed in the target language to signify a new borrowed concept is alternately used with any of its synonyms. The translator may create a kind of confusion when he uses a synonym to signify the same concept rather than the assigned lexical item. Therefore, the reader may not be able to follow the progress of the text assuming that there is a different meaning for each synonym. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the different types of this phenomenon in English-Arabic translation.