Robotics, prosthetics, and orthotics – Towards a thesaurus

Abstract

Medical translation has always required the use of specialised terminological resources, but it was not until the development of structures with robotic characteristics, that a specific resource for the sub-domains of robotics, prosthetics, and orthotics in the branches of biomedicine and bioengineering was needed. The few terminological resources available to the translator are often found included among other specialties and scattered around different resources, making the translator’s task a considerably tedious one. In addition, controlling the terminology in this field is an inconceivable task, due to the increasing number of devices. This research aims to begin with the collection of specialised terminology used in robotics, prosthetics, and orthotics, as well as main characteristics, sources of information and other terminological resources. The terminology compiled has been analysed and organised into a bilingual thesaurus in the language pair English-Spanish following Montalt’s (2014) “Medical Translation Step by Step”, Claudet et al. (2002) “La traducción científico-técnica y la terminología en la sociedad de la información”, Hurtado Albir (2001) “Traducción y Traductología. Introducción a la Traductología” and Wright (2012), “Scientific, Technical, and Medical Translation”, among others. This thesaurus contains terminology from the field of robotics, prosthetics, and orthotics, and consists of 277 entries. It constitutes the basis for organised terminology in the mentioned field, it is effective to index and elaborate documents with controlled language, and it opens paths for further development.