Análisis de los problemas planteados por la traducción al español y al portugués de los Nominalkomposita alemanes en los textos destinados a la enseñanza y divulgación de la ciencia

Abstract Nominalkomposita, which are nouns and adjectives formed by the fusion of two or more vernacular words, are a frequent terminological component of German texts. This paper analyses in depth, resorting to examples taken from the author’s experience as a scientific translator and as a translation instructor, the main problems involved in the translation into Spanish and Portuguese of Nominalkomposita occurring in German texts aimed at science education and popularization. Those translation problems can be grouped into two categories, one of a general nature, deriving from the fact that many of those compound words have a non-additive translation, and even a non-additive denotation, and the other of a special nature, which consists in the existence of 1:2 or 1:3 equivalence relations that stem both from the combination of polysemy in the source language with monosemy in the target language, and from a lack of denotative specificity in some Nominalkomposita making up terminological doublets, thus giving rise to concept inclusion in translation.