Coming to terms with cricket : A translation study of terminology in texts on cricket

Sammanfattning: This essay discusses the translation of terms in four texts on cricket. The first aim of the essay was to identify the most appropriate translation strategy for each term based on Niska and Frøili’s (1992:361) six translation strategies. Their strategies were complemented by considerations of equivalence and Swedish grammar and language structure. The identified terms were divided into the categories Players, Field & Equipment and Rules & Scoring and the second and third aims of the essay were to investigate if a particular translation strategy was more commonly used for all the cricket terms, as well as if a particular translation strategy was more frequently used for a specific category. This information can aid translators in the decision making when translating new cricket terms. The result showed that direct transfer and translation of an explanation of the source term were more frequently used, sometimes in a combination in the form of a translation doublet. With regards to the three categories, direct transfer was used in the majority of term translations in the category Rules & Scoring, while the strategies were more evenly distributed for the other two categories. No reliable conclusions can be drawn from the results in this essay as a much larger sample would be required. It may, however, be an indication of that certain translation strategies are more applicable in the translation of cricket terms and can be used as a starting point for future studies.