Google platform in service for translators. Terminology search in the Internet

Abstract

Any specialised translation between languages requires knowledge of specific terminology. A variety of terminology sources can be found on the Internet, namely term banks, specialised dictionaries and glossaries. However, on many occasions they seem to be insufficient when it comes to the latest vocabulary related with the domains which utilize modern information technologies. The research shows that efficient use of search tools retrieves relevant equivalents of, at least, popular terms in the target language or defi nitions of concepts (when equivalents are not available) directly from the Internet viewed as an infinite term database itself. Beginning with the definition of terminology, the paper discusses the use of several Google search tools for retrieving specialised vocabulary, definitions of concepts and parallel texts. By applying examples from such fields as library and information science, it gives a detailed characteristics of various terminology search strategies with the use of a general search engine Google Web Search, a web directory Google Directory and specialised search engines Google Scholar and Book Search. Th e following methods are discussed: using a search engine as a bilingual dictionary, search operator define: phrase searches with Boolean operators or a verb, searching and browsing a web directory, advanced search for the retrieval of parallel texts and various search options. The results show that all the examined tools prove to be useful in terminology search for specialised translation.