Key Terms in Linguistics and Translation

Posted on Feb 2, 2025 in Translation

English Definitions

  • Translate: To change words into a different language or to decide that words, behavior, or actions mean a particular thing.
  • Translation: Something which is translated, or the process of translating something, from one language to another.
  • Language: A system of communication consisting of sounds, words, and grammar, or the system of communication used by the people of a particular country or profession.
  • Culture: The way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time and place.
  • Code: A set of rules which are accepted as general principles, or a set of written rules which state how people in a particular organization or country should behave.
  • Assertion: A statement that you strongly believe is true.
  • Sentence: A group of words, usually containing a verb, which expresses a thought in the form of a statement, question, instruction, or exclamation and starts with a capital letter when written.
  • Proposition: A statement that affirms or denies something; the meaning expressed in such a statement, as opposed to the way it is expressed.
  • Word: A single unit of language which has meaning and can be spoken or written.
  • Dialect: A form of language that people speak in a particular part of a country, containing some different words and grammar.
  • Message: A short piece of information that you give to a person when you cannot speak to them directly.
  • Text: The written words in a book, magazine, etc., not the pictures.
  • Context: The text or speech that comes immediately before and after a particular phrase or piece of text and helps to explain its meaning.
  • Meaning: Something that is conveyed or signified; sense or significance; something that one wishes to convey, especially by language.
  • Grammar: The rules about how words change their form and combine with other words to make sentences.
  • Linguistics: The systematic study of the structure and development of a language in general or of particular languages.
  • Vocabulary: All the words known and used by a particular person.
  • Lexicon: All the words used in a particular language or subject, or a dictionary.
  • Lexical meaning: It may be thought of as the specific value a word has in a particular linguistic system and the “personality” it acquires through usage within that system.

Spanish Definitions

  • Traducción: The meaning or interpretation given to a text.
  • Traducir: To express in one language what is written or has been expressed before in another.
  • Palabra: A segment of speech usually unified by accent, meaning, and potential initial and final pauses.
  • Vocablo: The graphic representation of sounds.
  • Lengua: A linguistic system whose speakers recognize models of good expression.
  • Lenguaje: A set of articulated sounds with which man expresses what he thinks or feels.
  • Idioma: The language of a people or nation or common to several.
  • Cultura: A set of lifestyles and customs, knowledge, and the degree of artistic, scientific, and industrial development in an era or social group.
  • Léxico: The set of words of a language.
  • Dialecto: A variety of a language that is spoken in a specific territory.
  • Código: A set of systematic legal norms that unitarily regulate a specific matter.
  • Mensaje: The central object of any type of communication that is established between two parties, the sender and the receiver.
  • Comunicación: Transmission of signals through a common code to the sender and the receiver.
  • Oración: A group of words in which there is a verb.
  • Aseveración: Affirmation of something.
  • Texto: A group of words written in a document.
  • Contexto: A set of words that surround or condition a fact.
  • Semántica: The part of linguistics that studies the meaning of linguistic signs and their combinations from a synchronic and diachronic point of view.
  • Lingüística: The science that studies language and languages.