Terminology and concepts of cognitive linguistics applied to the proposition of terms in industrial automation

Abstract

Establishing terminological equivalents between languages is an increasingly present challenge in times of the 4th industrial revolution. Schwab (2016) points out that in our ‘superconnected’ societies we are undergoing a technological revolution with a substantial impact on the means of production, provision of services and social relations. Inserted in the context of technological revolutions, this work consists of the analysis of four terms referring to the machinery used in the mechanization of planting and management in order to propose terminological equivalents for understanding concepts by Brazilian technicians responsible for the operation and maintenance of a particular equipment related to Automation. Such machinery is a pioneering system in Brazil, and was developed to mechanize the planting and management of eucalyptus seedlings in order to increase the forest reserves and pulp production of the company that implemented the system in its industrial park. The technology, of Dutch origin, was installed by technicians from the country of origin together with Brazilian professionals, and had the researcher as an interpreter in the English-Portuguese language pair, during the system implementation process. The researched terms were prospected from the electromechanical manual provided by the manufacturer. Because it is an innovative piece of machinery no material was found translated into Brazilian Portuguese describing the equipment. Thus, the proposition of equivalents for terms that refer to machines and assembly processes was necessary to promote the understanding of concepts related to the new technology. The terminological units selected for this study were: roller pipe, lifting frame, automatic container stop and drive beam. The analysis and proposition of the equivalents were observed according to the principles of the Sociocognitive Theory of Terminology (Temmerman, 2000) and under the light of the theoretical contributions of Cognitive Linguistics by Lakoff (1987), Johnson (1987), Langacker (1990, 2000), Talmy (2000), Fillmore (1985) and Fauconnier (1994).