matching-document-type-and-genre

name	matching-document-type-and-genre
description	Recognise a text's type and genre — technical vs scientific, data sheet, manual, paper, abstract, presentation, case study, reference or hybrid — and translate to its conventions and communicative purpose.
kind	skill
status	ready
provenance	{"principles":["P068","P072","P077","P080","P091","P092","P095","P096","P097","P110","P113","P125","P126","P127","P128"],"claims":["C00132","C00135","C00556","C00600","C00606","C00650","C00663","C00674","C00679","C00683","C00696","C00707"],"evidence":["E00118","E00121","E00520","E00552","E00558","E00578","E00587","E00595"],"source_anchors":[]}

Matching Document Type and Genre

Purpose

This skill guides the translator to recognise a text's type and genre — technical vs scientific, data sheet, manual, paper, abstract, presentation, case study, reference or hybrid — and translate to its conventions and communicative purpose. It advises on the decision; it does not produce the final translation, override the client's brief, or sign off safety-critical or legally-mandated content — those are handed back to the translator and the commissioner.

When to use

• classifying or translating a scientific or technical text.
• A project contains proposals, reports, instructional documents, or mixed genres.
• source terminology carries metaphor or cultural connotation.
• translating scientific or metaphor-rich technical text.
• translating case studies.
• translating technical case studies.
• framing the goal of a technical translation.
• translating task-oriented technical documents.
• translating procedural or step-based instructional text.

Procedure

1. Distinguish scientific from technical texts by their aim — a technical text exists to convey information as clearly and effectively as possible, while a scientific text analyzes, synthesizes, theorizes, and persuades — because the differing aim drives different language and a different translation strategy. (P068)
2. Classify document type by communicative purpose before deciding content, structure, and rhetorical strategy. (P072)
3. Expect scientific texts to use a broader range of linguistic devices (longer, more complex sentences, figurative language) because they aim to create an effect, and treat metaphors as a valuable tool in both scientific and technical texts for naming abstractions and explaining processes through readers' existing knowledge. (P077)
4. Treat a vendor or marketing case study as a marketing text with a standard structure (identify the client, its needs as the 'problem', the solution and its implementation, a testimonial, and closing company details) that is demanding to translate because it mixes complex technical data with opinion, reported speech, and persuasion, and its language must stay positive without overstating or misrepresenting the product; first classify the document by communicative purpose, since a differently-purposed 'case study' is a different genre with its own conventions (P072, P128). (P080)
5. Frame sci-tech translation as part of technical communication — creating, designing, and transmitting technical information so people can understand it easily and use it safely, effectively, and efficiently (Markel) — and treat the target audience as the single most important variable. (P091)
6. Treat every technical document as a task-oriented tool addressed to a specific audience for a specific purpose — a means to an end, not entertainment or a showcase for the writer — whose goal is to convey the right information to the right people in the right format; where a text serves several readerships, prioritize them and cater accordingly. (P092)
7. For procedural (cookbook-style) manuals use a prerequisites list plus numbered steps and control the information flow so the reader is not overloaded; never combine multiple tasks in a single sentence — split a crammed source sentence into separate ordered steps so the reader immediately knows what to do and in what order. (P095)
8. Translate scientific-paper sections to their conventions: keep correct spelling and orthography in the Materials section (proprietary and trademarked names); demand absolute consistency and clarity in the Procedure section, since errors threaten the repeatability of the experiment and the reliability of the study, watching abbreviations, acronyms, units, and ellipsis; and in the Results section translate reported speech exactly as written even if it is not grammatically perfect. (P096)
9. For presentations, resolve the inherent ambiguity of bullet-point slides by requesting the speaker's notes or the full paper, and watch translation length: because text boxes do not resize, a longer translation shrinks the font or overflows the slide, so do not add a slide without first checking the client on slide-count, timing, and design limits. (P097)
10. Expect information conveyed as bare facts and specifications (bullet lists or tables in technical texts, sentences in scientific ones) and as cross-references to laws, standards, books, or interface items that avoid overloading the reader and can also signal that a product is reliable and safe by conforming to a standard. (P110)
11. Know the profiles of common technical text types: a technical data sheet covers a product's composition, properties, and applications plus safety, legal, and environmental information; test instructions are standard operating procedures of step-by-step inspection; and expert technical reports (associated with engineering) give the object of study, the test circumstances, and the materials and methods, often produced by an independent specialist. (P113)
12. For reference manuals and any cross-referenced document, treat topics as independent, dipped-into units (repeating information where needed to spare readers from skipping back and forth), and keep the names of referenced topics, sections, or documents accurate and consistent — liaising with any other translator handling a referenced section, since a translation memory only auto-suggests wording you translated yourself. (P125)
13. For heterogeneous or hybrid documents whose sections differ in function and style (proposals, tenders, reports, case studies, marketing material), recognize each section's change in function and apply a single document-level macrostrategy supported by local, per-section microstrategies rather than one uniform strategy. (P126)
14. Translate an abstract, together with its title, as a self-contained text — it is published separately in abstracting services and readers judge from it whether to read the whole paper — so never leave anything awkward or unclear in an abstract on the assumption it will become clear later. (P127)
15. Recognize a text's type and genre conventions as a prerequisite to translating it (Bell, Schaffner): genres are socially embedded, some highly culture-specific and some universal, and even ostensibly universal conventions require different micro-level strategies per language (for example, giving instructions with imperatives in English but infinitives in German). (P128)
16. Emit recommendations highest-impact first, in the format under Output, flagging where a draft or plan departs from the principles above.

Inputs

• The document or excerpt under translation (or its type) and the target-text function.
• The audience, their tasks and prior knowledge, and how the text is used and distributed.
• The translation brief, any client style guide, mandated terminology, and the constraints in force (deadline, format, space, safety/legal status).

Output

Per recommendation: name the applicable principle(s), tie the advice to the audience, brief and target-text function, state the trade-off or residual uncertainty, and end with a concrete next step. Order recommendations highest-impact first. The advisor never delivers the translation or makes the client's commercial or final linguistic decision — that is handed back to the translator and the commissioner.

References

See ../../references/technical-translation-principles-index.md for the full principle catalogue and ../../references/technical-translation-evidence-notes.md for grounding notes. For adjacent concerns, see the sibling skills: analyzing-audience-brief-and-skopos, selecting-translation-strategy-and-procedures, grounding-translation-in-reader-cognition, handling-terminology-units-and-nomenclature, applying-iconic-linkage-and-consistency, designing-document-structure-and-presentation, planning-usability-evaluations, running-and-analyzing-usability-studies, assuring-quality-safety-and-practice.

Provenance

Derived from P068, P072, P077, P080, P091, P092, P095, P096, P097, P110, P113, P125, P126, P127, P128, grounded in Jody Byrne's Technical Translation: Usability Strategies for Translating Technical Documentation (2006) and Scientific and Technical Translation Explained (2012) (distillation-only). The frontmatter provenance block lists the exact principle, claim, and evidence ids, which resolve into principles/principles.yaml, analysis/claims.jsonl, and evidence/evidence-records.yaml.