GLOSSARY

Borrowing: the use of a term from a foreign language.

Dialects: regional variations of a language that are mutually understood by their speakers. When there is little or no mutual understanding, we refer to 'languages' rather than 'dialects'.

Idiom: an expression whose meaning cannot be derived from the conjoined meanings of its elements. Also called an 'idiomatic expression'.

Register: the reading level.

Jargon: the technical or special terms used in a business, art, or special subject.

Slang: language used mainly by certain groups, like children, teenagers, athletes, thieves, and so on.

Source text: the source from which we translate into the target language. For example, if a brochure is translated from English into Punjabi, the English version is the original (source) text, the Punjabi translation, the target text.

Translation: the transference of the meaning of a written text in one language into a written text in another language. A translation preserves the semantic and lexical values of the source language, while respecting the syntactic, lexical and semantic values of the target language.