Specific features of special discourse genres in information technology

Abstract

The author analyses genres of special discourse related to information technology (IT) in terms of difficulties experienced by translators of scientific and technical texts in understanding them. For this purpose, surveys of professional translators were conducted which made it possible to identify the most typical genres: press release, instruction, corporate website and user’s manual. A discourse analysis was carried out of these genres according to specified criteria in order to compare and confirm the results of the survey as well as identify the easiest and the most difficult IT genres for translators to understand.