Consistency beyond terms

Abstract This study examines the role of term consistency and text continuity in specialized translation, as well as the challenges translators face in maintaining them. It defines and illustrates terminological chains, highlighting the difficulty of balancing term consistency and text continuity across languages. Using examples from the German-Italian language pair, the paper argues that maintaining referential continuity in the target text requires recognizing terminological chains, comparing conceptual structures across languages, and applying appropriate translation strategies. Since standard terminology alone may not always suffice, various strategies can help preserve terminological chains, particularly when languages differ in how they form clusters. However, some of these strategies may conflict with existing translation quality evaluation standards, raising the question of whether transferring terminological chains should be a quality criterion. The need to preserve these chains in the target text and their impact on translation evaluation will also be assessed.