English-Spanish, Spanish-English Encyclopedic Dictionary of Technical Terms by Javier L. Collazo (review)

BOOK REVIEWS65 works, but she is willing to assert that "the novels may have been both a sign of change and a contribution to it." Perhaps her guide is a similar signal and contribution. ANNE HOWARD, University of Nevada, Reno Javier L. Collazo. English-Spanish, Spanish-English Encyclopedic Dictionary of Technical Terms. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1980. 3v. It would be difficult to be too enthusiastic about this publication. Lexicographic material concerning technical and scientific vocabulary has been scant in Spanish and the tremendous, almost daily, increase in concepts and their matching terms has left standard works like Duden por la imagen far behind; the dictionary of the Real Academia Española is hopeless in this regard. Divided over questions of linguistic "purity," unwilling to accept some of the structural configurations of technical terms, frustrated by the wide variety of loan translation forms for a single concept in the major, leading dialects of Spain, Argentina, and Mexico, and discouraged by the impossibility of being current, most compilers have simply avoided the issue of technical language. Although partial lists for certain areas have existed, they have not always been readily available. Drawing on these lists and — more important — on a wide array of specialized sources, Collazo has provided as authoritative an encyclopedic dictionary as one could hope for. Organization is clear and practical: Vol. I (A-N) and Vol. II (O-Z) are English-language entries, followed by corresponding equivalents in Spanish and an encyclopedic definition in Spanish of the concept; Vol. II is a Spanish-language cross-listing back to the English-language entries. Thus, English constitutes the main-entry base, while Spanish serves as the medium ofdefinition. One majordefect is that morphological and syntactic information is not covered adequately, as though it were assumed that such data were already known to the user. Thus, no information is given as regards plurals: año-luz ("light year") is pluralized años-luz (Collazo gives a hyphen; I have mostly seen it without), but is it faros monobloque ("sealed-beam headlamps") or faros monobloques? (Collazo does not list faros pilotos, Argentine for his faro(le)s delanteros ["head lights"]). Although it is ?a terminal for a train/airplane/bus terminal, it is el terminal for a computer terminal; yet there is no easy way to determine this distinction from Collazo's entry for terminal. One other caveat: Collazo tends to prefer "academic" forms, and a large number of the noun-noun exocentrics I have researched are absent (e.g., faro piloto, tuerca mariposa, ("wing nut"), autopieza ("auto spare part"). Although one would not expect the compiler to list all technical forms in all countries, the absence of morphosyntactic information constitutes a gap to be remedied by future editions. 66ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW Collazo is to be congratulated for making an outstanding contribution to Spanish lexicography. DAVID WILLIAM FOSTER, Arizona State University William Coyle. Rearch Papers. Fifth Edition. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1980, 214 p. James D. Lester. Writing Research Papers: A Complete Guide, Second Edition. Glenview, Illinois: Scott, Foresman, 1980. 206 pp. The two types of aides available to teachers of the research paper are workbooks and manual/guides. Those who have used either or neither kind may like to know a little about the major representatives of both types which have coincidentally reappeared together in new editions. Coyle's work is meant "to make research procedures as simple and efficient as possible" for beginners. Its workbook format provides a minimum of explanation and many detachable practice exercises, which may be done individually or in groups. Lester, as its subtitle indicates, is a complete guide, intended equally for the neophyte as well as "to serve as a reference source for graduate students and professors . . . [and] to aid the student in handling reference material and in writing and styling the research paper." Whereas with Coyle more is required of the teacher's own resources, with Lester one needs to select and direct the material to meet the needs of specific students. The sequence of chapters in both books is nearly identical, assumed to reflect the best order in the actual research and writing process. Both are keyed to the MLA Handbook but...