Transitivität in deutschen und italienischen Fachtexten: Kontrastiver Vergleich und Konsequenzen für die Fachübersetzung

As well known, transitivity is a phenomenon where typological differences between languages often emerge and which in translation makes shifts necessary or at least desirable. This statement also applies to a comparison between German and Italian general languages, with the latter showing more freedom in using transitive structures to express non-prototypical semantic roles. But do these differences hold for Languages for Special Purposes as well? And are they also dependent on the specific text type? This paper aims at providing first, tentative answers to these questions by analysing a small selection of two different text types pertaining to technical communication but with differing degrees of specialization, e.g. instructions for use of home appliances and patents. The findings indeed point to some different tendencies in the two languages, which should be taken into account by translators and teachers of translation in order to optimize translation quality