Summary

This is an interdisciplinary project at the intersection of Computer Science, Chemistry and Corpus Linguistics that is carried out in cooperation with the LETraQuim (Teaching and Translation Laboratory - Languages and Chemistry) group from the São Paulo State University in Brazil. In 2016 and 2017, Brazil became the second-largest exporter of soybeans globally and has remained in top positions since then. As a consequence, it has become the largest importer of pesticides in the world. Given this context, researchers of Chemistry seek to study and create a set of environmentally sustainable methodologies for the degradation of pesticides that are illegally traded or that are part of expired stocks, since they are highly harmful to the health of the general population. However, one problem researchers have found is the lack of terminological standardization of Pesticide Chemistry terms in English and Portuguese. This has led to the misinterpretation of product labels as well as the wrong use of the terminology that should be accurately translated to avoid ambiguity not only by researchers but also by technicians and farmers who have to deal with those products. Taking that into consideration, this project will tackle the translation and terminological issues regarding publications in the area of Pesticide Chemistry in Brazil and how these linguistic issues can influence Brazilian communities and cities on the right to healthy food. Thus, this work aims to (i) compile a list of terms from the Pesticide Chemistry domain; (ii) determine their best equivalents from English to Portuguese, and (iii) describe the reasons for variations we may encounter. Moreover, we intend to come up with methods to automatically simplify research papers from the field of Pesticide Chemistry and to automatically summarize their core ideas, with the objective of making them easier accessible for both junior researchers and the broader public.