Abstract: The reception of the terminology from a specialized field in languages which
are terminologically dependent at a particular time in their history necessarily entails an intertwining of neology and translation. Translation thus takes on an important role as a
mechanism to import new terms into a target language. This aspect becomes particularly
obvious when those units which have a particularly high productivity in specialized texts
are analysed: multiunit terms. Secondary neology is closely linked to the importing of these
polylexical units and to the associated predominance of the linguistic calque. This article
explores the important role which translation plays in the process of importing these terms
into the target language. The results of the study are taken from a descriptive analysis of
comparable corpora of highly specialised texts (expert to expert communication) in Spanish
and English, from the field of remote sensing.
