Hello Sagitario14:

Your question is about the translation of the expression “Computer Communication Networks”.

You suggest as possible translation the Spanish expression: “Comunicación mediante Redes Informáticas”.

Please read my analysis of this subject.

ANALYSIS

The expression “Computer Communication Networks” is about a specific subject of the computer sciences.

We have to go step by step to understand the differences between the English expression and your suggestion.

First at all, if we review the complete English expression we find 3 terms that have special meaning according to the complete context:

1) Networks. We translate this term to Spanish as: “redes”.

2) Communication: We translate this term to Spanish as: “comunicación”

3) Computer: We translate this term to Spanish as: “computador” or “computadores”. We can also translate as: “computadora” or “computadoras”. (Both: “computador” or “computadora” and “sistema de computación” have the same meaning. In all these cases, we are including: central computers or mainframe computers, servers and PCs (desktop computer or mobile computer) linked to the network. In some literature, you also find the term “ordenador” but this old translation that comes from the French “ordinateur” and the Latin “ordenador” and means “machine to put the information in order”. Today, the new generations of computers are much more than “machines to put the information in order”.

Before we continue talking about “computers”, we have to understand the meaning of “networks” because is a key element of your question.

For example, the “Networking Pocket Glossary” of Micom defines “network” as “interconnected computer systems, terminals, and data communication facilities, may have any number of links and nodes.”

Microsoft in its Glossary translate “network” as “red” and also provides a very interested explanation: “A group of computers or other devices, such as printers and scanners, that communicate either wirelessly or by using a physical connection, such as an Ethernet cable or a phone line.”

And here, Gartner Group – IT analyst firm – gives as a more complete definition about “network”: “Network: Any number of computers (e.g., PCs and servers) and devices (e.g., printers and modems) joined together by a physical communications link. In the enterprise context, networks allow information to be passed between computers, irrespective of where those computers are located. Networks provide the roads for information traffic (e.g., sending files and e-mail) within a corporate environment, and allow users to access databases and share applications residing on servers. If a network does not go outside of a company building, or campus, then it is known as a local-area network (LAN). If it has a bridge to other outside networks, usually via lines owned by public telecommunications carriers like AT&T, then it is known as a wide-area network (WAN).”

After the reading of the three definitions about network, we have in clear that the concept of networks includes computers and other devices.

Now we have to put together “communication” and “network”. The term “communication” before “network” emphasizes that the “network” which we are talking is an infrastructure to transmit and exchange information (files, databases, email, electronic documents, video, voice) through a special connection – cable or wireless - that links machines.

In this case, like The Free Dictionary by Farlex remarks that “communication” implies “transmission” (In Spanish: “transmission”).

And the term “transmission” from a technical perspective includes the sending, virtual travel and reception of information units (files, database, messages, electronic documents…) and the dialogue between 2 nodes.

At this point, we can translate “communication network” to Spanish as “red of comunicación” or “red para transmitir information”.

The next step is to put the term “computer” together with “communication network”. But before we have to know what really “computer” means talking about a “communication network”.

To explain this topic, I decided to use the definition about computer that the QUE’s Computer User’s Dictionary offers us. “Computer: A machine that can follow instructions to alter data in a desirable way and to perform at least some of these operations without human intervention. Computers represent and manipulate text, graphics, symbols, and music, as well as numbers.”

To end the “puzzle” now we have to put “computer” together with “communication network” and we can say that “computer communication network” is in Spanish: “red de comunicación de computadores” or “red de comunicación de computadoras”. (In Latin América, a lot of people like to say “computadoras”, as feminine noun.)


If we return to the definition of Gartner about “network”, we see that the term network implies: “Network: Any number of computers (e.g., PCs and servers) and devices (e.g., printers and modems) joined together by a physical communications link.”

Comparing “computer communication network” and “network” in general, we see that the “computer communication network” is a specific “network”. It is a network of “computers”.

In other words, your question: “Computer Communication Network” is about the links among computers.

Today there are “networks” that link only computers and other networks that link “computers”, external storage, network printers, network scanners, network routers, network switches, readers of magnetic documents and more devices.

In your suggestion, you talks about “redes informáticas”. This concept translated to English is “networks of information systems” or “informatics networks”.

If we want to talk with accuracy, “Computer Communication Networks” is only a subset of “Informatics Networks” or “Information System Networks”.

And the translation of “Computer Communication Networks” is “Redes de Comunicación de Computadores” or “Redes de Comunicación de Computadoras”.

By the way, the classic banking networks that work in “cluster”, normally in the first level of communication use “computer communication networks” to link the mainframe computers or main servers of the data centers.

For example, if a bank has data centers in San Francisco and Los Angeles, in California, US, the main link (communication network) is among the computers and storage systems of both nodes. This is the case of your question: “computer communication network”. But each node (Los Angeles or San Francisco) has a lot of devices, terminals and peripherals linked with the main computer of the node working through a star network (a network like a “star”). All together, the “computer communication network” between San Francisco and Los Angeles, plus the local or regional networks of devices, peripherals and terminals of San Francisco and Los Angeles form the Information System Network (Red Informática) of the bank.

MY SUGGESTON

- “redes de comunicación de computadores”
- “redes de comunicación de computadoras”

I hope this analysis help you in your work.

Regards

Domingo

BIBLIOGRAPHIC SOURCES
1) Networking Pocket Glossary, Fifth Edition. Micom Communications, US.
2) Microsoft Portal lingüístico
URL: http://www.microsoft.com/Language/es-es/Search.aspx
3) Gartner Group – IT Glossary
URL: http://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/network/
4) The Free Dictionary by Farlex
URL: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/communication
5) QUE’s Computer User’s Dictionary – QUE. ISBN: 1-56529-881-0
6) Computer Communication Networks
URL: http://books.google.de/books/about/Computer_Communication_Ne...


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Note added at 16 hrs (2012-11-19 15:16:45 GMT)
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ERRATAS:
Latin term is “ordinator” with “t” and in Spanish language means: “que ordena”. But the new computers as I explained before are more than machines that put the information in order. They have an advanced capability to analyze the behavior of the human beings. By the way, in 1997 IBM developed the Deep Blue, a computer that plays chess better than the human beings. This computer won without human intervention a six-game match against the Russian chess player Garry Kasparov, world champion.