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Medical terminology is considered challenging for translators, and this goes for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, it is a jargon designed to aid professional communication. Second, it is constantly expanding due to new additions, whether or not new vocabulary is based on Latin-Greek. Synonymic words perform several functions at the same time, with likely minor shades of different meanings. Finally, in most languages, there is a lack of standardization. Medical language standardization is also beneficial to doctor-patient contact. In all subfields of medical science, from laboratory medicine to orthopedics, more and more experts in the field of medicine understand the need for standardized terminology.
This type of translation is essential, especially in this ‘technological and pandemical era’, but it is challenging to attain accurately. Since each language has its own features, such as grammatical and lexical ones, as well as cultural aspects, the transmission of information and technology from one language to another is considered constrained. This creates obstacles for both readers and translators of the target audience (TA).
Before transmitting a text in another language, translators must be able to comprehend it. One of the most common mistakes that a medical translator can make is failing to recognize a problem in the text. In certain cases, a translator just does not recognize an issue that an expert translator might recognize right away. As a result, it’s critical to recognize that not everything is as simple as it appears at first glance and to develop a medical translator’s observing, recognizing, and deciding regarding a certain text.
Cronin (2003: p.47) points out that each language has three distinct forms of uniqueness. To begin with, each language has its own collection of linguistic constructs and, as a result, various linguistic representations of truth to a greater or lesser degree. Second, each community has its own collection of social activities that are expressed in words. Finally, each language community is a discourse community (or a collection of discourse communities) that expresses history, culture, and belief systems through the discourses that have developed within the community. This makes it difficult to translate scientific-medical texts. Many other issues, such as vocabulary changes, influence the translation of such language which is scientific-medical English.
In this paper, three main challenges, that a medical translator faces, will be discussed.
The first challenge is one that is related to terminology. The lexicon of medicine is constantly changing. New words are used, and old ones are phased out. As a result, when translating medical documents, translators face various challenges. In medical language, diagnosis, and disease names, terms relating to pathological anatomy abound. It is undeniable that Greek and Latin are the foundations of English medical terminology. However, terminology can “use modern variants of old Greek and Latin words” when linguistic units are insufficient to explain current scientific advances (McMorrow, 1998: p.21) in “both microscopic and macroscopic terms” (Fischbach, 1993: p:94). Although professionals who used medical terms used to communicate with one another using Latin terms, today’s healthcare providers communicate in English; the one that is common for a layman usage. If medical terminology was originally derived from classical Greek and Latin origins, the fact today is that it is now made up of words borrowed from everyday English. This may apply to concepts like screening, bypass, stent, and pacemaker, among others. Since English has such a strong influence, many languages simply borrow the words in their English form rather than looking for a suitable equivalent for the target audience. Since all such words characterize new situations, importing the term appears to be the best option for filling the lexical gap. This action goes in hand with the well-known translation theory: domestication and foreignization.
The second problem is considered linguistic issues. In translation, there are two types of grammatical issues: morphological issues and syntactic ones. Morphology looks into compounding, inflection, and derivation, while syntax looks at how words are arranged and related in sentences’ structure and order. The syntactic structure of a language sets various boundaries on how messages are represented and interpreted in that language, resulting in a variety of translation difficulties. In a text, there are two types of choices: grammatical and lexical. The most significant difference between these two options in terms of translation is that although lexical choices are somewhat optional, grammatical choices are needed. Another distinction is that grammatical structures, unlike lexical structures, are more static and resistant to change. It is much easier to incorporate new words, terms, and ideas into a language than it is to change some of its grammar structures, which would take a long time. Changes in language grammar systems are almost imperceptible in synchrony, while lexical changes can be registered. The variations in the grammar systems of the source and target languages are what cause changes in the quality of the language produced during the process of translation. Such changes may be made by either incorporating required details or deleting sections of the text that would be meaningless in the target language. According to Baker “a translation which repeatedly indicates information that is normally left unspecified in the target language is bound to sound unnatural” (Baker, 1992; p.87).
Passive voice can cause problems in translation, because of the differences in languages and the availability of such structures in the TL. For example, in English, it is acceptable to place the agent in a passive sentence by adding ‘by whom’ the action was performed, while in some other languages, it is not acceptable to do so and it is considered prohibited to add the agent in a passive voice sentence. In scientific papers that use passive constructions, the form without the agent is preferred. This is an issue when the target language lacks a corresponding transitive verb capable of rendering a similar structure. In order to “give the appearance of objectivity”, English uses the passive voice (Baker, 1992: p.103). A translation that replaces a passive in the source language with an active form in the target language, or vice versa, may have a significant impact on the original message’s emphasis, the linear arrangement of semantic elements, and the amount of information in the clause. As a result, a translator must consider the likelihood of such changes and choose the target language’s preference for the use of voice and the stylistic meaning it conveys in that language.
For a translated medical text to be accurate and meet target language requirements, the translator must adjust the frequency of features in the source language text such as terminology, compounds, grammar, and word order in order to be on the same frequency in the target language text. The translator must assess both the degree of formality and the technicality of the target language text since medical English has a sober, moderate, and conservative style (Baker, 1992).
In the case of medical texts in general, the translator must follow the norms in the target language that regulate such texts. The structure of an English medical article is set, with parts such as Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, and Discussion. As a result, a translation into English must be edited according to the before mentioned [IMRAD] structure. This is because such texts are static, with strict compositional rules and norms enforced by the purpose of the field on the one hand, and editing instructions on the other.
And finally, the third issue that will be rendered is extralinguistic problems. Certain nonlinguistic factors depend on the level of difficulty in translating medical articles. A translator may be faced with tight deadlines, tension, a wide range of subjects, a lack of expertise, inadequate extralinguistic knowledge of the subject matter, a space restriction such as a set number of pages or words, and so on. Extralinguistic information is used extensively in the translation of a source text, and inferential techniques are widely used (Kim, 2006: p.284). Aside from mastering translation methodology, extralinguistic competence must be followed by grammatical knowledge within the boundaries of medicine, which many may believe that it plays a minor role in the translation of specialized texts. Implying that a translator in the field of medicine may perform a better translation than a translator with no grammatical-scientific knowledge in the field. As a result, extralinguistic information has a significant impact on the quality of the translation product. Therefore, some specific terms, vocabulary, and concepts can need to be clarified for the reader to comprehend the text. The omission of such elements in a translation could result in the creation of a generic, standardized text. However, in the case of scientific texts, such stylistic deterioration plays far too little of a part.
Also, it is worth mentioning that differences between languages in the following areas can cause extralinguistic-bound problems in the translation of medical research articles: social conditions as groups, subcultures, living conditions, and working conditions. Also, the dominant lifestyle for the targeted audience, included a sedentary way of life, housing conditions, food, and leisure activities. Many of these factors can be discussed in a medical setting between a medical professional and a layman, and vice versa, such simple terms within the consideration of the non-linguistic problems can help in diagnosing and determining the cause of a patient’s condition for instance. Also, names of drugs, procedures and protocols, names of instruments, measuring units, queries about patient history, and the availability of therapeutic methods are all non-linguistic elements that play a crucial role in the translation of medical texts.
Summarizing all of the above, the translation of medical texts is a rather complex activity and is accompanied by many difficulties, primarily related to the complexity of medical terminology as such, as well as various linguistic and extralinguistic problems.
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