Translating Cosmetic Surgery Terms

Cosmetic surgery has enjoyed rapid development in the past few decades.However,translation of cosmetic surgery,as a branch of medical translation,is not yet fully explored in the literature.By writing this report on translating texts of cosmetic surgery,the translator wishes to help lift its veil by reflecting on the pains and gains in the translation practice.This report is based on the translation of two chapters from Cosmetic Facial Surgery(Second Edition),written mainly by Joe Niamtu ?.The translation activity was patronized and supervised by a translation company.In the translation process,technical terms are the biggest challenge the translator has encountered,and this report discusses extraction and categorization of medical terms,evaluation of reference for term translation,and strategies for translating different types of terms.Technical terms were handpicked and also auto-extracted.These terms have been categorized into two major groups:words and phrases easily recognized as technical terms,and those that cannot be easily recognized as technical terms.Terms in the first category are further divided into two subgroups:terms with standard Chinese equivalents and those without widely-accepted translations.For technical terms with standard Chinese equivalents,this report has evaluated the dictionaries and databases used in the translation process.When it comes to terms without widely-accepted translations,the author suggests that translators could search the CNKI dictionary,although the suggested translations should be further confirmed;as some terms are compounded of Greek/Latin-based affixes and word roots,meanings of the morphemes usually constitute these of the technical terms;when dealing with trade names of drugs,translators can keep the original English words in the translated texts;when translating terms with names of people,translators could refer to reliable transliteration tables.When common English words are used in medical texts,translators may find it difficult to decide whether they are technical terms or not;word collocations,grammatical functions of the terms,and extralinguistic knowledge can be utilized as important information for identifying these tricky words and phrases.The author hopes the report could contribute to medical translation and especially translation of cosmetic surgery and wishes to see more studies on it.