A Report Of The E-C Translation Of Medical Materials:From The Perspective Of Communicative Translation Theory

Translation of medical materials plays an important role in the successful communication between Chinese and western medical research.And the rapid development of medical technology has witnessed increasing possibility of the introduction of advanced western technology or ideas for the purpose of the wellbeing of people.Under such circumstances,the purpose and significance of this report is to analyze the application of translation techniques with the guidance of proper translation theory and therefore to propose some findings of the whole translation practice for further discussion.Communicative translation theory,one of the theories proposed by the famous British translation theorist Peter Newmark,has been widely employed in the translation of EST(English for Science and Technology)and has been approved to be of effectiveness in translation practice.Communicative translation is a translation theory oriented in readability of the version and equivalent feeling of target language readers.As we know,the purpose of EST is for transmission of information which highlights accurate and comprehensive rendering of the meaning of the source texts.Meanwhile,communicative translation proposes less constrictions of forms or word order in the process of translation if they are obstacles in rendering the meaning of source texts.Communicative translation theory was put forward on the basis of typology translation theory and developed from Nida’s equivalence of translation theory.Unlike the theory proposed by Nida,Peter Newmark stressed that different texts of different language functions of being expressive,informative and vocative are supposed to employ different translating theories.With the characteristic of being informative,medical materials require objectivity in their translation.Since communicative translation theory is focused on the readability of versions,and the feelings of target language readers,it is employed in the translation of medical materials.Under the guidance of communicative translation theory,a series of translation techniques are employed to translate technical terms,syntax and text.In the translation of technical terms,the diction of Chinese equivalents is highly valued before series of translation techniques is employed.In the translation of syntax,in order to improve readability of the version to target language readers,with the concern of the syntactical differences between English and Chinese languages,a variety of translating techniques are employed to make the version expressive and smooth.Those translating techniques include amplification,division,conversion,shift of respective,etc.Translation of some typical sentence patterns is also discussed.And the feedback from the client is included in the testing part followed by necessary revisions.At the end of this thesis,some reflections and suggestions are proposed from the aspects of both theory and practice.Although communicative translation theory is widely employed in the translation of EST,it belongs to unique theory instead of universal theory.In the application of a theory to a specialized text,one has to take into consideration the characteristics of that practical text.And in the practice level,translator’s responsibility is suggested to arouse more attention due to the special purpose of ESP translation.It is proposed that prudence is necessary before translation since the translation is usually directly relevant to economy or safety.As far as the translation of medical materials is concerned,familiarity with relative language use is necessary,just as a poem can only be translated properly when it is translated into a poem in the target language.