An E-C Translation Report Of Medical Journal Articles Under The Guidance Of Functional Equivalence Theory

As a variety of English for special purposes(ESP),Medical English is the lingua franca of international medical communication,with some sub-varieties such as medical English for occupational purposes,medical English for doctor-patient communication,medical English for education purposes,etc.Translating medical English into other languages is essential to the dissemination of medical knowledge and new discoveries globally.Although the E-C translation of medical documents has already been studied by many scholars from the broad perspective of “medical translation”,the translation issue of genre-specific medical documents has yet rarely been touched upon.The report is based on Functional Equivalence Theory initiated by Eugene A.Nida and intends to discuss the translation of medical journal articles,a subfield of medical translation.The target audience of medical journal articles is supposed to be Chinese users with medical backgrounds.The features of the source texts pose plenty of translation challenges to the translator.Lexically,the source texts are featured by professional medical terms,synonyms,prepositions,and verbal nominalization,resulting in the translation difficulty of finding the best Chinese equivalents for them.Syntactically,the source texts are marked by the abundant use of the passive voice and the long and complex sentences,therefore hindering the translator’s understanding.Textually,the source texts mainly employ two cohesive devices: reference and conjunction,and the literal translation may deprive the target texts of clarity and cohesion.Based on the translation difficulties mentioned above and the choice of Functional Equivalence Theory as the guiding theory,certain translation techniques are discussed in the report.Firstly,the professional medical terms and synonyms are translated through literal translation and parallel text research;omission is one of the techniques employed to translate prepositions;conversion of parts of speech is used to address problems caused by verbal nominalization.Secondly,syntactic equivalence is achieved by sentence transformation,addition,and restructuring.Finally,omission of reference and preservation of conjunctions are used to achieve textual equivalence.This report discusses the features of the source texts and relevant translation difficulties.Besides,under the guidance of Functional Equivalence Theory,several applicable translation techniques are proposed,aiming to provide more insights into improving the E-C translation quality of medical journal articles.