Medical Translation Step by Step

Learning by Drafting

Vicent Montalt, Maria González-Davies

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317641971
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Statistics on the translation market consistently identify medicine as a major thematic area as far as volume or translation is concerned. Vicent Montalt and Maria Gonzalez Davis, both experienced translator trainers at Spanish universities, explain the basics of medical translation and ways of teaching and learning how to translate medical texts.

Medical Translation Step by Step provides a pedagogical approach to medical translation based on learner and learning-centred teaching tasks, revolving around interaction: pair and group work to carry out the tasks and exercises to practice the points covered. These include work on declarative and operative knowledge of both translation and medical texts and favour an approach that takes into account both the process and product of translations. Starting from a broad communication framework, the book follows a top-down approach to medical translation: communication ? genres ? texts ? terms and other units of specialized knowledge. It is positively focused in that it does not insist on error analysis, but rather on ways of writing good translations and empowering both students and teachers.

The text can be used as a course book for students in face-to-face learning, but also in distance and mixed learning situations. It will also be useful for teachers as a resource book, or a core book to be complemented with other materials.

1. Introduction to professional practice

[…] the exponential increase in international communications and the surge of globalization in the business world will lead translators to play a larger and more visible role, and will require increased systematic training of specialized translators.

Françoise Massardier-Kenney (1998)

Overview of chapter

Grasping the relevance of translation through history (1.1) is a way of enhancing self-awareness and identity as a professional translator. Medical translation has some characteristic features that translators should be aware of (1.2). An overview of the working process provides a clearer idea of what happens in a real professional context (1.3). Knowing how the medical translation market works helps translators to find the right professional niche (1.4). Contact with other translators provides insights into how the profession actually works (1.5). To become proficient and competent, we need to acquire and develop certain skills, knowledge and attitudes (1.6). Some tasks (1.7) and suggestions for further reading (1.8) are presented at the end of the chapter.

1.1 Historical overview of medical translation

Nescire autem quid ante quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum.

[To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.]

Marcus Tullius Cicero
De optimo genere oratorum

Translation has probably existed in some form or other ever since human beings felt the need to communicate with other groups of their own kind. Probably the oldest forms of translation involved trade. We find one of the most remote references to written translation in the cities of Ancient Mesopotamia where medical, chemical, mathematical, and astrological knowledge was gathered, organized and stored in cuneiform symbols written on clay tablets, some of which contained information in different languages such as Ugaritic, Akkadian, Sumerian, Hittite, and Hurrian. These archaeological findings suggest an intense translation activity long before paper and the alphabet were invented.

Much later, in the 5^th century BCE, Hippocrates – author of one of the oldest volumes on medicine that exist, the Corpus Hippocraticum, written about 400 BCE – inherited a vast amount of knowledge from previous civilizations and founded a school of medicine where he produced works on anatomy, physiology, pathology, hygiene, and medical ethics with the collaboration of other scholars. Later, Alexandria, founded by the Greeks in Egypt, became a melting pot for people and ideas, languages and cultures from the Mediterranean lands, the East, and India. We know that its museum and library contained works on anatomical dissections and physiological experiments. Its zoological garden had collections of animals which were classified by scholars and which would have provided opportunities for veterinary research and the study of animal husbandry. Medicinal and other plants in the extensive botanical gardens were similarly classified and their properties were no doubt investigated both for medical and culinary purposes.

A hundred years or so later, the Greek city of Pergamon in Asia Minor became another important centre of scholarship and one which produced Galen, one of the most famous exponents of Greek medical knowledge. He was a prolific author, writing some four hundred works based on the Hippocratic tradition. In the 9^th century much of his work was translated into Arabic at the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. These translations, in turn, were translated into Latin in the 11^th century, together with commentaries added by other Arab scholars in the intervening years. Thanks to the translation activity carried out at the House of Wisdom, the Arabs assimilated the Greek medical legacy and started to produce original works, which contributed to the advance of medical knowledge.

In Spain, the School of Toledo (1125–52) arose from collaboration between Islamic, Christian, and Jewish scholars. Works by Aristotle (384–322 BCE), Archimedes (287–212 BCE), Pythagoras (569–475 BCE) and Hippocrates (460–377 BCE) were translated and commented upon by physicians such as Ibn-Rushd, also known as Averroes (1126–1198), Maimonides (1135–1204) and Ibn-Sina or Avicenna (980–1037), the author the Canon Medicinae, a medical textbook still used in the 18^th century. King Alphonse X of Castile (1221–84) introduced translations into Romance Castilian and other emerging European languages at a time when the use of vernacular languages was increasing. In England, King Alfred the Great (871–900), two centuries or so earlier, had promoted education and the arts. He himself translated books from Latin into Anglo-Saxon and ordered translations into that language.

During the Middle Ages knowledge of medicine and related fields was preserved in monastic libraries and medicine was produced and largely dispensed by monks who based many of their medicinal remedies on the accumulated wisdom handed down through the centuries via translations. The continuum of medical knowledge clearly stretches back into pre-historic times.

So far, we have said nothing about how these early works were translated. Were they literal translations? Or were they fairly free and selective adaptations? This dichotomy between strictly literal and freely adapted translations was in fact mentioned by Cicero, whose defence of translating non verbum de verbo, sed sensum exprimere de sensu (not word for word, but sense for sense) was expounded in his work De optimo genere oratorum (46 BCE). His division has carried over into discussions about translation to the present day. That translation mattered in Ancient Rome is testifed to by the fact that the Emperor Augustus employed translators on a regular basis. Medicine was a highly respected discipline at that time and medical translators abounded, working mostly from Greek into Latin. They favoured a literal approach to translation at odds with that of Cicero, whose freer approach was favoured by medieval translators.

In the Middle Ages, this literal view of translation was defended by philosophers and theologians such as Boethius (480–524 AD). Since the Bible was considered to be God’s direct revelation to humanity, it was unacceptable to move away from his word towards what might be considered an interpretation. St Jerome’s double approach in his Vulgate refected this dilemma. He defended the classical rhetorical sense for sense approach to translation, but found himself trying to balance it with what he called veritas, the truth in the source text, in order to avoid the risk of being accused of heresy.

In the Renaissance...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgements
• How to use this book: underlying principles
• 1. Introduction to professional practice
• 2. Understanding medical communication
• 3. Understanding the content of the source text
• 4. Drafting the target text
• 5. Detecting and solving translation problems
• 6. Using resources to solve problems
• 7. Dealing with terms and other units of specialized knowledge
• Appendix 1. Translation problems: strategies, procedures and solutions
• Appendix 2. Latin and Greek roots of medical terminology
• References
• References