Theory and Practice of Medical Translations

8/13/2019 Theory and Practice of Medical Translations

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/theory-and-practice-of-medical-translations 1/50

1

CUPRINS

REZUMAT ÎN LIMBA ROMÂNĂ......................................................................................................................... 3

REZUMAT ÎN LIMBA ENGLEZĂ ........................................................................................................................ 5

INTRODUCERE .................................................................................................................................................... 7

CAPITOLUL I ...................................................................................................................................................... 9

1. MEDICAL TRANSLATION – A PROVOCATION FOR OFFICIAL TRANSLATORS........................................................... 9 1.1. Despre textele medicale în general .........................................................................................................10 1.2. Riscurile traducerilor medicale pentru un traducător............................................................................. .12 1.3. Terminologie......................................................................................................................................... .13 1.4. Abrevierile a terminologiilor speciale .....................................................................................................15 1.5. British vs. American English ..................................................................................................................15 1.6. Corectarea .............................................................................................................................................16 1.7. Latină vs. Engleză ..................................................................................................................................16

2. CARACTERISTICILE GENERALE A TERMINOLOGIEI MEDICALE ............................................................................17 2.1. Cerin ț ele unificării .................................................................................................................................17 2.2. Tipurile de expresii în func ț ia de originea lor .........................................................................................18 2.3. Abrevieri cu acronime ............................................................................................................................19 2.5. Unit ăț ile semantice ................................................................................................................................19

3. A NALIZA TERMINOLOGIILOR MEDICALE ..........................................................................................................20 4. CONNECTIONS BETWEEN E NGLISH AND R OMANIAN TERMINOLOGY IN MEDICINE .............................................26

SUMMARY ..........................................................................................................................................................28

CAPITOLUL II ...................................................................................................................................................29

1. O INTRODUCERE ÎN METODOLOGIA PARALEL CORPUS ......................................................................................29 Traduceri ca date semantice .........................................................................................................................29 Colectare ......................................................................................................................................................29

Alinierea documentului ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. .............. ............. ............. ............. ...........30 Divizarea propozi ț iilor și tokenizare .............................................................................................................30 Alinierea propozi ț iilor ..................................................................................................................................30 Metodologia privind cercetarea ............. ............. ............. .............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ...........30

CONCLUZIE ........................................................................................................................................................48

BIBLIOGRAFIE ...................................................................................................................................................49



2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

REZUMAT ............................................................................................................................................................ 3

ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................................................... 5 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................................. 7

CHAPTER I .......................................................................................................................................................... 9

1. MEDICAL TRANSLATION – A PROVOCATION FOR OFFICIAL TRANSLATORS ........................................................... 9 1.1. About medical texts in general ................................................................................................................10 1.2. The dangers lying ahead for a medical translator ...................................................................................12 1.3. Terminology.......................................................................................................................................... .13 1.4. The abbreviations of the special terms ....................................................................................................15 1.5. British vs. American English ..................................................................................................................15 1.6. The proofreading ...................................................................................................................................16 1.7. Latin vs. English ....................................................................................................................................16

2. THE GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MEDICAL TERMINOLOGY ...................................................................17

2.1. The requirements of the unification.........................................................................................................17 2.2. Expression types according to their origin ..............................................................................................18 2.3. Abbreviations with acronyms................................................................................................................. .19 2.5. Semantic units ........................................................................................................................................19

3. THE ANALYSIS OF MEDICAL TERMS .................................................................................................................20 4. CONNECTIONS BETWEEN E NGLISH AND R OMANIAN TERMINOLOGY IN MEDICINE .............................................26

SUMMARY ..........................................................................................................................................................28

CHAPTER II .......................................................................................................................................................29

1. A N INTRODUCTION TO PARALLEL CORPUS METHODOLOGY ...............................................................................29 Translations as semantic data .......................................................................................................................29 Corpus Collection........................................................................................................................................ .29

Document Alignment.............. ............. ............. .............. ............. ............. ............. ............. .............. .............30 Sentence Splitting and Tokenisation ..............................................................................................................30 Sentence Alignment...................................................................................................................................... .30

Methodology of the Research ............ ............. ............. ............. .............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ...30

CONCLUSION .....................................................................................................................................................48

REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................................................49



3

REZUMAT

Motivul pentru care am ales subiectul „teoria și practica traducerilor medicale” este că

atunci când eram copil dorința mea era să mă fac medic sau orice care este în legătur ă cu științele

medicale. Fiindcă am realizat că nu pot să mă joc cu viețile oamenilor, sau să mă exprim mai bine

”nu aș fi putut să îmi asum r ăspunderea pentru viața unui pacient” am ales următorul domeniu la

care am fost foarte atras: limba engleză. După un timp am remarcat că am posibilitatea de a mă

apropia de domeniul științelor medicale cu traduceri. Cum am constatat și în lucrarea mea de

licență, traducerea textelor medicale nu este un domeniu ușor. Poate cauza de multe ori dureri de

cap, dar cum Peter Unistov a declarat, un actor englez celebru: ”Rusia este la fel ca și un drajeu

întors pe dos: partea amar ă este suprafața și partea mai dulce este interiorul”. Declarația este

valabilă și pentru traducerile medicale.Lucrarea mea de licență conține două părți majore: teorie și practică. În prima parte a

teoriei prezint traducerile medicale în general care este o provocare serioasă pentru un traducător

autorizat. Aici menționez istoria medicală, categoriile textelor medicale, riscurile traducerilor

medicale, totodată vorbesc despre terminologii și abrevieri, diferențele între limba engleză

britanică și limba engleză americană în ce privește textele medicale, despre corectare și despre

terminologia latină în față de engleză. Partea a doua a teoriei constă din caracteristicile generale a

terminologiilor medicale unde menționez cerințele unificării, abrevieri cu acronime, unități

semantice și definiția eponimilor. Totodată aici explic atașarea sufixelor sau prefixelor la

terminologiile latine care sunt aplicate la regulile pronunțiilor în limba engleză. În a treia parte a

teoriei mele menționez analiza termenilor medicale unde acestea pot fi împărțite în două părți

majore: descriptiv (descrierea formei, culorii, mărimii, funcției, etc.) și eponimie care este un

cuvânt derivat de la numele unei persoane cu care este onorat descoperitorul sau inventatorul cine

a descris o structur ă anatomică pentru prima oar ă sau a diagnosticat o boală sau a dezvoltat un

instrument medical sau o procedur ă. Această parte conține și tabele care explică structura unei

expresii medicale (r ădăcina cuvântului, prefix, sufix), și demonstrează cum poate un prefix și unsufix modifica sensul unei expresii f ără să modifice sensul principal și a menține r ădăcina la fel.

În partea a doua a licenței mele aplic teoriile în practică. Am asamblat un text medical

cu trei pagini pe care îl am trimis prin e-mail în format . pdf conținând o poză, la un traducător

autorizat să fie tradus din engleză în română. Textul a fost tradus în mai puțin de 24 de ore.



4

Textul conține o construcție problematică care este o provocare major ă pentru un traducător.

Soluțiile pentru aceste probleme se află în lucrarea mea de licență în partea teoriei. Traducerea

conținea nu numai probleme terminologice (”eco” tradus simplu ca ”eco” în limba româna, sau

netraducerea sau explicarea instituțiilor ca și PPA) ci și probleme gramaticale (probleme cu

genurile feminine sau masculine a unui cuvânt). În analiza mea, am folosit metodologia corpus

paralel , care este explicată în prima parte a practicii mele.



5

ABSTRACT

The reason I chose the topic of “theory and practice of medical translations” is because

when I was young I wanted to be a physician, a doctor, or anything what is related to the field ofmedical science. Since I realized that I could not “play” with people’s life or to phrase it as “I

could not undertake the pressure if a patient’s life is in my hands”, I chose the next field of which

I was mostly attracted to: the English language. After a while I noticed that I have the chance to

get more closer to the field of medical science by translations. As I stated in my thesis, the

medical translation is not an easy work. It can give you serious headaches, but as Peter Ustinov

states, the famous English actor: “Russia is just like a turned outside dragée: the bitter part is

outside and the sweet part is inside” and the same applies for the field of medical translations.

My thesis contains two major parts: theory and a practical part. In the first part of the

theory I’m talking about the medical translation which is a real provocation for the official

translators. In this part I also wrote about the history of medical science, categories of medical

text’s, about medical text’s in general, the dangers lying ahead for a medical translator, about

terminology and abbreviations, the differences between the British and American English

language regarding medical texts, about proofreading and Latin vs. English terminology. The

second part of the theory is about the general characteristics of the medical terminology where I

mention the requirements of the unification, abbreviations with acronyms, and semantic units andthe definition of the eponyms. Here I also explain the attach of a suffix or prefix to the Latin

word which is applied for the English language’s pronunciation rules. In the third part of theory I

mention talking about the analysis of the medical terms where the medical terms can be divided

into two major parts: descriptive (describing shape, color, size, function, etc.) and eponyms

which means a word or name derived from the name of a person and are used to honor the

discoverer or who first described an anatomical structure or diagnosed a disease or developed a

medical instrument or procedure. This part also contains tables which explain a medical term’s

structure (word root, prefix, and suffix), demonstrate how the prefix and suffix changes can alter

the meaning of a term without changing the central meaning and keeping the root the same.

The second major part of my thesis is where I apply my theory in practice. I assembled

a medical text with three pages which I gave to an authorized translator to be translated from

English into Romanian which was sent via e-mail in . pdf format with a picture included and it



6

was translated within 24 hours. The text contains problematic structures which is a major

provocation for a translator. The answers for these problems can be found in my thesis in the

theory part. The translation contained not only terminological problems (“eco” being translated as

“eco” in Romanian, or not giving any information nor translation of an institution like PPA), but

also simple grammatical errors and problems (like problems with feminine of masculine genders

of a word). In my analysis I used the parallel corpus methodology which is explained in the first

part of my practice.





8

journals publish art icles’ translations or summaries that were published in foreign journals. Since

we are now members of the E.U., there are many texts to be translated in the field of medical

science. Most of the translations happen to be from foreign languages, mostly from English into

Romanian.

The English language gained ground in almost all significant areas of life in front of the

other world languages. This language globalization can be seen in the fields of medicine and

pharmaceutical science, too. Nowadays in Romania most of the translations of medical texts are

from English into Romanian, or from Romanian into English, since in the XXI century the

English language has become the medical science’s “lingua franca” (Keresztes, 2006; Demeter,

2010). The English language has a great influence on the Romanian language and in some rare

cases the physicians already replace the former Romanian medical term with the English

equivalent. This happens mostly in oral communication and sometimes in informal texts.



9

CHAPTER I

1. Medical translation – a provocation for official translators

Some say that the most difficult field of translation is the translation of medical texts

because it is very diversified and multidisciplinary. The question arises, who would be a better

medical translator: the linguist who knows well the field of the medical science, or those

physicians who know a foreign language on a higher level. Both of them could be a professional

translator. It is important that the translator must love the language (mother tongue and the

foreign language used when translating), must have a sense of style, must identify correctly

different register’s discourse analysis and to be precise enough to use them properly. The

technical discourse is formed by the cognitive, dynamic social and macro social processes.

(Gunnarsson 1997, cited by Demeter 2010). The cognitive structure of the medical science’s

language is built on the field’s body of knowledge, terminology system and metaphors; while the

discourse’s social part refers to the image of the professional community (Demeter, 2010).

The secret of the success is the focused reading, consulting and using many dictionaries.

A medical translator must have an unusual interest in the specific field, so (s)he can deal

trustworthy with the stylistic characteristics and to spend hours on the internet to read appropriatemedical articles on her field. The internet is our constant source but we have to be precautious

and handle it wisely. We must visit only renowned professional websites and we should always

check the text’s “nationality” too, because nowadays many authors write in English though their

mother tongue is far away from English. (Keresztes, 2006)

The translation of medical texts is a really hard field if somebody wants to master it, but

the same applies to the other fields of science. As an encouragement I would like to quote Peter

Ustinov the famous English actor’s saying, that Russia is just like a turned outside dragée: the

bitter part is outside and the sweet part is inside. The same can be applied for medical translations

because after we plod through it we start to enjoy it.



10

1.1. About medical texts in general

The medical science is the field of science which is mostly about and is addressed to us.

People are usually very interested in the topic of health and disease; therefore besides the general

terminology of the field, we can also differentiate numerous so called "sub-terminologies"

(Keresztes, 2006).

In the field of medical texts the following categories are the most important:

- Published articles

- Original article/Case reports,- Summary report,

- Abstract/summary,

- Course book/teaching material (for students who become doctors, pharmacists, nurses,

specialist assistants, and for elementary school students),

- Educational Article (for laymen)

- Health Education leaflets (for kids, laymen, adults, health care professionals),

- Further (patient) information / medication review (for professionals, laymen),- Research report,

- Professional autobiography/Professional CV,

- Applications,

- Findings (that of medical investigation), a hospital’s final report,

- Product Information (for professionals, laymen),

- User manual / Description of instruments (professionals, laymen),

- User’s manual/maintenance manual, etc.

As a translator we need to know how much the reader, the user of the target text knows

about the text to be translated, how the reader interprets certain texts, the kinds of expressions

and grammatical structures he uses while reading, because the used discourse aspects in our

translation need to be generally accepted in that field. We must always express ourselves clearly



11

and articulately: the more complex a topic is, the more simpler and clearer does the translated text

has to be.

A problem came up with the use of international languages: should the translator create a

text which perfectly fits in the given culture, or a text that sounds somewhat foreign?

Localization - the relocation and adaptation of the terminology’s in the target language’s socio-

economic and cultural environment - is the international communication, the translation’s

separate field, for instance we have to create an acceptable description of a medical device or of a

vitamin product for the user (Keresztes, 2010).

Difficulties may appear while translating a medical text due to different national types of

hospitals, departments, etc.

When we hear about medical translations we usually think about translating technical

articles. Although as mentioned above, there are many other registers in the field of medicalscience. Difficulties in translating are different with every translator, but usually for an

experienced translator the research article causes the least difficulty because these English

articles contain a minimal amount of vocabulary and grammar and with the knowledge of some

basic rules they can be easily translated. The two categories that are considerably more difficult

to translate, are editorials and review articles (Keresztes, 2010). These are written by native

English speakers, and they sometimes deal with ethical questions too. Their use of language and

terminology occasionally give a hard time even for qualified translators. The translation of the

final reports indeed give a hard time for a beginner (not physician) translator, but these have

identical structures so after repeated translations we will get through more easily in this register.

Therefore it is important to be careful here, because certain terms, abbreviations can have

different meanings in different professions. The translation of manuals and maintenance manuals

require a totally different type of knowledge. The translation of these texts does not require only a

certain terminology skill, but the translator has to be well informed in the field of the technical

too.

In addition to the latest terminology, it is recommended to also know the latest guidelines

and recommendations, for instance the publication called ‘Guideline on the readability of the

label and package leaflet of medical products for human use’. These guides do not only give the

proper help in choosing a certain terminology, but ensure the proper stylistic requirements for the

translators. The translator has to know the topic which is going to be translated and has to create



12

his own image of it and has to understand the source text’s every little detail. The translator

should transmit the same message in the translated text that the original text has. Word for word

translation is impermissible in any field. In the translation of medical texts it would lead to an

unrecognizable distorted meaning. The best case scenario would be if the translation would be

considered meaningless, but in the worst case it could mean quite the opposite. Although the

translator does not have to know every part of the science, because a new therapy treatment can

be translated almost perfectly without healing anybody or without knowing the disease’s whole

etiology or forecast.

If we are not sure if we understand the target text, then we cannot create a reliable

translation. At this point we don’t speak about the case when a translator does not understand a

certain terminology or a phrase, but about situations when specific or unique phrases must be

translated, since while for the former problem we may use dictionaries the latter one can besolved only with the aid of the author. For instance: within 24 hours before shipment. This could

mean 24 hours, more or less! How should we interpret the simple expression insert the gasket

face up? How can we insert a gasket (că ptușeală) face up in a device? (Keresztes, 2010)

When we accept a translation job we should always ask if we can somehow contact the

original version’s editor or writer of the text to get answers to the questions mentioned above. I

emphasize it again, in these cases I do not need an expert, but rather the original writer. If the

translator cannot contact the original writer (s)he should call attention to every ambiguous text

that the translator could not clarify. Otherwise we know who will be held responsible (the

translator of course) for all the ambiguities and contradictions in the text.

The translation’s eternal question is: how can a bad text be well translated? We have to

accept the fact, that the translation can only be as good as the original text. The translators’

common mistake is that they always try to create a better text in the target text than the original.

1.2. The dangers lying ahead for amedical translator

What should we be aware of in addition to the above mentioned? The use of passive voice

suits perfectly for the English medical language; let’s just think about case reports, genuine

publications, or user’s manuals. For instance the passive voice is not characteristically in the



13

Hungarian language, not even in the scientific registers. The use of the passive voice would make

the translated text foreign to the Hungarian language (Keresztes, 2010).

1.3. Terminology

One of the most difficult part of translating a medical text for a translator who is not

doctor is the use of the Greco-Roman terminology. Although even the professional medical

translators have to be very careful when using such expressions. In the English language many

classical terms were simplified and got replaced with common words, while the Romanian

language uses a specific terminology. While the Romanian language uses piroză, nefropatie,

cardiopatie, sac hidric, the English language uses heartburn, kidney disease, heart disease, water

film. The Greco-Roman terms are sometimes used differently in the English language than the

Romanian language. The “ sistem nervos vegetativ” is “autonomic nervous system” in English.

While the dictionary offers us the vegetative nervous system, it sounds too archaic even in the

circle of neurologists. The classical terminologies in some cases are used in a totally different

meaning, for instance while the Latin word rigor in the Romanian language means rigiditate (see

rigor mortis = rigiditate postmortal ă), tonus muscular accentuat, in the English language the

rigor word’s primary meaning is chills/shivering . The original latin rubeola in Romanian is used

in the same way (rubeolă), but the English language uses as German Measles. (Keresztes, 2010)Complications may occur if we do not check certain examination, operation, surgery, etc.

procedures’ names. Usually in the English language the procedures are named after the person

who invented it, while the Romanian language names it after the study area, anatomical

structures, for instance Pap smear (Papanicolaou smear), the same procedure in the Romanian

language is named as frotiu Papanicolau . Although there are exceptions too: the X-ray/X-ray

examination was discovered by Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen but it is used as X-ray, in Romanian

radiografie (in Hungarian Röntgen-sugár and Röntgen-vizsgálat ).

One of the most important characteristics of the English language is the so called verbing,

certain nouns are used as verbs: for instance a pipette (noun) - to pipette (verb), a kit (noun) - to

kit (verb) and a gown (noun) - to gown (verb) even de-gown (verb). These verbs formed from

nouns sometimes give a painful headache for the translator when translating it from English into



14

Romanian or more likely into Hungarian. In such cases we must always check their original noun

meaning first.

Another difficulty is the translation of the general English words, such as to check for

leaks (verifica ț i dacă este scurgere) which in fact means let us examine so there should not be a

leak (să verificăm să nu fie scurgere)! (Keresztes 2010). The translation of English medical texts

into Hungarian will almost always be “longer” than the source text, because one of the most

distinctive features of the English language is to try to describe everything as briefly and

concisely as possible. This fact explains why most Hungarian translators get paid after the

characters (and also because of the “cs, dz, dzs, gy, ly, ny, sz, ty, zs letters).

We should not use informal expressions, or slangs nor collocations in our translation. In

English the medical language’s euphemisms have spread, for instance: gap = vagina, choice =

risk assessment, or bipolar disorder = maniac-depression (Keresztes 2010). When translatingthese expressions we must always use the official terminology in both languages. It is important

to know the register accurately and to use adequate stylistic tools . In some points of view the

Romanian language is more formal than the English language. Only a few health sciences allow

the use of the informal style.

Every year many new terms are introduced in the medical vocabulary. The specialists

usually learn the new phrases in English and so they are used in everyday practice. In some cases

it is not easy to find the correct Romanian term so the unqualified translator could create serious

“distortions” in the translated text. The solution in such cases is that in the translation we give the

original English terminology too in brackets so we ease the identification of the word for the

reader.

Sometimes serious research has to be done to detect if the specific expression was already

published in a previous publication. If we find such previous translations and we judge it as a

good translation then we should stick with that. With this we can contribute to the spread of the

newly established professional terminology term. If the newly formed medical terms are already

fixed, then we have to use them uniformly, because their identifying role can be filled in only

within the text and between the text and only in this way can the coherence of the text be

revealed. (Keresztes 2010)

The spelling of medical words requires a peculiar attention both in the English and

Romanian language. Since the medical terminology is based on the Greco-Latin language, we



15

should stick to the original spelling. We should always check these words’ standard spelling in

the medical spelling dictionary.

1.4. The abbreviations of the special terms

Always check the translated text, acronyms, and the meanings of the abbreviations. Some

acronyms may be differing in other languages, for instance the English DNA (deoxyribonucleic

acid ) in Romanian will be ADN (acid dezoxiribonucleic) and in Hungarian DNS

(dezoxiribonukleinsav). We should not assume that the reader will be familiar with the

abbreviations used by us. In brackets we should give the full meaning when we use it for the first

time. For a medical translator it is clear that in the translated text the RR abbreviation means Riva

Rocci = blood pressure (tensiune arterial ă), but in English they use a different abbreviation, BP

(blood pressure). (Keresztes 2010)

We must give the full meaning of the acronyms and abbreviations. We must pay a special

attention when we translate original publications, case reports, case histories, hospital’s final

report, where the text, particularly the last two registers are teeming with the above mentioned

technical terms. There is no need to make it sound more Romanian or Hungarian, although we

have to look up each of them because sometimes there might be exception: for instance the

abbreviation for the hematocrit in English is hct , while in Hungarian is hc. (Keresztes 2010)

1.5. British vs. American English

The translator must know the origin of the source text because relevant differences may

occur in the professional American English and British English language. I would like to draw

attention to these differences which are very frequent. For example the dates: in British English

the sequence is day, month, year, yet in the American English month, day and year. This is

particularly delusive when the whole date is written in Arabic numerals and the month’s name isnot even abbreviated. It is important to know if a blood work expires on 1st October or on 10th of

January. Likewise some expressions could lead to a total misunderstanding: the “continue a

procedure” expression in the British English means to continue/go on with/proceed with the

procedure (a continua procedura), but in American English this means to postpone the

procedure (a amâna, întârzia procedura). The same applies to the “ proposal was tabled”



16

expression because in British English means the proposal was set, arranged while in American

English means the proposal was delayed. (Keresztes 2010)

If we are more familiar with the British English language, when we translate a text from

American English some difficulties may appear because of the spelling. For instance in American

English we write edema, but in British English it is oedema; A.E. esophagus, B.E. oesophagus;

A.E. etiology, B.E. aetiology. Particularly the beginning of a word should create a little

unsettlement (Keresztes 2010). When we are writing or translating a text we must always use the

proper (United Kingdom or USA) spell check or proofing tools software, which can detect the

problems and in some cases fix the problems.

Differences may occur in punctuation because the Americans use the semicolon and the

colon/double dot more rarely than the British. Although the use of these punctuations in the

Romanian language are more widespread in the field of medical literature.

1.6. The proofreading

We must pay a very special attention when we are proofreading the target text. The

incorrect use of punctuation may change the meaning of the message, or even it can make it

uninterpretable.

We must focus and be precise when we proofread our translation. Of course a proofreaderwill immediately observe because of the context, if the redox reactions is translated as bull

reactions (reac ț ie de taur ), but sometimes the erratum of figures is not that simple to notice when

we are proofreading - however the consequences can be fatal. We have to be careful with the use

of the decimal points: in English the comma in the case of numbers it is used for the separation of

the thousands, while in Romanian language it is used a full stop (point), and in English the full

stop (point) is used to separate the decimals, while in the Romanian language in this case it is

used a comma. We must always double check the numericals in the translated text.

1.7. Latin vs. English

The international medical terminology has undergone a huge transformation in the 20th

century. From the middle Ages until now the medical terminology was based on the Latin



17

vocabulary, but nowadays the classical language is replaced by the English language. Since we

live in the world of transformations, we witness the process of settling normative rules and

standardizing where the specificity of the lexicology, semantics, grammar, translations and

pragmatics requests this. It is not only about that the Latin -> English language exchange meets

today’s requirements. The expansion of the English language can be explained by the medical

science’s brand new fields, its border areas, and by the formed auxiliary sciences. These are

already built in the English language (microbiology, virology, immunology, biochemistry, stem

cell research, colposcopy). There are many novelties in the field of surgery (vascular surgery,

heart surgery, brain surgery), and new examinations and surgical procedures appeared, and these

are also in English, moreover even the specific field’s terminology is only in English. (Zimányi

2010)

According to Péter Bősze, the founder and chief editor of the Hungarian MedicalLanguage (Magyar Orvosi Nyelv) the medical profession gone under revolutionary changes,

namely because of the molecular biology’s expansion. With this, many new technical terms get

created, and of course mostly in English. About the main characteristics in today's international

medical language Bősze Peter writes the followings: “Nobody can deny that, the medical

literature and its professional international language is the English language. This is totally

appropriate, because the common language and the common interpretation is the medical

practice’s borderless part. It would be incorrect if every country would have to formulate its own

definitions: the situation would be confusing and this would create a lot of damage”. (I. 1: 2)

2. The general characteristics of the medical terminology

2.1. The requirements of the unification

The requirements for unification is not only true for the mentioned brand new fields(microbiology, virology, etc.), but it is also valid even for the classical anatomy, which got its

first unification in 1895 in Basel (the Basel Nomina Anatomica), when they agreed to only 5

thousand terms of 50 thousand proposed versions. After this the JENA version was created

(1935), the BIRMINGHAM (1950) and the last one in 1955 the Parisian revision. However in the

last century the specialized committee which works with the nomenclature is controlled by



18

English and lately even by American people (Zimányi 2010). This also explains the Anglicism

expansion. Against the terminology they set up three main requirements: semantic clarity,

linguistic acceptability and practice (II. 2: 9). Tibor Donáth explains why the international

medical language can borrow so easily the English terminologies instead of the previous Latin.

The English vocabulary contains 50% of Latin or Greek origin words, but in the case of

terminologies the rate is 70%.

In the case of periphrasis the grammatical structures go under a major change and instead

of the simple structured term a more complicated form is created: abductio humeri - abduction

motion of the arm at the shoulder . (Zimányi 2010)

The Latin and the Greek language - mostly for its word combination rules and because of

the semantic order of the word formation - was suitable excellently for the medical nomenclature.

Béla Buda talks about another consideration: that it is not a coincidence that even nowadays the

Greco-Latin terminology formation is in progress from such English words, which word’s

originate from one of the two classical language (II. 2: 6).

2.2. Expression types according to their origin

According to Zimányi Árpád, „based on the created mixed-language the following model

phrases can be divided” (the examples are from the field of intestinal surgery):

a) Double formations, which the Romanian terminology language use it alike:

i) Romanian/Latin: anastomoză /anastomosis;

ii)Latin/English: colostomia/colostomy.

b) Formations of one language:

i) Latin: diveticulitis ('diverticulită');ii) English: diverting colostomy, protective colostomy, blow-hole colostomy, temporary

colostomy;

c) Mixture of the formations:

i) English/Latin: end to endanastomosis (‘conecțiunea a celor două capete'),



19

ii) lower rectal anastomosis (‘anastomoza a rectului de mai jos').

2.3. Abbreviations with acronyms

As we have seen we meet with more and more complex English denominations whichare in fact periphrases, yet they are terms. Although the English language also shows the short

version of the acronym: gastroinestinal tract associated lymphoid tissue - GALT “tract

gastrointestinal cu ţ esut limfoid ”. It should be noted, that the English language frequently use

uppercase letters in terms (Gastroinestinal Tract Associated Lymphoid Tissue), although the

British governing writing exercise does not support this fully.

Because of the frequent use of abbreviations and acronyms we should create a more

clear picture. Their use are not trouble-free. There are acronyms that can be solved in many ways,

so they do not meet the requirements of the clarity: RSV - respiratory syncytial virus, or Rous

sarcoma virus. There are other problems with the simple idiomatic CD abbreviation: cell surface

determinant “ suprafa ț a celulelor determinant ” - being an international nomenclature, it can not

be replaced with an acceptable Hungarian abbreviation.

2.5. Semantic units

According to Imre Szirmai the stroke term should not be considered as a terminology, because many forms of diseases contain this term (brain embolism, brain infarction, brain

haemorrhage, cerbrovascular accident, cerebral accident, cerebral bleed, cerebral haemorrhage,

cerebral hemorrhage, CVA, hematencephalon, intracerebral hemorrhage), etc. Nowadays the

stroke term replaced the former ischemia. (III. 1: 25-6).



20

3. The analysis of medical terms

The medical terms can be divided into two major categories:

1. Descriptive- describing shape, color, size, function, etc

2. Eponyms

Eponym means a word or name derived from the name of a person. Eponyms are used

to honor the discoverer or who first described an anatomical structure or diagnosed a disease or

developed a medical instrument or procedure. Some examples of eponyms are “Alzheimer

disease” (which was first diagnosed by Alois Alzheimer) or “Gavriliu's operation” (which

procedure was developed by the Romanian surgeon Dan Gavriliu). The problem with the

eponyms is that they do not give enough useful information about what is or where to find the

item named. For instance if a physician says to his patient that he needs Plummer treatment, the

patient will have no idea what does he need to be cured (use of iodine for the treatment of

hyperthyroidism).

Recently some eponyms were changed with descriptive means, however some things

are known only by their eponym. Would you recognize "paralysis agitans" as Parkinson's

disease? Although some descriptive terms were judged as offensive or stigmatizing. For instance“leprosy” has been replaced with Hansen’s disease. Eponyms can be also found in other fields of

sciences (like architecture, law, etc).

According to the document “Ways of Translating Medical Terms from English into

Romanian” which I found on the internet1, a medical term contains three basic parts:

- word root (usually it is the middle of the term and its central meaning)

- prefix (comes at the beginning and usually identifies some subdivision or part of thecentral meaning)

1 The document was shared by Nicole Palada on www.docstoc.com on 02.19.2010. and unfortunately had no

author. We tried to contact the uploader Nicole Palada via e-mail and messages but we had no luck.

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/25867579/Ways-of-translating-English-Medical-Terms-Into-Romanian

Hereinafter referred to as “WTMTER”.



21

- suffix (comes at the end and modifies the central meaning as to what or who is interacting

with it or what is happening to it)

For instance:

Word Root

therm = heat hypothermia (less heat), thermometer (measuring heat)

Let us look at a real medical term and take it apart.

myocarditis (prefix) (root) (suffix)

myo = muscle card = heart itis = inflammation

(Table 1.)

The table above demonstrated the major parts of a medical term. The next table will

demonstrate how the prefix and suffix changes can alter the meaning of a term without changing

the central meaning and keeping the root the same.

Prefix change:

myocarditis = muscle layer of heart inflamed

pericarditis = outer layer of heart inflamed

endocarditis = inner layer of heart inflamed

(Table 2.)



22

The suffix is added to the end of the word and as a result it forms a new word. In

medical terminology the suffix provides very important clues about a word’s definition. For

instance, the suffix “-itis” means inflammation, so when we see a word ending with “-itis” we

know it refers to an inflammation.

Suffix change:

cardiologist = a physician specializing in the heart

Cardiomyopathy = damage to heart muscle layer

Cardiomegaly = enlargement of the heart

(Table 3.)

The following table contains the frequently used word beginnings (prefixes) and word

endings (suffixes) which are used to create many medical terms.

-itis = inflammation tonsillitis, appendicitis

-osis = abnormal condition cyanosis (of blueness, due to

cold or low oxygen)

-ectomy

= to cut out (remove) appendectomy, tonsillectomy

-otomy = to cut into tracheotomy (to cut into the

windpipe, temporary opening)

-ostomy

= to make a "mouth" colostomy (to make a permanent

opening in colon)



23

a/an = without, none anemia (literally no blood but

means few red cells)

Micro = small microstomia (abnormally small

mouth, see "stomy" in

colostomy above?)

macro = large macrostomia (abnormally large

mouth)

mega/ -

megaly

= enlarged megacolon (abnormally large

colon = large intestine)

-scopy/ -

scopic

= to look, observe colonoscopy (look into colon)

-graphy/ -

graph

= recording an image mammography (imaging

the breasts)

-gram = the image (X-ray) mammogram

(Table 4.)

According to the WTMTER document “before we start learning specific medical terms

for various systems of the body, we need to know word roots that identify major organs in the

body. Note in each example, we have used some prefix or suffix we have already been

introduced to.”

Stomato = mouth stomatitis

Dento = teeth dentist

Glosso/linguo = tongue glossitis, lingual nerve



24

Gingivo = gums gingivitis

Encephalo = brain encephalitis

Gastro = stomach gastrit is

Entero = intestine gastroenteritis

Colo = large intestine colitis, megacolon

Procto = anus/rectum proctitis, proctologist

Hepato = liver hepatitis, hepatomegaly

Nephro/rene = kidney nephrosis, renal artery

Orchido = testis orchiditis, orchidectomy

Oophoro = ovary oophorectomy

Hystero/metro =uterus hysterectomy,

endometritis

Salpingo = uterine tubes hystosalpingogram

Dermo = skin dermatitis

Masto/mammo = breast mammography,mastectomy

Osteo = bones osteoporosis





26

L. = Latin: acinus L. acinus = grape.

adipose L. adiposus; from adeps = fat.

ML. = Medieval Latin: bursa ML. bursa = a purse, hence any closed sac.

Mod.L. = Modern Latin: basilar Mod. L. basilaris = basal; originally from Gr. basis = a base.

serosa Mod. L. sersus = membrane giving off serum.

OE.= Old English: socket OE. socket = spearhead; from OF. soc = ploughshare. Later the

meaning was transferred to mean a sheath or holder, the hollow into which something fits.

OF. = Old French: ameloblast OF. en = on, amel = enamel, and Gr. blastos = germ.

Fr. = French: bruit Fr. bruit = sound or noise.

According to the WTMTER document there are some illustrative examples:

Ø Esophagus comes from Greek words meaning "that which swallows what we eat".

Ø Fallopian tubes. They are named after a 16th century Italian anatomist, Gabriello Fallopio.

Ø Placenta. It means a "flat cake" in Greek, simply describing its shape.

To understand the meaning of a medical term we have to look at the whole word.

4. Connections between English and Romanian Terminology in Medicine

The Romanian language went through a major change from a well-known wooden

language before the communist times to a more dynamic fresh and new language (Stiegelbauer,

Țirban, Bențe, 2012). The Romanian language is under the English language influence more than

ever. Since the English is now the most used language the most prominent influence on the

Romanian medical language has been that of English, and some old Latin terms got replaced by

the new English terms (for instance Apoplexy now is used as stroke). In the 20th century we can

notice the constant presence of new lexical elements in the medical terms corpus, which were

already fixed during the last centuries. The translation of medical terms from Romanian into





28

SUMMARYTo sum up, the medical translation is a really hard field of work and it can give some

serious headaches. We have to remember, if we accept to translate a medical text, we alwayshave to ask if we can contact the original author of the text, and ask if it is in American English

or British English, if there are no clues to notice it, because it could cause major errors and

problems in the final translation (like dates). If there are abbreviations in the source text we have

to be very precautious because some abbreviations might refer to something else than to some

usual terms. In the same time we have to explain the abbreviations, we should not presume that

the client or the reader will know the meaning of the given abbreviation or knows more than us,

so we should explain it. Also we have to be precautious with the eponyms, too because in

Hungarian we are talking about Röntgen-sugár while in English “X-ray” and in Romanian “Raze

X”. Sometimes the eponyms get new descriptive terms and descriptive terms eponyms, but this

does not mean that we should forget the old term, because there are physicians or laymen people,

who do not know the new term. If we really insist to use the new descriptive or eponym term then

we should also give or explain the old term too in parenthesis so the reader will not have

problems understanding it. The Romanian language went through a major change in the last

decade and became a more dynamic fresh and new language and since the English language has a

major influence on the Romanian language, many terms got renewed. If we are familiar only with

the old terms, then the Latin roots will help us to recognize or to understand the specific new

term.

As I stated above, medical translations can give us a serious headache, but after a while,

when we get familiar with it we will start enjoying it. After a lot of practice translating medical

texts will be like translating simple sentences in middle school.



29

CHAPTER II

1. An introduction to parallel corpus methodology

Translations as semantic data

Parallel corpora, in which original texts are aligned with their translations into another language,

are a rich source of semantic information. Translations come about when translators evaluate the

degree of interpretational equivalence between linguistic expressions in specific contexts. In

many ways such evaluations, made without any theoretical concerns in mind, seem more reliableas sources of semantic information than the careful paraphrases of the semanticist or the meaning

descriptions of the lexicographer. Assuming that this is the case, can we then retrieve some of the

semantic properties of expressions by going «backwards» from the network of translational

relations in situated texts? Can we reconstruct semantic properties from the

translational properties manifested in a parallel corpus?

We collected a corpus of parallel text in 2 languages from a medical course book, which was

published on the web.

Corpus Collection

Acquisition of a parallel corpus for the use in translation analysis typically takes five steps:

• obtain the raw data (e.g., by crawling the web)

• extract and map parallel chunks of text (document alignment)• break the text into sentences (sentence splitting)

• prepare the corpus for analysis (coding, tokenisation)

• map sentences in one language sentences in the other language (sentence alignment)



30

Document Alignment

To obtain the maximum amount of data, we match the study in both languages.

The document alignment is done without tokenization and sentence splitting.

Sentence Splitting and Tokenisation

Sentence splitting and tokenisation require specialized tools for each language. Unfortunately, we

do not have such tools available for the texts under consideration. Thus we matched separately

the ST and TT sentences.

The number of characters is and words is ……. after tokenization and sentence-alignment.

Sentence Alignment

Sentence alignment is usually a hard problem, but in our case it is simplified by the fact that the

texts are already available in paragraph aligned format. Each paragraph consists typically of only

2–5 sentences.

Methodology of the Research

The text was sent in .pdf format via e-mail including a picture. The text was assembled

together by myself and I included a lot of terminologies with problematic sentences, to which the

solutions can be found in my thesis. The chosen text was built up of two major sections: the first

one was a pure medical text and the second one was a medical-administrative text regarding the

healthcare system of Great Britain.

The translation contained not only terminological problems, but also simple

grammatical errors and problems. The source language is in English and the target language is

Romanian.

In the present chapter I would like to analyze the above mentioned translation which

was translated by an authorized translator working in Tg.Mureș. It was translated within 24 hours

and received in .doc format despite the fact, that the source text was sent in . pdf .



31

The source text will be marked by numbers starting with 1a) for the source text and 1b)

for the target text.

1a)

C.O.L.D.

Chronic obstructive lung disease is the co-occurrence of chronic bronchitis and

emphysema , a pair of commonly co-existing diseases of the lungs in which the airways

become narrowed. This leads to a limitation of the flow of air to and from the lungs,

causing shortness of breath (dyspnea). In clinical practice, COLD is defined by its

characteristically low airflow on lung function tests. In contrast to asthma, this limitationis poorly reversible and usually gets progressively worse over time.

1b)

B.P.O.C.

Boala pulmonar ă obstructivă cronică este co-apari ț ia bron şitei cronice şi a

emfizemei , o pereche de boli ale pl ămânilor ce co-existent ă în mod frecvent , în care căilerespiratorii se îngustează. Acest lucru duce la o limitare a fluxului de aer la şi de la

pl ămâni, provocând dificult ăț i de respira ț ie (dispnee). În practica clinică , B.P.O.C. este

definit ă de fluxul său de aer caracteristic scă zut, în testele func ţ ionale pulmonare. Spre

deosebire de astm, aceast ă limitare este u șor reversibil ă şi, de obicei, devine treptat mai

rea în timp.

The title already got my attention because according to the theoretical research I concluded that

we should not assume that the reader knows what this abbreviation stands for, although it is

mentioned in the first line but if I had to translate the text I would probably explain the

abbreviation of B.P.O.C. which stands for “ Boal ă pulmonar ă obstructivă cronică”.



32

In the source text I mentioned a term “emphysema” which was translated easily as “emfizemei”,

which is fortunately an accurate translation but grammatically it is wrong. It should have been

“emfizemului” instead of “emfizemei”. The grammatical mistake lies in the fact that the

grammatical gender of the Romanian noun emfizem is masculine, meaning that its suffixed form

should be emfizemului and not emfizemei.

The expression “ce co-existent ă în mod frecvent” is also incorrect grammatically, I had trouble

understanding it. If it was ”ce co-exist ă” instead of “ce co-existent ă în mod frecvent” there

would be no problems.

The phrase “ fluxul său de aer” is not the appropriate translation of the term “ flow of air” which

is a medical term and its translation would not need the insertion of any other word, yet the

translator interrupts the phrase completing it with a possessive pronoun. Such a translation procedure is not permitted in the case of specialized languages.

The phrase treptat mai rea în timp is a completely colloquial one, its use is not permitted in a

medical text. The adequate expression would be “această limitare este ușor reversibilă și de

obicei devine treptat mai accentuată”. The translator’s choice reflects his or her lack of skills in

the domain of specialized language.

2a)

COLD symptoms

- In advanced COLD, patients may develop cyanosis (bluish discoloration of the

lips and nail beds) due to a lack of oxygen in blood.

- They also may develop morning headaches due to an inability to remove carbon

dioxide from the blood.

- Weight loss occurs in some patients, primarily (another possibility is reduced

intake of food) because of the additional energy that is required to breathe.



33

2b)

Sipmtomele B.P.O.C.

- În cazul B.P.O.C. avansate , pacien ţ ii pot dezvolta cianoză (o decolorare

albă struie a buzelor şi rupere a unghiilor), din cauza lipsei de oxigen în sânge.

- De asemenea, ei pot dezvolta dureri de cap diminea ț a , din cauza unei

incapacit ăț i de a elimina dioxidul de carbon din sânge.

- Scăderea în greutate apare la unii pacien ţ i, în primul rând (o alt ă posibilitate

este consumul redus de alimente), datorit ă energiei suplimentare, care este necesar ă

pentru a respira.

Here the translator had a misspell in the subtitle. The term “ symptoms” was translated as

„Si pmtomele” which terminologically is correct, but since a misspell occurred we can not

consider it as a correct term. This proves that the authorized translator is not a professional

authorized translator. A professional translator should have a spellcheck software or the

Microsoft Office Proofing Tools kit which can detect similar problems and it can even correct the

problems. If the translator is not using a computer when translating, but rather uses the old-

fashioned pen and paper then the solution would be the many proofreading.

In this part of the text the “advanced ” is translated incorrectly because it is translated in plural

while it should be only in singular feminine form.

Also the “morning headaches” would sound better if it was translated as “dureri de cap

matinale” instead of the chosen version which is “dureri de cap diminea ț a”.

Between the penultimate and the last line there is line spacing, which was not included in the

original source text, thus the requirement of the formal equivalence is not respected in spite of the

fact that in case of specialized texts this would be essential.





35

Here the translator also translated the “advanced ” in plural form which should sound correct if it

was in feminine singular version, “avansat ă”.

In some parts of this translation the reader might have the impression that this text is rather

informal than formal. For instance you can not use phrases like “acest lucru” in this kind of rigid

text. In the opinion of the Katharina Reiss all the texts must be translated according to their text-

types’ specificities (Reiss, 1973). Thus rigid texts (Bart, 2002) like medical and legal or official

ones should be translated with an inflexible, monosemantic terminology respecting in the same

time the rules of formal appearance. If we read the text attentively we can easily observe that the

source text is not a weekday text, but rather a formal one.

The translator again had problems with the plural/singular forms of the term “crescute”, becauseit should be in singular form.

The translation contains the phrase Pacien ţ ii care sufer ă de B.P.O.C. pot tu și sânge, and though

later on the parenthesis makes reference to the medical term as well, we may conclude that the

Romanian version is neither correct terminologically nor adequate from the point of view of

language register. The Romanian expression is accurate only in weekday speech, maybe in a

dialogue with a patient, but not in a written and authentic medical text. Instead of it the translator

would have had two medical phrases to choose in between: “au tuse productive şi pot expectora

sânge sau au tuse cu expectora ţ ie sangvinolent ă .

The last item to mention regarding this fragment is the use of an inappropriate conjunctive

element that is in the Romanian text “cu toate acestea”, instead of the conjuction “dar”, that

would be the perfect match.



36

4a)

Pulmonary oedema

Pulmonary oedema, is fluid accumulation in the air spaces and parenchyma of thelungs. It leads to impaired gas exchange and may cause respiratory failure. It is due to

either failure of the left ventricle of the heart to adequately remove blood from the

pulmonary circulation ("cardiogenic pulmonary oedema"), see below, or an injury to the

lung parenchyma or vasculature of the lung ("noncardiogenic pulmonary oedema").

Whilst the range of causes are manifold the treatment options are limited, and to a large

extent, the most effective therapies are used whatever the cause. Treatment is focused on

three aspects, firstly improving respiratory function, secondly, treating the underlying

cause, and thirdly avoiding further damage to the lung. Pulmonary oedema, especially in

the acute setting, can lead to respiratory failure, cardiac arrest due to hypoxia and death.

4b)

Edemul pulmonar

Edem pulmonar, reprezint ă acumularea de lichid în spa ţ iile în aer şi parenchimul

pl ămânilor . Aceasta duce la afectarea schimbului de gaze și poate provoca insuficien ț a

respiratorie. Acest lucru se datorează fie lipsei ventriculului stâng al inimii de a elimina

în mod adecvat sângele din circula ț ia pulmonar ă ("edem pulmonar cardiogen "), a se

vedea mai jos, sau o leziune a parenchimului pulmonar sau vasculariza ț ia pulmonar ă

("edem pulmonar noncardiogenic " ). În timp ce gama cauzelor este multipl ă , op ţ iunile de

tratament sunt limitate, şi într-o mare mă sur ă , cele mai eficiente terapii sunt utilizate,

indiferent de cauză. Tratamentul este axat pe trei aspecte, în primul rând îmbunătăţ irea func ţ iei respiratorii, pe de alt ă parte, tratarea cauzei subiacente, în al treilea rând

evitarea deterior ării în continuare a pl ămânilor. Edemul pulmonar, în special în faza

acut ă , poate duce la insuficien ț a respiratorie, stop cardiac din cauza hipoxiei şi moarte.



37

In this part of the text I gave a clue for the translator, to observe whether the source text had been

drafted in British English or in American English. “Oedema” is the original Greek term formerly

known as dropsy or hydropsy, which is used only in the British English texts, while the “edema”

(dropping the “o” letter) is used in the American English language. This part is very relevant,

because there are major differences between the two territorial variants of the English language,

as I have already mentioned this aspect earlier in the theoretical part of my paper.

An other item that I also observed was that in the source text there is no line between the title and

the first paragraph but the translator insisted for the extra space. In the same time I also observed

some terminological problems and errors.

In the source text it is mentioned “air spaces” which was translated as “aer ” which in my opinionterminologically is wrong because it would suit more with “în alveole”.

Also “ parenchyma of the lungs” is translated with some problems because “ parenchimul

pl ămânilor” is incorrect not only terminologically but also grammatically. It should have been

“ parenchimul pulmonar”.

In this excerpt we also can observe phrasing problems as well. The Romanian sentence segment

introduced by the disjunctive conjunction fie must be used with its grammatical pair that is also

fie (just as the English either/or or neither/nor). The translator does not respect this rule, this

mistake making the text difficult to understand.

In the target text we can read “a se vedea mai jos” which is referring to the image below. In this

case the translator should have translated as “pe figura 2”.

The translator also had problems with the quotation marks because in the ("edem pulmonar

cardiogen "), part we can see space between the last word and quotation mark. Also in the ("edem

pulmonar noncardiogenic " ) part there is space not only between the last word and the quotation

mark, but after the quotation marks and before the parenthesis we can also see that space was

introduced.



38

5a)



39

5b)

[Ș tampile indescifrabile]

First of all the introduced picture was stretched in the target text and the quality of the image got

very low. The signature was removed in the target text (picture), it was not even mentioned if

there were any signatures.



40

6a)

CASE STUDY

HISTORY: This 54-year-old retailer who presents with acute shortness of breath,

hypertension, found to be in acute pulmonary oedema. No confirmed prior history of

heart attack, myocardial infarction, heart failure. History dates back to about six months

of intermittent shortness of breath, intermittent very slight oedema with shortness of

breath.

FAMILY HISTORY: Negative for coronary disease. Dad died of lung cancer.

LABORATORY STUDIES: On 04.02.07 white count : 6.7, hemoglobin 13, hematocrit

39.3. Potassium of 3.2.

RADIOGRAPHIC DATA: Chest x-ray, pulmonary oedema, cardiomegaly. PLAN: Admit. Aggressive heart failure management. Get echo. After discharge another

meeting on 04.05.07 to get extra medication if needed.

TREATMENT: Medication: Coenzyme Q10 (100 mg two times per day), L-carnitine (500

mg three times per day).

6b)

STUDIU DE CAZ

ISTORIC: Acest vânzător în vârst ă de 54 de ani, care se prezint ă cu dificult ăţ i de

respira ţ ie acut ă , hipertensiune arterial ă , sufer ă de edem pulmonar acut. În antecedente

nu s-a confirmat atac de cord, infarct miocardic, insuficien ţă cardiacă. Antecedentele

datează de aproximativ şase luni de dificult ăţ i de respira ţ ie intermitent ă , edem

intermitent foarte u şor, cu dificult ăţ i de respira ţ ie.

ISTORICUL FAMILIEI: Negativ în cazul bolii coronariene. Tat ăl a decedat, fiind

diagnosticat cu cancer pulmonar.

STUDII DE LABORATOR: În data de 02.04.07 numărul celulelor albe: 6,7, hemoglobina

13, hematocrit 39.3. Potasiu de 3,2.



41

DATE RADIOGRAFICE: radiografie pulmonar ă , edem pulmonar, cardiomegalie.

PLAN: Recunoa şte. Tratarea insuficien ţ ei cardiace agresive. A se efectua eco.

După efectuare, o alt ă întâlnire în data de 05.04.07 pentru a ob ţ ine medicamente

suplimentare , dacă este necesar.

TRATAMENT: Medica ț ie: Coenzima Q10 (100 mg de două ori pe zi), L-carnitina

(500 mg de trei ori pe zi).

The title of the next part is Case Study, this being translated into Romanian with the phrase

Studiu de Caz. In the Romanian medical practice physicians rather prefer the expression

Prezentare de Caz.

The first paragraph named “ HISTORY ” was translated as “ ISTORIC ” which in fact is used as

“antecedente” by the physicians.

As I have mentioned above this is not a weekday text, so you can not say “vânzător”, although it

is mentioned as “retailer” in the source text, but it would sound more formal with “pacient” in the

target text. This latter option seems to be better also because of the Romanian medical practice

which identifies patients by their names and gender, their occupation being relevant only when

the physician must deal with a professional disease.

Here I also observed that the translator the History dates back part translated as “ Antecedentele

datează”. In my opinion it would be a more accurate translation with “simptomele datează”, term,

because physicians use this more often in this case, than “antecedentele datează”.

The second paragraph named “FAMILY HISTORY” was translated as “ISTORICUL FAMILIEI”.

Grammatically this translation is correct, but the Romanian physicians rather use “Antecedente

familiale”.

Earlier I mentioned that I gave a clue for the translator to notice if the source text is in British or

American English language, and it is now that this clue plays a role of major importance. As I



42

stated in my thesis it is very important to know whether the source text is in British or American

English, because if a date has to be translated it may cause some headaches.

In this part of the text I wrote three dates, which could mean 4th of August 2007 , or 8th of April

2007 . Here the translator was not attentive enough, because the date was in British Englishversion (day, month, year), yet the translator translated it as if it was an American English date

(month, day, year), because since the American English language is known better than the British

English, the translator thought this text’s language was American English.

At the laboratory studies part the translator translated the term “white count” as “celule albe”

which in fact should be “leucocite”. Here also I can mention that the translator didn’t defined the

unit of the white counts which should be “millimolar ”, though in the source text it is not

mentioned, but if I were to translate this part, I would include the unit as well. The Romanian

simple preposition “de” at the “Potasiu” part is not necessary.

The “ RADIOGRAPHIC DATA” part should have been translated as “ Radiografie toracică

pulmonar ă: edem pulmonar, cardiomegalie” because it would sound more familiar for the

physicians.

In the next part I would like to mention that the English physicians might prefer the “ PLAN”

term, but the Romanian physicians prefer more the term “ Recomand ări”. This also proves that

the translator is not familiar enough with the field of the medical science. In this part the original

text contained a term “admit ”, which was translated as “recunoa ște”. This is a loan translation or

metaphrase because literally it means “to admit if we did something wrong” for instance, or more

likely a synonym “to confess”, but in this case, since this text is rather a formal, a medical one, its

context indicates that here the “admit” means something else. The term may have two meanings:

the first one would be “admit” as to “accept the treatment” but its major meaning would be the

term which means that the patient will be “interned” while the patient will be examined andtreated. In this part I noticed another problem with the target text, which is “ A se efectua eco”.

Since as I stated above that this medical text is not a weekday text, the term “eco” should not be

shortened, but rather written down entirely as “ultrasonografie” or “ecografie”.





44

7b)

PPA

Activitatea PPA este fundamental ă pentru plata şi administrarea bugetului

profesioni ştilor implica ţ i în îngrijirea principal ă a pacientului. Serviciile lor de

prescriere de informare furnizează blocurile de construc ţ ie de bază care să permit ă

îngrijirea îmbunătăţ it ă a pacientului şi pentru gestionarea performan ţ ei din sectorul

asisten ţ ei medicale primare.

- De a calcula şi efectua pl ăţ i pentru sume datorate către farmaci şti şi

contractan ţ i, şi de a calcula sumele datorate medicilor generali şti, pentru oferirea demedicamente şi dispozitive prevă zute în cadrul NHS;

- De a furniza informa ţ ii pentru medicii generali şti (GPS), asistente medicale,

trusturi de îngrijire primar ă (PCT) şi alte părţ i interesate cu privire la NHS cu privire la

volumele de prescriere, tendin ţ e şi costuri;

- De a gestiona o serie de beneficii de sănătate, inclusiv Sistemul de Venituri

Minime NHS, Certificate medicale şi de maternitate de scutire, Certificate de pre-plat ă

prescrise şi Scutirile fiscale de credit.

First of all the translator again inserted an empty space between the title and the first line which is

not present in the original source text and has a paragraph space, which was not present in the

source text.

Also the translator didn’t even try to explain the PPA acronym, thus the reader cannot easily

make the match between the denoted object of the original acronym and its target equivalent that

would be CNAS (Casa Națională de Asigur ări de Sănătate). An explicitation should have been

used in English as well, but probably in the context of Great Britain’s health system such an





46

8b)

Sistemul de îngrijiri de sănătate din Marea Britanie

Ce anume sunt finan ț ate?

Serviciile: acoperire finan ţ ate din fonduri publice: Serviciul Na ţ ional de S ănătate

(NHS), acoper ă serviciile de prevenire; îngrijire medical ă (de specialitate) pentru

pacien ț ii sta ț ionari și ambulatorii (ambulator); servicii ale medicului (medic generalist),

medicamente pentru pacien ț ii sta ț ionari și ambulatorii, îngrijire dentar ă , îngrijire a

sănătăţ ii mintale; învăţ area handicapurilor, precum şi reabilitare.

Repartizarea costurilor: Exist ă relativ pu ţ ine acorduri de repartizare a costurilor pentru serviciile finan ț ate din fonduri publice. Medicamentele prescrise de către medicii

de familie sunt supuse unei co-pl ăț i (£ 6,85 per prescrip ţ ie; 13.79 dolari) , dar

aproximativ 88% din re ț ete sunt scutite de taxe (Departamentul de S ănătate 2007).

Servicii de Stomatologie sunt supuse unei co-pl ăţ i de până la aproximativ 200 de lire

sterline pe an (aproximativ $ 400), de şi exist ă dificult ăţ i în ob ţ inerea de servicii

stomatologice de la NHS în unele zone. Pl ăţ ile din buzunar au reprezentat 11,9% din

totalul cheltuielilor pentru sănătate în 2005 (Organiza ţ ia Mondial ă a S ănătăţ ii 2007).

Cum sunt controlate costurile?

Guvernul stabile şte bugetul pentru NHS pe un ciclu de trei ani. Pentru a controla

utilizarea şi costurile, guvernul stabile şte un buget total redus pentru PCT. Trusturi NHS

şi PCT-urile se preconizează a atinge echilibrul financiar în fiecare an. Sistemul

centralizat administrativ tinde să ducă la costuri generale mai mici. Alte mecanisme care

contribuie la o valoare mai bună pentru bani includ dispozi ţ iile pentru evaluarea

sistematică a noilor tehnologii, prin intermediul Institutului Na ţ ional de S ănătate şi

Excelen ţă Clinică (NICE).



47

In the first paragraph a misspell problem or maybe because of lack of knowledge the translator

translated the term “ambulatory” as “ambulator” which term is rather used as “ambulatoriu” in

the Romanian language.

Here also I would like to mention that the translation’s appearance does not match with the

source text’s. Contrary to the previous part of the text, here the translator explained the

abbreviation for the “NHS” as “Serviciul Na ţ ional de S ănătate (NHS)”.

Also in the penultimate paragraph I observed that the currency was left as in the source text. In

my opinion, if I had to translate this text, I would give an approximate RON value, since it was

translated into Romanian, so the client would get a more clear picture of its value. In the last

paragraph of the “The UK Health Care System - What is covered” the translator translated the“Out-of-pocket payments” as “ Pl ăţ ile din buzunar” which sounds rather informal than formal, so

in my opinion if it was translated as “Sumele neimpozitate” it would sound more better, since the

target text is not a fairy tale.



48

CONCLUSION

As a conclusion what I remarked was that the translator had some serious problems with

the medical terms and in some cases with simple grammatical structures. Although, the second

part of the translation where were less medical terms was way much better, but the final

translation was not satisfying at all. Some important abbreviations were not explained nor

translated, and as I stated in my thesis we should not assume that the client or the reader has more

knowledge of the topic than us. If I had created a similar translation I would not have given this

work out of my hands. The translator did not notice that this text was a formal one so the

translation became informal, which is a major problem. Also the translator did not know forcertain terms which are more used by and are more familiar for the physicians. The problems

with the dates were not minor errors but huge problems. These errors could cause even the death

of a patient if we are translating for instance an expiration date. As I observed, the translator is

not quite familiar with and proficient in the field of the medical texts. I believe that after the text

was translated, there was no proofreading at all. The translator has a minor background

knowledge regarding medical science but that is not enough for an authorized translator.

Since I had the chance to translate medical texts I noticed that this field is not as easy as it

seems. I had to translate an orthopedic final exam from Hungarian into Romanian with

approximately 60 pages. It took a lot of time until I got friendly with the text and got

accommodated with its style and structure but in the end everything went better than expected.



49

REFERENCES

DEMETER Éva,Az orvosi szaknyelv, Szaknyelvi kommunikáció, 219. pg., ed. Dobos Csilla, Tinta Kiadó,

Budapest

FOGARASI Katalin,

2010, A beteg neve: orvosi szaknyelv, MANYE (Hungarian Association of Applied Linguistics

and Language teachers), ZIMÁNYI Árpád (editor), Vol. 6., pg. 952., Székesfehérvár

ZIMÁNYI Árpád,

2010, Latin vagy angol? Orvosi szaknyelvünk dilemmái, MANYE (Hungarian Association of

Applied Linguistics and Language teachers), ZIMÁNYI Árpád (editor), Vol. 6., pg. 959.,

Székesfehérvár

KERESZTES Csilla,

2006. Orvosi - egeszségtudományi szakszövegek fordításának nehézségei. In: Fordítástechnikai

útmutató. Környei Tibor (editor). Magyarországi Fordítóirodák Egyesülete. Budapest. 38 - 46 pp.

WTMTER - Ways of Translating Medical Terms from English into Romanian – shared by Nicole

Palada on docstoc.com on 02.19.2010.

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/25867579/Ways-of-translating-English-Medical-Terms-Into-

Romanian

Gunnarsson, B.L.

1997. On the sociohistorical construction of scientific discourse. In Gunnarsson, B.L. - Linell P. –

Nordberg, B (eds.): The construction of professional discourse. London: Longman.



STIEGELBAURE Laura Rebeca Precup, ȚIRBAN Narcisa, BENȚE Cristian

Are there Connections between English and Romanian Terminology in Medicine? - 2012

International Conference on Language, Medias and Culture IPEDR vol.33 (2012) IACSIT Press,

Singapore

BŐSZE Péter

(chief editor of) Magyar Orvosi Nyelv 2001-

Documents

Theory and Practice of Medical Translations