LICENCE PROJECT

Difficulties in Translation of
Medical Terminology
(Case Study)
Written by Vera URCANU
 INTRODUCTION
The Licence project consists of: an Introduction, two
Chapters, Conclusion, Bibliography and an Appendix.
Chapter I is GENERAL FEATURES OF THE
TERMINOLOGY TRANSLATION. It includes three
subpoints dedicated to the The Main Factors of
Specialized Translation, Translation Norms of
Specialized Terminology and Types of Translation
Techniques . (It is theoretical part)
 INTRODUCTION
Chapter II is entitled LEXICAL AND
GRAMMATICAL HINDRANCES IN
TRANSLATION OF SPECIALIZED
TERMINOLOGY. It includes two subpoints
dedicated to the Classification of Medical
Terminology and Hardship in Translation of
Medical Terminology. (It is our practical part)
 The objectives of our investigation are the
following:

to research the history and modern works on

terminology, the sources of terminology, the semantic
characteristics of terms;
to elaborate an overview on the medical terminology;
to analyze and classify medical terms;
to show the role of medical terms in specialized texts.
 For our main objectives we used the
following methods of investigation:

Analytical analysis of medical terms and their

Romanian and Spanish equivalents.

Contrastive analysis of English medical terminology

and its equivalents in Romanian and Spanish
languages.
 The Novelty of this project
consists in the analyzed and
translated medical terminology
used in the specialized texts and in
the solution of the translation
problems of medical terms.
 Chapter I GENERAL FEATURES OF
THE TERMINOLOGY TRANSLATION

This is theoretical part of our investigation.

Here we investigated The Main Factors of
Specialized Translation; we study The
Translation Norms of Specialized Terminology
and The Types of Translation Techniques.
 Chapter II. LEXICAL AND GRAMMATICAL
HINDRANCES IN TRANSLATION OF
SPECIALIZED TERMINOLOGY.
This is our practical part. In this chapter we speak
about The Hardship in Translation of Medical Terms
and make The Classification of Medical Terms
(Structural and Etymological). We present the
classification analysis which is made in the following
way: we give the definition of the term, the example
of its usage in English and the translation in
Romanian and Spanish.
 Chapter II. LEXICAL AND GRAMMATICAL
HINDRANCES IN TRANSLATION OF
SPECIALIZED TERMINOLOGY.
For example:
hypothermia (less heat), noun, in Romanian hipotermie.
In medicine we use many expressions with this term, such as:
EN:He died of hypothermia up there, and that is what the
inquest said.
RO: El a murit de hipotermie , asta e ceea ce a spus ancheta.
SP: Muri de hipotermia , y es lo que dice la investigacin.
 Chapter II. LEXICAL AND GRAMMATICAL
HINDRANCES IN TRANSLATION OF
SPECIALIZED TERMINOLOGY.
Then we make the etymological analysis and
present the terms origin with the expressions
widely used in Medicine. All the medical terms are
translated into Romanian in order to be
understandable. And all of them are extracted from
the specialized texts which I had to translate
during my Translation Practice.
Chapter II. LEXICAL AND GRAMMATICAL
HINDRANCES IN TRANSLATION OF
SPECIALIZED TERMINOLOGY.
for example:
Vascularization = from Latin vascularis or
pertaining to vessels or tubes (noun, sg.) the
chronical inflammation of small blood vessels.
Vasculia (RO) (subs. fem. sg.)
Chapter II. LEXICAL AND GRAMMATICAL
HINDRANCES IN TRANSLATION OF
SPECIALIZED TERMINOLOGY.
In this example we can see, that the word root is not
usually capable of standing alone as a complete
word within a sentence. This is different than most
word roots in modern standard English. The
medical word root is taken from a different source
language, so it will remain meaningless as a stand-
alone term in an English sentence.
 Chapter II. LEXICAL AND GRAMMATICAL
HINDRANCES IN TRANSLATION OF
SPECIALIZED TERMINOLOGY.
Or another example:
Secreted proteins - adjective +noun, in Romanian proteine secrete. Here is
an example:
EN: New research reveals that secreted proteins in wheat may be
detrimental to all humans.
RO: Noua cercetare relev c proteinele secrete de gru pot fi duntoare
pentru toti oamenii.
SP: Una nueva investigacin revela que protenas secretadas, pueden ser
perjudiciales para todos los seres humanos.
 Chapter II. LEXICAL AND GRAMMATICAL
HINDRANCES IN TRANSLATION OF
SPECIALIZED TERMINOLOGY.

In this sample we can observe that the particular feature

in the classification of this medical term combination is
that it gives no useful information about what is or where
to find the item named. Also we can see that medical texts
usually do not have too many terms, because there is the
risk of people not understanding it. These are replaced by
medical collocations.
 CONCLUSION
After making the research of our Licence project, we
have come to the conclusion that in each developed
literary language more or less certain systems of
language expression differ from each other by features of
the use of public language means. Analyzing the medical
terminology of Latin and Greek origins in medical
specialized texts and to translate them from English into
Romanian and vice versa. We touched the idea that
terminology, as a branch of science is not simply a total
sum of its terms, but it is a definite system reflecting the
system of its notions.
 CONCLUSION
Terminological systems may be regarded as intersecting sets,
because some terms belong simultaneously to several
terminological systems. We described the structure of medical
terminology and the role of medical terms in medical specialized
texts. Terminology constitutes the greatest part of any language
vocabulary and it is also its most intensely developing part that is
the class giving the largest number of new formations.
Terminology of a language consists of many systems of terms.
The scope and content of the notion that a term serves to express
are specified by definitions.
 CONCLUSION
During the developing of the topic we find out that medical
terminology is a specialized language used by health care
practitioners. And just like a foreign language, it has its own
vocabulary and ways of stringing together words in an
acceptable, understandable to everyone format. From the
examples presented in the practical chapter of this paper we can
follow that it is very hard and sometimes almost impossible to
understand medical texts without knowing the meaning of the
medical terminology used there.
 CONCLUSION
A great help in understanding medical terminology is
provided by the specialized dictionaries. We have found
out that the majority of the medical terms are of Latin
and Greek origins. Thus, we can say that in the process of
translation of specialized texts, and in our case this is the
domain of Medicine, one has to be attentive in order to
avoid deviations from the meaning of the text, not to
create ambiguities in translation, make it difficult or even
impossible the receiving of basic ideas of text between
people speaking different languages.
 CONCLUSION
There are some particular problems in the translation
process of the medical terms: problems of ambiguity
and lack of knowledge of medical terms. The field of
medicine is constantly developing. Due to the
appearance of new diseases, new drugs and new
methods of treatment, the medical vocabulary is being
enlarged with new terms very rapidly. It is one of the
fields with great research potential.
 CONCLUSION
The need of English as a professional language
in medicine is nowadays beyond doubts. Today,
in the modern medical practice, doctors are
constantly exposed to the English language.
Unless one knows enough English to read the
medical literature, it is very hard to keep up to
date with medical advances.
 THANK YOU FOR
YOUR ATTENTION!