Strategies of Rendering English Medical Terminology into Russian Within a Fictional Text

Abstract

Abstract. This article explores the problem of rendering medical terminology in a fictional text. The findings are based on the comparative analysis of the original and translated versions of "The Signature of All Things" by E. Gilbert (translated into Russian by Yu. Zmeyeva). The aim of the present study is to analyze the translation procedures applied for rendering medical terminology outside of a specialized text, and to evaluate the Russian version in terms of its adequacy and acceptability. To achieve this aim we used the descriptive statistical analysis, distributional analysis of the translation techniques, contrastive analysis in order to evaluate the translation's adequacy and acceptability. Results of the study suggest that medical terminology in fiction is rarely rendered by the direct equivalents or borrowings (26.02%), which are reflected in the etymological discrepancy of the source language (SL) and target language (TL) texts. Among the literal translation techniques calques predominated (49.02% vs. 31.37% -transcriptions and 19.61% -borrowings), while among the oblique translation techniques amplifications took a prominent position (31.72% vs. 10.34% -compressions/reductions, 8.28% -displacements/inversions, 15.86% -transpositions, 9.66% -modulations, 13.11% -variations, 11.03% -discursive creations). Preponderance of amplifications and overall tendency towards oblique rendering signals an acceptability-oriented translation strategy. Keywords: medical terminology, English to Russian, translation, rendering terminology, fiction text. IntroductionDue to a high popular demand for an erudite (intellectual) fiction, a new type of hybrid texts replete with terminological units and possessing rhetorical properties of scientific and technical literature has evolved. However, unlike in the movies and TV-series (Lozano and Matalava 2009, Jaskanen 1999), the ratio of special terminology (in our case, medical), its characteristics and functioning in fiction has never been consistently researched. By extension, the factors influencing the effectiveness of translation when medical terminology is in focus remain unaddressed. Our study is aimed at examining the strategies applied in rendering such texts, allowing us to make a conclusion whether the translation is adequacy-oriented or acceptability-oriented. The hypothesis that the hybrid fictional texts with a high ratio of medical terminology require sense-for-sense, rather than word-for-word translation techniques promoted the study of etymological features of the corresponding terminology in the original and translated versions of "The Signature of All Things" by E Gilbert. Further, a descriptive statistical analysis of literal and oblique translation techniques was made to prove our claim.Presence of the terminology (LSP) has long been considered an indicative feature of scientific and technical texts. However, nowadays we observe the development of a more diversified discourse typology: fiction amalgamates characteristics of the previously disconnected disc...

Translation Strategies Used by Student Translators in Solving Equivalence Finding-Related Problems

“…Although a number of studies on translation strategies have been done, other studies on translation strategies are always expected because of different text types. Several studies have been conducted on strategies in translating legal texts (Galdia, 2013;Stepanova, 2017), medical texts (Eszenyi, 2016;Povoroznyuk, 2014), religious texts (Agliz, 2016;Khammyseh, 2015), science and technology texts (Tuan, 2011;Zheng, 2017), and literary translation (Kazakova, 2015;Klimovich, 2016;Suo, 2015). In addition, different translation strategies are also used in different languages due to their different cultures.…”