Guidelines for the beginner medical translator
practically applied and analysed. Nederlands, Utrecht University,2011
Before going into all the accompanying factors that make the translation process easier or more difficult for the medical translator, a proper background has to be given in order to root the main purpose behind this thesis. The foundation then will start off by describing the current situation of medical translation literature. Then, it will mention and justify the texts that have been used for the purpose of this thesis. The types of text that a medical translator can encounter will have a varying level of suitability. It will show how some texts will benefit the translator greatly, while others should be avoided if possible. The target audience is arguably the main reason behind the difficulty of any text and therefore special respect is paid to this factor in the following part. However, the function of the text should also be kept in mind as is closely related to the target audience.
Fortunately, all medical translators have available resources, whether these are dictionaries, help from experts or other sources, all additional information will benefit their translation. In the part where resources are discussed there is also a short comparison between the situation for the medical translator in a country such as Nigeria and the situation for a medical translator in the Netherlands. This story will show that due to sociocultural, linguistic and cultural reasons the situation and the forthcoming conditions can differ greatly for medical translators around the world. However, to this point, there are several guidelines to aid the medical translator, but they are usually scattered among a number of different texts. One expection to this is the book Medical Translation Step by Step (Montalt Resurreccio and Gonzalez Davies, 2007). The authors cover a lot of guidelines throughout the chapters. However, they give general guidelines, not specified according to a specific target audience and different audiences require different approaches. This thesis will go into just that, ultimately resulting in one source text that is translated for the main three different target audiences. The guidelines mentioned throughout this dissertation will be categorized accordingly. Therefore, the final part of this chapter will discuss the need for a set of guidelines specified to the target audience the translation is intended for. Having these guidelines categorized according to a specific target audience the novice translator who wants to focus on the medical field will be enabled to kick-start his carrier in this respect.
infotra 