A Report On Translation Of Medical Articles In The Lancet

Medical English, as an important branch of English for Science and Technology (EST), has its unique stylistic features. Medical translation enjoys a fairly long history in China which can date back to the translation of the Buddhist Scripture in the Qin and Han Dynasties. As an effective access to advanced medical information, medical translation serves as an important means to promote development of domestic medicine.This report is mainly based on an E-C translation task of a series of medical articles in The Lancet entrusted by Sichuan Gowell Pharmaceutical Co.,Ltd in the year 2013. In view of the length (27,405 words) and high demand for preciseness and professionalism, the task was performed by the author under the guidance of an experienced senior translator. A review of relevant researches in recent years has found that most of the studies have laid their focus on solutions to specific problems, few have ever attempted to discuss from the theoretical point of view. Starting with an analysis of the lexical and syntactic features of medical English and based on a task the author was assigned to and has completed, the author integrates theories of the German Functionalism School, mainly Reiss’s text typology and the Skopos theory in her discussion and elaborates three guiding principles and some specific methods and techniques for medical translation.As the report reveals, when undertaking medical translation tasks, a translator should first analyze the text type and figure out the purpose and function of the target text. On this basis, the author also stresses the importance of knowledge reserve and suggests the use of CAT technology as an aid to assure accuracy and coherence of the translation. The author hopes that this study could offer reference to relevant researches thereafter.