French Medical Literature Translation Practice Report

Since ancient times,translation activities have always been carried out in response to the demands of socio-economic and cultural development,especially in the modern time when globalization has become an irreversible trend.The diffusion of new conceptions and techniques depends very much on translation,so as to achieve the overall development of a certain field.Under the background of an increasing aging population in China,many foreign pension service entreprises are targeting the Chinese market,for example the Orpea group,the French leader in this field.Their asset to attract Chinese customers is their advanced conceptions and experiences of caring the elderly.To make these concepts understood by the Chinese medical team,translation is indispensable.This article has chosen two nursing documents as the subject of the translation.The two documents introduce a special nursing for the independent persons:the Snoezelen.These documents include multidisciplinary knowledge,such as medicine,nursing,psychology,etc.There are so many terms,this requires a large storage of the translator's specialized knowledge.Moreover,since these documents have a dual objective:to disseminate theoretical knowledge and to direct the practice of care,the translated documents must not only faithfully transmit the scientific information but also guarantee the fluidity and comprehensibility of the translated texts.There are therefore three difficulties in translating documents:first,a large number of scientific terms,especially those without corresponding Chinese version;second,the difficulty caused by the syntactic differences between French and Chinese;third,the abstract words and expressions of psychology and philosophy that make the translated text difficult to understand.Using the Skopos theory,the author analyzed the two language functions of texts,i.e.the informative function and the appellative function,The informative function emphasizes the transmission of information,knowledge and opinions,so the translated text must be complete and faithful in transmitting information.The appellative function aims to affect and persuade the reader.Then the author chooses the corresponding translation strategies by using several translation techniques to make the translated texts easy to understand.Moreover,through concrete cases,the author distinguished two concepts,i.e.translation difficulties and translation problems,as well as described the process of translation.The Skopos theory is presented on the basis of a lot of translation practices,then complemented and developed by several researchers.This is why it is widely accepted for its guiding effect in practice.We can take advantage of the Skopos theory to translate medical and nursing documents in order to reserve the style of the original text and make the translated text comprehensible,as well as receive positive feedback from the readers on the translated text.