A Report On The Translation Of Medical Documents From The Perspective Of Functional Equivalence Theory

The globalization of modern medical industry contributes to the sharing of medical information and plays a vital role in promoting the development of medical technology and new drugs in countries around the world.The medical documents,as an important bridge for professionals to know the latest medical information,have introduced advanced technology in various fields,clinical trials of medicine,and the latest research results of world medical issues.Therefore,the translation of medical documents is of great practical significance to better realize the international exchange of medical information and promote the external development of medical industry of China.However,there is a shortage of medical translators in China,and the clinical research data of oral medicine for diabetes is also limited.Therefore,the report,through translation and study of four medical papers on oral administration of diabetes,aims to provide rich materials for the study of diabetic drugs in clinical trials in China and promote the research of the frontier technology in diabetes and further development of clinical medicine of China.It is self-evident that translation theory plays a guiding role in translation practice.Therefore,it is essential to find a proper translation theory to guide the translation so as to realize accuracy and smoothness.Functional Equivalence theory mainly includes four principles: lexical equivalence,syntactic equivalence,textual equivalence,and stylistic equivalence.That is to say,the translation should be able to accurately convey the information of the original from semantics to style,which is consistent with the characteristics of medical documents.Functional Equivalence Theory emphasizes that “meaning is more important than form,”which is also in line with the requirements of “rigorousness and faithfulness” in medical text translation.In this sense,Functional Equivalence Theory indeed has a guiding role in the translation of medical English documents.This report is based on four research papers on the efficacy of oral administration of semaglutide in patients with Type 2 diabetes mellitus.It is concluded that the medical paper features as accuracy,fluency,and conciseness.Through further analysis,the medical terminology,specialized abbreviations,and amphibious words are shown at lexical level;the passive sentences,attributive sentences as well as long and difficult sentences are often used at syntactic level;cohesive devices such as reference and conjunction are used at textual level.Based on the Functional Equivalence Theory,the report gives the corresponding translation techniques and analyzes them with specific cases according to their linguistic features.At the lexical level,the strategies of literal and free translation for the medical terminology,zero translation for the abbreviation,and extension for the amphibious words are adopted.At the syntactic level,conversion from passive voice into active voice,division,as well as splitting and recasting can be applied into translation of passive sentences,attributive sentences,and long and difficult sentences respectively.At the textual level,repetition and addition can be employed to the translation with cohesive devices of reference and conjunction so that the whole text can achieve cohesion and coherence.After the translation practice,it can be concluded that under the Functional Equivalence Theory,various translation techniques should be flexibly adopted to achieve equivalence in vocabulary,syntax and text so that the rigorous,concise and objective characteristics of medical English can be reflected in the translation.In this process,Nida’s Functional Equivalence Theory is enriched and the application of it in medical text translation is widened,which pave the way for applying this theory to other translation studies of similar texts,thus better providing a guidance for medical translation.At the same time,it is expected that the preliminary research of this practical report can provide reference and materials for medical translation and guidance for clinical research of oral medication for Type 2 diabetes.