The peculiarities of medical terms translation into Russian

Zhalikenova R.S., senior teacher of KSMU, Tleu A., the student of the 2 course “Medical prophylactic faculty”

Филологические науки/6. Актуальные проблемы перевода

There are a lot of borrowed words from Latin into English vocabulary especially in scientific field. A great part of Greek borrowings invade English vocabulary through Latin. No wonder that similarity of the Latin and English roots or suffixes can help to define the meaning of a word. For example, «endocardial» which we met in the text for the first time can be defined as «внутрисердечный» due to the word -formation elements: “cardis-” means “сердце” known for the students as anatomical term, and “endo-” is a prefix with the meaning “внутри”, and “-al” can be correlated with Latin suffix of adjective ”-alis”.

A great number of words with non-terminological character can also be recognized and understood due to the similarity of word-formation elements (severe-severus, rate-ratio, difficult-difficultas and etc.).

The main task of English scientific medical literature is to make information clear to the readers. Thus – we have logically grounded exposition of the facts without using the emotional expressions. Terms play an important role there.

Terms take a great place in the text. The development of terminology occurs in different ways. Sometimes a word becomes a term isolating from the common vocabulary (“simple” – лекарственная трава) or sometimes a term invades the common vocabulary and obtains all the feature of a common word.

It has been discovered the tendency to narrowing the meaning of the word to highly specialized meaning (disk- «сосочек зрительного нерва»). The instability in usage of some terms or parallelism are to be observed in appearance of new terms.

The quantity of the root medical terms due to the derivatives is about 20 %. Derivative terms are generally formed by combination of root elements that are very productive and serve as basis for the formation of the new terms.

As some medical terms invade Latin from Greek we should distinguish the constructive parts of a word. The indication to the Greek origin is very important since this factor can help to define the meaning of the unknown word: Latin terms are related to Anatomy and Pharmacology, Greek terms – to pathological process. For example, “glandilema” (from Latin – железа –gland – название части органа «капсула железа», and adenoma - from the Greek root- ”aden” - железа) –заболевание «опухоль железы».

Borrowing of the meaning of the main term-elements is very important. Thus new term occurs in medical literature, especially in periodical which can be devided into –simple - caecum – слепая кишка, collapse- резкий упадок сил, longisection-продольный, pneumography - запись дыхательных движений, and terms –word combinations; mental affection – умопомешательство,riverbottom disesse – анемия лошадей, brainpan – черепная коробка, sleepwalking – соннабулизм, bottle-fed – вскармливаемый искусственно.

Multicomponent terms can be word-combinations, where the semantic communication between components is expressed grammatically (with a help of prepositions or endings) or by parataxis.

Determinant component of term – word combination can be expressed by a group of words: adjective + adjective or noun (high colonic irrigation) – высокая клизма, red blood cell -–красная кровяная клетка, white blood cell – белая кровяная клетка, noun+noun or Participle(bed-wetting disease – ночное недержание мочи), breast-fed baby – ребенок вскармливаемый грудью, man-made pollution – загрязнение среды, вызванное деятельностью человека, film-coated tablet – таблетка с пленочным покрытием, or by the whole word- combination (drop by drop administration – капельный способ введения лекарства).

Determinant component of terms or word-combination usually indicates:

1. Direction or function of the object, device or process, medical preparation – лекарственные формы, visiting nurse – патронажная сестра.

2. The essence of disease or treatment : collapse therapy – коллапсотерапия, collagen disease – коллагеноз, immune osmo phoresis - иммуноэлектрофарез.

3. Shape or type, process – semilunar valve – полулунный клапан сердца, tricuspid valve – трехстворчатый клапан сердца, prosthetic heart valve – клапан сердца, cardiac failure – порок сердца,heart throb –сердечное сокращение,chronic ulcer – хроническая язва.

4. Material or state: enamel column – эмалевая призма зуба, gland cell – железистая клетка, vegetable protein –растительный белок.

5. Principle of the device: girdle anaesthesia опоясывающая анестезия, endotherm knife - электронож , acupuncture analgesia – аналгезия иглоукалыванием, colorimetric analysis - колориметрический анализ, minute analysis – микроскопический анализ.

6. Properties of the object: irreversible reaction - необратимая реакция, unfinished-cough – кашель при аневризме дуги аорты,irritable joint – рецидивирующий артрит.

7.The direction of the action: lineal complication – осложнение со стороны селезенки, back pressure -–обратное давление, back flow – обратный ток (жидкости), obstetric infection – послеродовая инфекция.

8. Relative position: primary dentition - прорезывание молочных зубов, back tooth’s – коренной зуб, recumbent position – положение лежа, lateral position – положение лежа на боку; The components of terms – word combinations have unidentical meaning. The main component is usually used at the end. The connection between them is carried out with the help of the combination (muscle of mastification – жевательная мышца); with the help of the construction noun+ noun (mustard plaster – горчичник); with the help of construction adjective + noun (latent period – период болезни;) dental device – стоматологическая установка); with the help of construction “participle+ noun” (induced abortion) – искусственный аборт; balanced drainage – регулируемый дренаж; perforated ulcer – прободная язва);

The translation of multicomponent term usually is necessary to begin from the main (last) word. Then it is necessary to translate each word or semantic group of determination moving from the right to the left: tablet compression machine – машина для формовки таблеток, ground – glass stoppered black – склянка с притертой стеклянной пробкой. While translating such terms into Russian language the following methods may be used: the tracing (maternal cell – материнская клетка); by possessive case – (middle ear deafness – глухота среднего уха); by various prepositions (glucose – agar tube – пробирка с сахарным агаром;) physical therapy technician – медицинская сестра по терапии);

The firm and publicity names of preparations, materials are very often used in every day language and become as the terms (Plexiglass – плексиглас, cellophane – целлофан, aspirin – аспирин and so on).

By analogy with widely used terms in medical literature (inoperable patient- пациент, которому противопоказана операция and transportable patient – «транспортабельный больной»), may be created the tem with the meaning “пациент, состояние здоровья которого применить переливание крови”. Since, “to transfuse blood” – to transfuse, the patient must be called transfusable patient to clear up the meaning of such words in reading the original literature is necessary. For otherwise the part of the text information remains unisolated.

In medical literature in cases when one and the same meaning may be expressed by the term, both Anglo-Saxon origin and Latin, the preference is given to Latin. So instead of the term “inflammation of the lungs is given “pneumonia”. To clean – to purify.

It is not only more correctly differentiates the separate processes and phenomenon, but and adds to the language of scientific medical literature the specific coloring.

The last ten years many unsuccessful attempts were made to replace the part of scientific terms in the main of Latin origin by more common principally Anglo-Saxon.

Though the marked influence on medical literature this tendency didn’t have, in periodicals we have to see many, “simplified synonyms” of scientific terms, and this makes difficult the understanding of the read material, as for the Russian reader these” simple Anglo-Saxon words are not associated with the scientific terms.

It is necessary to note that many English words don’t have the direct analogues among the Russia Lexical units.

It belongs not only to neologisms, but to the words expressing specific or insufficiently known realia.

In these cases in translation the transcription or translation are used.

In the first case the pronunciation of the English term is transmitted by the Russian letters, in the second one its writing is transferred in Latin reading:

computer – компьютер (transcription), irradiation – иррадиация (transliteration), laser – лазер/transliteration.