English-Arabic Translation of Medical Terminology in Saudi Arabian Hospitals: A Functional Theory-Based Investigation

In recent years, the general public’s increased awareness of medical and health issues has significantly augmented the need for medical materials addressing non-expert end users. This research investigates the translations of medical reports produced by specialist physicians to non-specialist patients in Saudi Arabia. There is a growing body of literature that has been published on the translation of medical texts for laypeople from English into other languages. However, much less is published about the translation of medical texts from English into Arabic for laypeople.
Therefore, this research addresses this gap by investigating how an effective transfer of medical information can be achieved through the process of translation. Functionalist theories, particularly, Hans Vermeer’s 1989 Skopos theory and Nord’s 1997 Loyalty Principle serve as the theoretical framework of this research to investigate and analyse data extracted from three main sources: medical reports, interviews, and questionnaires. The data is collected from four hospitals and was examined to determine the following: (1) the type of equivalents used to translate English medical terms into Arabic, (2) the process that translators follow to translate these terms, and (3) the ability of patients to understand the Arabic equivalents used to translate English medical terms.
This research suggests a framework that could be used in order to produce functional translations which could be understood by the end-users who are mainly laypeople. The analysis includes the main agents involved in the translation process (source text author, translator, target text receiver). The research introduces a bottom-up approach to address the terminological issues related to medical translation rather than the top-down approaches suggested by previous studies. Moreover, the data generated by this research may be used to lay the groundwork for future projects to improve the process of medical terminology production and usage.