Chinese-English medical translation informed by findings from contrastive linguistics and discourse analysis

The volume of technical, scientific, and academic texts translated between Chinese and English is considerable, and this volume will likely continue to increase. This paper examines Chinese and English medical research articles in both languages and provides an empirically-based examination of select syntactic and discourse-based features. Specifically, this paper focuses on characteristic features of the genre of pharmaceutical research articles in both Chinese and English: verb forms, voice and authorial positionality. Examination of the statistical frequency of the following is undertaken: verb forms (via either finite tense or ‘overt’ tense marking); grammatical voice (active vs passive); and authorial positionality (use of personal pronouns, full-form nouns, or impersonal constructions). By examining the statistical frequency of each of these in a
sample of eight research articles across both languages, this paper offers a practice-based guide to the translation of medical research papers via findings from contrastive linguistics and discourse analysis. These findings may inform specialists as well as trainee translators working in either language direction.