Medical terminology in an audiovisual product

Abstract

Audiovisual translation (AVT) from English into other languages is gaining popularity both in the entertainment and professional realms. Besides language difficulties, an interpreter has to face cultural challenges and a lack of professional knowledge of a particular subject field. This paper examines medical AVT from English to Kazakh. Translation issues in this field have rarely been the focus of linguistic studies, with hardly any studies of the matter with Kazakh as a target language. During the Covid-19 pandemic, it is crucial to be aware of cutting-edge technology and treatment techniques that are available in English. The TEDMED oral report “The Wireless Future of Medicine” made by Eric Topol, a distinguished cardiologist and geneticist, and its voice-over translation provided by the Kazakhstan national bureau of translations were chosen as the material for this pilot study. Continuous sampling was used to select 95 terms and term phrases (T-units) in the source text that were further distributed into eight subject field groups. A standard classification was used to identify the translation technique in each case in the target text. As a result, frequency models were built for both subject groups and translation techniques. Groups related to medical procedures, medical devices, anatomy and physiology were the most frequent. There was a clear correlation between the subject field and dominant translation technique: equivalence prevailed in the fields connected with Kazakh medicine from nomadic times, while in other fields, there was an increase of techniques other than the equivalence.