The role of medical background knowledge on improving the translation quality among medical and translation students

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to investigate systematically and dynamically the effect of medical background knowledge on enhancing the translation quality among medical and translation students. Participants in this study included 100 medical students and translation students in Islamic Azad University in Tehran, Iran. They had the mean age of 22 and there were 45 males and 55 females in the sample. In order to determine the level of proficiency of the participants in both groups, the same Nelson proficiency test was first administered to all of them. Students in both groups were asked to translate some medical texts from English into Persian . Outputs of the two groups were compared to assess the impact of medical background information. The quantity and quality of background information were also analyzed to examine their influence on the quality of translation. Results showed that those students having medical knowledge performed better in translating English texts related to medical science, in comparison to those learners who were not familiar well with medical knowledge. In other words, technical knowledge could play a significant role in enhancing the quality of medical translation from English into Persian.