Fa. Navarro et J. Barnes, TRANSLATION OF TITLES INTO ENGLISH IN MED ICINA CLINICA - QUALITY ANDSPANISH-LANGUAGE INFLUENCE, Medicina Clinica, 106(8), 1996, pp. 298-303
BACKGROUND: Journals that are not published solely in English have the
titles of papers translated into English, the international language
of medicine. The aim of this paper is to analyse the accuracy and qual
ity of such translations in MEDICINA CLINICA and to assess the influen
ce of the morphology and syntax of Spanish on the English versions of
the titles. METHODS: TWO professional medical translators, one Spanish
and the other English, each with a knowledge of both languages, compa
red the original Spanish and the English translations of the titles of
the 292 papers and communications published in the 20 issues of volum
e 100 of MEDICINA CLINICA. The discrepancies or ''errors'' were classi
fied in five groups of increasing seriousness. RESULTS: Of the titles
studied, 77% contained some sort of error (458 errors were detected).
In 100 titles (34%) there were differences in meaning between the orig
inal Spanish and the English translations. Another 72 titles contained
serious orthographical, lexical or grammatical mistakes, though the b
asic meaning was not distorted. Approximately a third of the lexical a
nd grammatical errors were attributable to the direct influence of Spa
nish. CONCLUSIONS: The English translations of titles in MEDICINA CLIN
ICA contain numerous orthographical, lexical and gammatical mistakes.
Serious errors of meaning in a number of translated titles could resul
t in misinterpretation by readers who do not know Spanish. We recommen
d that the authors should play a part in the translation of the titles
, as this should provide a simple and effective mean of improving the
accuracy of the translations. Our comparison yielded much worse result
s than had been expected, which suggests that similar studies with oth
er medical journals in Spanish and other languages would be justified.