Norms of Translating Medical Terms in English Patient Information Leaflets into Kurdish

Abstract

Patient Information Leaflets (PILs) are documents included in medicine packages and provide important information about the medication for patients. This study investigates the translation problems of English PILs into Sorani Kurdish. The aim of this study is to identify the translation procedures used for translating medical terminologies in PILs for lay people. It also aims to reveal which translational norms are operating in Kurdish translations of PILs. To do so, the study employs a corpus of 150 English PILs along with their Kurdish translations. To analyse the corpus, the researcher adopts Toury’s (1995-2012) three-phase methodology within the descriptive approach of translation. It also uses Vinay and Darbelnet’s (1995) translation procedures to determine how translators handled terminological rendering in the Kurdish PILs. According to the findings, nine types of translation procedures were used in translating the terminologies, with borrowing had the highest frequency, and modulation having the lowest frequency. They also revealed that Toury’s initial norms were predominantly operating in the translated PILs which labelled them as adequate translations. The translators’ choice to closely follow the original PILs was indicative of their attempt to meet the expectations of PILs’s target users, thus, revealing Chesterman’s expectancy norms therein. The study concludes that the translation of PILs into Kurdish is not regulated within the medical field and that is mainly related to the absence of an officially regulated body in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It also concludes that while the seemingly established norm of PIL translation into Kurdish highly relies on English borrowings, it is a significant step towards developing Kurdish medical language.