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Article In:
Language, Context and Text
Vol. 6:2 (2024) ► pp.432–458

The role of registerial expertise in texture re-creation in medical translation

Cohesion and coherence in the case of translating Huang Di Nei Jing

ORCID logo | Sun Yat-sen University, China
ORCID logo | Macquarie University, Australia
This article investigates how an important aspect of translators’ registerial expertise — domain-specific (medical) training and experience — may have consequences for the texture of a specialised translation, i.e. the translations of the Chinese medicine classic Huang Di Nei Jing. Through a fine-grained analysis of cohesion and coherence, this study demonstrates that a translator with a higher level of domain-specific expertise tends to produce a translation (i) that is more lexically explicit and cohesively harmonious, (ii) with a richer semantic variety, more extended cohesive chains and cross-chain interactions and (iii) having a higher degree of definitiveness. The findings suggest that a translator’s domain-specific expertise could have measurable consequences for the texture of the target text.
Keywords: registerial expertise, texture, cohesive harmony, medical translation, Huang Di Nei Jing
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Translation expertise and registerial expertise
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Data
    • 3.2Analytical framework
  • 4.Findings and discussion
    • 4.1Registerial expertise and cohesive harmony in translation
    • 4.2Registerial expertise assumes a higher degree of explicitness
    • 4.3Higher level of registerial expertise, a higher degree of definitiveness?
    • 4.4Registerial expertise and the construal of semantic variety
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Author queries
  • References
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