Teaching medical translation to non-medical students – a case study with some theoretical insights

Abstract

This article uses the example of a course in medical translation taught at the Institute of
Anthropocentric Linguistics and Culturology, University of Warsaw, to make comments on
differences in teaching English to medical students vs. teaching medical translation to nonmedical
students and to propose ideas for more effective teaching of medical translation. It is
argued that reconstructing the ontology of concepts found in a text is sufficient to provide a
successful translation even if the translator does not possess specialist competence in the subject
matter of the text. At the same time, the importance of developing translation students’
thematic competence is underlined throughout the paper, and advice is presented on how to
encourage the acquisition of such knowledge. The structure of the course is also presented.