Bridging Website Communication and Language: Translation Quality Assessment of Chinese Medical Texts on Malaysian Medical Tourism Websites
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1506.22Keywords:
website communication, translation quality assessment, medical texts, medical tourism websites, MalaysiaAbstract
Language is considered a crucial factor in the effective website communication for businesses. This study aims to conduct translation quality assessment (TQA) of Chinese translations on websites of Malaysian hospitals targeting medical tourism. Twelve websites were selected using the partner membership list from the Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council, following specific inclusion and exclusion criteria. A total of 12 text groups comprising 38,085 words were manually collected as textual data for translation quality assessment. The texts were first analyzed for their situational factors and communicative functions, as this study is grounded in functional translation theories. Translation quality was assessed across four dimensions through descriptive analysis and textual analysis, employing a functional theory-guided TQA tool. The findings reveal a generally low translation quality of Chinese medical texts on the examined websites, with poor performance noted in target language proficiency and terminology translation. Common issues were observed, such as awkward expressions, spelling and punctuation errors, inadequate lexical choices, and inaccurate terminology translations. This study advocates that hospitals improve the quality of their website translations to ensure effective communication with target audiences, thereby facilitating consumption.
References
Aghbolagh, N. S., Hashim, A., & Mei, C. C. Y. (2024). A genre-based investigation of the “About Us” section of private hospitals’ websites. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 34(1), 83-111. https://doi.org/10.1075/japc.00069.mei
Alasbahy, W., & Shamsi, M. (2023). Translating Medical Terminologies: Difficulties and Suggestions. Journal of English Studies in Arabia Felix, 2(1), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.56540/jesaf.v2i1.32
Askehave, I., & Zethsen, K. K. (2000). Medical texts made simple-dream or reality? HERMES-Journal of Language and Communication in Business, (25), 63-74. https://doi.org/10.7146/HJLCB.V13I25.25585
Azimbayevna, D. G., & Vohidovna, X. X. (2021). Features in the Translation of Medical Terms. Galaxy International Interdisciplinary Research Journal, 9(11), 470-474.
Badziński, A. M. (2019). Problems in medical translation among professional and non-professional translators: Collocations as a key issue. Beyond Philology: An International Journal of Linguistics, Literary Studies and English Language Teaching, 16(4), 157-177. https://doi.org/10.26881/bp.2019.4.06
Baker, M. (2018). In other words: A coursebook on translation. Routledge.
Bell, A., & Torres, P. A. (2024). Translating medical reports: Challenges and quality assurance. Medical Writing, 33, 30-32. https://doi.org/10.56012/aibj6031
Briva-Iglesias, V., O’Brien, S., & Cowan, B. R. (2023). The impact of traditional and interactive post-editing on machine translation user experience, quality, and productivity. Translation, Cognition & Behavior, 6(1), 60-86. https://doi.org/10.1075/tcb.00077.bri
Cham, T. H., Cheng, B. L., Low, M. P., & Cheok, J. B. C. (2020). Brand Image as the competitive edge for Hospitals in Medical Tourism. European Business Review, 33(1). https://doi.org/10.1108/EBR-10-2019-0269
Colina, S. (2009). Further evidence for a functionalist approach to translation quality evaluation. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies, 21(2), 235-264. https://doi.org/10.1075/target.21.2.02col
Connell, J. (2013). Contemporary medical tourism: Conceptualisation, culture and commodification. Tourism Management, 34, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2012.05.009
Crooks, V. A., Turner, L., Snyder, J., Johnston, R., & Kingsbury, P. (2011). Promoting medical tourism to India: Messages, images, and the marketing of international patient travel. Social Science & Medicine, 72(5), 726-732. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.12.022
Dabre, R., Chu, C., & Kunchukuttan, A. (2020). A survey of multilingual neural machine translation. ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR), 53(5), 1-38. https://doi.org/10.1145/340609
De la Cova, E. (2021). Language and brand: Problems for localization. HERMES-Journal of Language and Communication in Business, 61, 63-75. https://doi.org/10.7146/hjlcb.vi61.127925
De La Hoz-Correa, A., & Muñoz-Leiva, F. (2019). The role of information sources and image on the intention to visit a medical tourism destination: A cross-cultural analysis. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 36(2), 204-219. https://doi.org/10.1080/10548408.2018.1507865
Gedik, Ö., Aydogan, S., & Gedik, M. (2022). Investigation of the websites of intermediary institutions with health tourism authorization certificate. Uluslararası Sağlık Yönetimi ve Stratejileri Araştırma Dergisi, 8(3), 352-361.
Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. M. (2013). Halliday's introduction to functional grammar. Routledge.
Han, C. (2020). Translation quality assessment: a critical methodological review. The Translator, 26(3), 257-273. https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2020.1834751
Hanefeld, J., Lunt, N., Smith, R., & Horsfall, D. (2015). Why do medical tourists travel to where they do? The role of networks in determining medical travel. Social Science & Medicine, 124, 356-363. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.05.016
Hönig, H. G. (1997). Positions, power and practice: Functionalist approaches and translation quality assessment. Current Issues in Language & Society, 4(1), 6-34. https://doi.org/10.1080/13520529709615477
House, J. (2014). Translation quality assessment: Past and present. Springer.
Jasem, Z., AlMeraj, Z., & Alhuwail, D. (2022). Evaluating breast cancer websites targeting Arabic speakers: empirical investigation of popularity, availability, accessibility, readability, and quality. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 22(1), 126. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12911-022-01868-9
Karwacka, W. (2014). Quality assurance in medical translation. The Journal of Specialised Translation, 21, 19-34.
Karwacka, W. (2015). Medical translation. In S. G.-R. Łukasz Bogucki, and Piotr Stalmaszczyk (Ed.), Ways to translation (pp. 271-298). Jagiellonian University Press.
Khan, M. J., Chelliah, S., & Haron, M. S. (2016). Medical tourism destination image formation process: A conceptual model. International Journal of Healthcare Management, 9(2), 134-143. https://doi.org/10.1080/20479700.2016.1142046
Koby, G. S., Fields, P., Hague, D. R., Lommel, A., & Melby, A. (2014). Defining translation quality. Tradumàtica, (12), 413-420. https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/tradumatica.76
Kocmi, T., Avramidis, E., Bawden, R., Bojar, O., Dvorkovich, A., Federmann, C., Fishel, M., Freitag, M., Gowda, T., & Grundkiewicz, R. (2023). Findings of the 2023 conference on machine translation (WMT23): LLMs are here but not quite there yet. (Ed.) WMT23-Eighth Conference on Machine Translation, Singapore. https://hal.science/hal-04300702//https://hal.science/hal-04300702/
Koehn, P., & Knowles, R. (2017). Six challenges for neural machine translation. In T. Luong, A. Birch, G. Neubig, & A. Finch (Eds.) Proceedings of the First Workshop on Neural Machine Translation (pp. 28–39). Association for Computational Linguistics. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1706.03872
Kopmaz, B., Kitapci, N. S., Kitapci, O. C., Bulu, S. B., Aksu, P. K., Koksal, L., & Mumcu, G. (2019). Dental websites as new media tools for patients in dental health tourism. Acta Informatica Medica, 27(2), 128. https://doi.org/10.5455/aim.2019.27.128-132
Li, X., & Yu, H. (2021). Parataxis or hypotaxis? Choices of taxis in Chinese–English translation. Lingua, 251, 103026. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2020.103026
Lian, S. (1993). Contrastive studies of English and Chinese. China: Higher Education Press.
Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council. (2021). Malaysia Healthcare Travel Industry Blueprint 2021-2025. Retrieved June 8, 2023, from https://www.mhtc.org.my/malaysia-healthcare-travel-industry-blueprint/
Martinez Mateo, R., Montero Martinez, S., & Moya Guijarro, A. J. (2017). The modular assessment pack: A new approach to translation quality assessment at the Directorate General for Translation. Perspectives, 25(1), 18-48. https://doi.org/10.1080/0907676X.2016.1167923
Martínez, R. (2014). A deeper look into metrics for translation quality assessment (TQA): A case study. Miscelánea: A Journal of English and American Studies, 49, 73-94.
Mason, A., & Wright, K. B. (2011). Framing medical tourism: an examination of appeal, risk, convalescence, accreditation, and interactivity in medical tourism web sites. Journal of health communication, 16(2), 163-177. https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730.2010.535105
Matthiessen, C. M. (1995). Lexicogrammatical Cartography: English Systems. International Language Sciences Publishers.
Maučec, M. S., & Donaj, G. (2019). Machine translation and the evaluation of its quality. In A. Sadollah & T. Sinha (Eds.), Recent trends in computational intelligence (pp. 143-162). IntechOpen. https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89063
Mellinger, C. D. (2018). Re-thinking translation quality: Revision in the digital age. Target, 30(2), 310-331. https://doi.org/10.1075/target.16104.mel
Montalt, V., & Gonzalez-Davies, M. (2014). Medical translation step by step: Learning by drafting. Routledge.
Munday, J. (2016). Introducing translation studies: Theories and applications. Routledge.
Newmark, P. (1988). A textbook of translation (Vol. 66). Prentice hall New York.
Nord, C. (2018). Translating as a purposeful activity: Functionalist approaches explained. Routledge.
Pan, Y. (2021). A corpus-based analysis of trainee translators’ performance in medical translation. Asia Pacific Translation and Intercultural Studies, 8(3), 267-285. https://doi.org/10.1080/23306343.2021.2004719
Qian, J., Law, R., & Li, X. (2016). Evaluation and Analysis of overseas Marketing websites of Tourism destinations from the Perspective of language Economics. Social Scientist, (07), 86-89+103.
Qolipour, M., Torabipour, A., Khiavi, F. F., & Malehi, A. S. (2018). Assessing medical tourism services quality using SERVQUAL model: A patient’s perspective. Iranian journal of public health, 47(1), 103-110.
Rayess, N., Li, A. S., Do, D. V., & Rahimy, E. (2020). Assessment of online sites reliability, accountability, readability, accessibility, and translation for intravitreal injections. Ophthalmology Retina, 4(12), 1188-1195. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oret.2020.05.019
Reiss, K. (1971). Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der Übersetzungskritik: Kategorien und Kriterien für eine sachgerechte Beurteilung von Übersetzungen [Translation criticism-potentials and limitations: Categories and criteria for translation quality assessment] (Vol. 12). Hueber.
Reiss, K. (1976). Texttyp und Übersetzungsmethode: d. operative Text [Text Type and Translation Method: The Operative Text]. Scriptor Verlag.
Reiss, K. (1981). Type, kind and individuality of text: Decision making in translation. Poetics Today, 2(4), 121-131.
Reiss, K., & Vermeer, H. J. (2014). Towards a general theory of translational action: Skopos theory explained. Routledge.
Rivera-Trigueros, I. (2022). Machine translation systems and quality assessment: a systematic review. Language Resources and Evaluation, 56(2), 593-619. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10579-021-09537-5
Sánchez-Cañizares, S. M., Cabeza-Ramírez, L. J., Muñoz-Fernández, G., & Fuentes-García, F. J. (2021). Impact of the perceived risk from Covid-19 on intention to travel. Current Issues in Tourism, 24(7), 970-984. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2020.1829571
Shaygani, F., Jahangiri, S., Roozegar, M. H. Z., Kavosi, Z., & Marzaleh, M. A. (2023). Investigating the quality of Iranian hospitals’ websites and their association to the Province’s share of medical tourism. BMC Research Notes, 16(1), 332. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-023-06619-1
Shouaib, M. (2022). Discovering the Challenges of Machine Translation from Dari Language into English Language. Randwick International of Education and Linguistics Science Journal, 3(2), 183-193. https://doi.org/10.47175/rielsj.v3i2.471
Stasimioti, M., Sosoni, V., Kermanidis, K. L., & Mouratidis, D. (2020). Machine Translation Quality: A comparative evaluation of SMT, NMT and tailored-NMT outputs. In A. Martins, H. Moniz, S. Fumega, B. Martins, F. Batista, L. Coheur, C. Parra, I. Trancoso, M. Turchi, A. Bisazza, J. Moorkens, A. Guerberof, M. Nurminen, L. Marg, & M. L. Forcada (Eds.) Proceedings of the 22nd annual conference of the European Association for Machine Translation (pp. 441-450). European Association for Machine Translation. https://aclanthology.org/2020.eamt-1.47/
Statista. (2022). Most popular tourism destinations among Chinese tourists 2019. Retrieved May 22, 2023, from https://www-statista-com.ezproxy.utm.my/statistics/1068591/china-outbound-travel-regional-destination-share/?locale=en
Sulaiman, M. Z. (2021). Creating favourable destination images across languages: collaboration between tourism studies and translation studies? Current Issues in Tourism, 24(8), 1054-1057. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2020.1764511
Torres-Hostench, O., Rico, C., Candel-Mora, M. Á., Aguilar-Amat, A., Alcina-Claudet, A., Cid-Leal, P., Martín-Mor, A., Huerta, R. P., Presas, M., & Sánchez-Gijón, P. (2015). The Use of Machine Translation and Post-editing among Language Service Providers in Spain. In J. Esteves-Ferreira, J. M. Macan, R. Mitkov, & O.-M. Stefanov (Eds.) Proceedings of the 37th Conference Translating and the Computer Conference (pp. 90-95). AsLing.
Trosborg, A. (1997). Text typology: Register, genre and text type. Benjamins Translation Library, 26, 3-24.
Truong, P., Doan, H., & Tran, L. (2022). Website Marketing Activities in Healthcare Service Sector: A Case in Danang, Vietnam. In A. T. Nguyen & L. Hens (Eds.) Global Changes and Sustainable Development in Asian Emerging Market Economies Vol. 1 (pp. 477-485). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81435-9
Vogus, T. J., & McClelland, L. E. (2016). When the customer is the patient: Lessons from healthcare research on patient satisfaction and service quality ratings. Human Resource Management Review, 26(1), 37-49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2015.09.005
Wang, J., & Komlodi, A. (2018). Switching languages in online searching: A qualitative study of web users' code-switching search behaviors. In C. Shah & N. J. Belkin (Eds.) Proceedings of the 2018 Conference on Human Information Interaction & Retrieval (pp. 201-210). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3176349.3176396
Wang, L. (1944). Zhōngguó Yǔfǎ Lǐlùn [Theories of Chinese Grammar]. Zhonghua Book Company.
World Travel & Tourism Council. (2019). Medical Tourism: A Prescription for a Healthier Economy. Retrieved July 5, 2023, from https://wttc.org/Portals/0/Documents/Reports/2019/Medical%20Tourism-Nov%202019.pdf
Yuan, C., & Guo, P. (2022). The application of Newmark’s Text Typology theory in medical translation. Open Journal of Modern Linguistics, 12(4), 429-437. https://doi.org/10.4236/ojml.2022.124031
