But - What does it mean? A case study of a clinical report

Abstract

A high degree of isomorphism is often assumed to exist between fairly closely related languages in the translation of scientific, especially medical, texts. This isomorphism may be reflected in the communicative situation, specific genres and their associated formats, and down to the terminology, much of which is derived from, and created from, Greek and Latin. On the other hand, each language is known to have its own peculiarities and preferenees. The tension generated between these two opposing forees can lead to anomalies, particularly if, in the translation process, the sentence is taken as the largest translation unit. We report a case of "malignant equivalent frequency syndrome" presenting as a dysfunction in the transfer of coordinated BUT sentences to structures of equivalent frequency, which was associated with disturbed textual patterns and impaired communicative function. Expression of other closely related syntactic structures was normal, but some microstructural elements were either altered or absent