In the literature on medical translation, the question as to who translates (or should translate) medical texts has been largely discussed on the basis of the traditional linguists versus subject-matter experts opposition. Both scholars and professional translators have attempted to determine medical translators’ profile by making statements about the characteristics of translators with a linguistic background and those of translators with a scientific-medical one. These statements are generally based on intuition or personal experience rather than on empirical data which can be used to back up any kind of evaluation that may be made. This paper aims to bridge this gap by presenting the results of an empirical descriptive study which surveyed practicing medical translators. The survey included questions such as academic qualification, years of experience, customers, genres translated, main difficulties encountered, and degree of self-instruction received, among others. On the basis of these data, this paper approaches the medical translators’ profile and explores the main differences between translators with a linguistic background and translators with a scientific-medical one. The results show that some of the most substantial differences between them relate to the years of experience, difficulties encountered, documentation resources used, and training needs

中文翻译：

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语言学家和主题专家在医学翻译实践中的区别

在有关医学翻译的文献中，关于谁翻译（或应翻译）医学文本的问题已在传统语言学家和主题专家的反对基础上进行了广泛讨论。学者和专业译者都试图通过陈述具有语言背景的译者和具有科学医学背景的译者的特征来确定医学译者的形象。这些陈述通常基于直觉或个人经验，而不是基于经验数据，这些经验数据可用于备份可能进行的任何评估。本文旨在通过介绍对实践医学翻译进行调查的经验描述研究结果来弥合这一差距。调查包括诸如学历，多年的经验，客户，翻译的体裁，遇到的主要困难以及获得的自我指导的程度等等。在这些数据的基础上，本文研究了医学译者的概况，并探讨了具有语言背景的译者和具有科学医学译者的译者之间的主要差异。结果表明，它们之间的一些最实质性差异与多年的经验，遇到的困难，使用的文档资源以及培训需求有关 本文探讨了医学译者的概况，并探讨了具有语言背景的译者和具有科学医学译者的译者之间的主要差异。结果表明，它们之间的一些最实质性差异与多年的经验，遇到的困难，使用的文档资源以及培训需求有关 本文探讨了医学译者的概况，并探讨了具有语言背景的译者和具有科学医学译者的译者之间的主要差异。结果表明，它们之间的一些最实质性差异与多年的经验，遇到的困难，使用的文档资源以及培训需求有关