Epidemic翻译所导致的概念混淆与应用偏差

The Confusion of Concept and Bias Application Caused by the Translation of the Term Epidemic

Epidemic的形容词词义是"流行的",名词词义是"疾病流行"。国内一些专业教科书(甚至包括一些英汉词典)将epidemic的词义扩展为"流行病",是不科学的,这种不科学的词义翻译,容易与传染病的概念相混淆,同时也容易造成教学、科研及大众交流中的应用偏差。

The term epidemic(from the Greek epi 'on' plus demos 'people'),whose adjective meaning is affecting or tending to affect a disproportionately large number of individuals within a population,community,or region at the same time,and its noun meaning is an outbreak of epidemic disease.But some textbooks,even the English-Chinese Dictionary translate it as a disease,which is prevalent or infectious.In fact,for the epidemic,it is unscientific to take that translation as the part of its semantic evolution.It makes people confused to mistake the non-communicable disease for example adipose hepatica as the communicable disease.And that could lead to the misunderstanding in area of teaching,research and public communication.