Error analysis (EA) has been broadly applied to the researches of writing, speaking, second language acquisition (SLA) and translation. This study was carried out based on Carl James' error taxonomy to investigate the distribution of lexical errors in Chinese-English (C-E) translation of drug package inserts (DPIs)(1), explore the underlying causes and propose some translation strategies for correction and reduction of lexical errors in DPIs. A translation corpus consisting of 25 DPIs translated from Chinese into English was established. Lexical errors in the corpus and the error causes were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. Some examples were used to analyze the lexical errors and their causes, and some strategies for translating vocabulary in DPIs were proposed according to Eugene Nida's translation theory. This study will not only help translators and medical workers reduce errors in C-E translation of vocabulary in DPIs and other types of medical texts but also shed light on the learning and teaching of C-E translation of medical texts.
Keywords: drug package insert; error analysis; lexical error; strategy; translation.