On The Criteria For The Translation Of Chinese Dish Names From The Perspective Of Communicating Chinese Culture To Foreign Countries

The spreading of Chinese culture to foreign countries has become a hot topicnowadays. Chinese food culture is an inseparable part of traditional Chinese culturewhose richness and variedness are well reflected by all the local cuisines. Thistranslation report is based on the C-E translation of the chapter “Food Culture” inSavouring Local Zhejiang–A Bilingual Reader, which explains in detail the localcharacteristics of the food in Zhejiang Province and introduces many dishes with localfeatures. The key issue of this report is how to translate these local dishes into Englishunder the principle of spreading Chinese culture outside.This report has altogether five chapters. The first chapter is a brief introduction tothe project background and significance as well as a short description of the originaltext. Chapter two summarizes former studies on C-E menu translation and points outthe problems of the translations as well as the studies on those translations. In chapterthree the author attempts to classify Chinese dishes from the perspective of culture.Chapter four starts from the standpoint of spreading Chinese culture to foreigncountries and proceeds to put forward a criterion for the C-E translation of Chinesemenus–communicating Chinese culture in a maximum way. The criterion is followedwith two sub-criteria which explain that literal translation and foreignization as twostrategies should be applied as much as possible in C-E menu translation. In additionto this, some translating strategies are explored in accordance with these criteria. Atlast, a conclusion is drawn in chapter five.This translation report makes two original contributions: First, the translationmaterials, with fresh everyday examples, come from texts introducing local Zhejiang,an approach that has not been seen before. Secondly, the culture elements in Chinesedish names are stressed through translation and some corresponding criteria and strategies are proposed, all worked out in the larger framework of the principle of thecommunication of Chinese culture to the outside world.