A Comparative Study Of The English Translation Of "Huangdi Neijing·Suwen" From The Perspective Of Cohesion

Background:The translation of Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM)is significantly important in the modernization and internationalization of TCM.The basic thoughts and guidelines for TCM as well as profound Chinese culture and philosophy are incorporated in TCM classics so that its translation is essential in enhancing the internationalization of TCM.In the past decades scholars and researchers have explored this relatively new area from various sources and different perspectives,among which the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic(Huáng DìNèi J?ng,??????)has always been the focus.The research spectrum ranges from terminology translation,rhetorical devices translation,normalization of terminology translation,translation strategies and methods,etc.As there has been quite inadequate research on discourse study of Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic,this study aims at exploring translation strategies and methods by applying discoursal theory.Purposes:Based on cohesion theory of Halliday and Hasan,this study analyzes the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic:Basic Questions(Huáng DìNèi J?ng SùWèn,????·??)and four English versions from the perspective of syntactical and lexical cohesion.It manifests the reconstruction of the English translations and identifies the translation strategies and methods.Methods: This study targets at the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic: Basic Questions and its English version of Ilza Veith,Wu Liansheng and Wu Qi,Li Zhaoguo as well as Paul U.Unschuld.The syntactical and lexical cohesion devices are identified in both the original text and its four English translation versions and further compared and analyzed via sample analysis.Results: Generally speaking,all the translators demonstrated the awareness of discourse yet the degree varied,which indicated the differences between the Chinese and English languages.The original parataxis Chinese has been turned into the translated hypotaxis English via supplementing the reference and ellipsis cohesion in grammatical cohesion,and making the original implicit information explicit in vocabulary cohesion,so as to achieve discourse coherence.Specifically speaking,each translator employed different cohesion strategies and adapted varied translation strategies and method in reconstructing translated texts.Veith's grammatical cohesion is different from the original discourse's and applied synonymy/near-synonymy in vocabulary cohesion,so the translation is characterized by rich vocabulary,idiomatic grammar and various sentence patterns.Unfortunately,there existed certain mistranslation due to misunderstanding of the original texts.Wu's version borrowed the original grammatical cohesion to some extent and applied synonymy/near-synonymy and hyponymy in vocabulary cohesion,therefore,the translation strategies tends to be domestication strategies justified by more explanation translation,plain language and flexible grammar.The original goal of the translation was not to teach students TCM,rather it intended to help ordinary people who are interested in TCM understand more or better of TCM.This might be one of the reasons why loyalty to original text was no longer the only goal.Again,there are some grammatical errors in it.Li's version basically restored the original grammatical cohesion with repetition and synonymy/near-synonymy and hyponymy in vocabulary cohesion.The translator used foreignization strategies with refined vocabulary,rigorous grammar and similarity to the original texts.The room for improvement might be varying the use of vocabulary and enhancing the fluency of the translated text.Unschuld's version has the closest connection with the original text in terms of its reconstruction of the translated text in grammatical cohesion.It applied repetition and synonymy/near-synonymy and hyponymy in vocabulary cohesion,so it tends to apply foreignization strategies with similar construction of original text.The vocabulary is plain and precise to reflect the discourse feature of original version with concise and fluent grammar.From the perspective of formal and semantic equivalence of discourse translation,Unschuld's version is better in delivering discourse cohesion features and overall meaning.Conclusions: Due to TCM classics involving features of classical literature and science and technology literature,translators should identify cohesion features of the original texts and then reconstruct the cohesion in the translation texts.Besides,translation strategies and methods should be applied according to the discourse features and purposes of translation.It is suggested to turn the original parataxis Chinese into the translated hypotaxis English via supplementing and explicitation,as well as to restore the grammatical cohesion and vocabulary cohesion and keep consistent with the original expression pattern;the specific methods could be retaining the original discourse sentence and vocabulary patterns,restoring the semantic relation and precise vocabulary selection,and so on.Innovations: The existing discourse studies of TCM classics mainly focus on such aspects as discourse awareness,explicit translation and discourse sequential iconicity.The systematic analysis of lexical and grammatical mechanisms of both the original text and the translated versions has not yet conducted.Also,the comparative analysis of the original text and the translated texts under the guidance of cohesion has been done in both the qualitative and quantitative manner.This research is an attempt to further the study in this area.Limitations: Firstly,the research objects and data are limited,only covering quite some amount of texts,one chapter of the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic,leaving some space for further studies.Secondly,other factors like context,physiological and cognitive factor need to be taken into consideration in further studies.