A Report On The Translation Of Travel Notes-Based Cookbook,The Food Of Sichuan(Excerpts)

At present,with ever-deepened economic globalization and a stronger soft power,China has continued to carry forward with its macro strategy of "Go Global",in which translation has gradually become an important medium for promoting its traditional culture.As a civilization with a concept of "food is the top priority for people in life",food culture represent a key element in China’s cultural output.With signature tastes of numbness,spiciness and inviting smell,Sichuan cuisine,one of "Eight Cuisines" is worth more global attention.The existing several publications,with mostly similar content and monotonous perspective,despite strong government support,were yet to deliver effective international promotion;due to a lack of translation standards problems are found in terms of translation of dish names and text style.Besides from these publications,there are no projects,foreign language publications and TV programs that systematically introduce the cuisine to the world.Thus,Sichuan cuisine has not been well promoted internationally.In this translation report,the Food of Sichuan was chosen as source texts,written by British food writer and cook Fuchsia Dunlop who have spent years in China.For one,the cookbook incorporates historical development,an introduction to local family kitchen,selections of ingredients,nearly 500 special dishes and 56 cooking methods;for another,it has its own unique features compared to regular cookbooks.Combing her personal experience as a student in a Chinese cooking school with her Western cultural upbringing,the author shares interesting topics like differences between Sichuan and Western cuisines,international acceptance of Sichuan cuisine,and westerners’ existing misconceptions on the cuisine.This author selects the first four chapters as the translation materials,as listed as above.The translator adopts corresponding translation strategies in terms of cooking terms,sentence transfer and text style,such as transliteration,annotation and free translation.It aims to provide reference for the translation of food-related texts in China,and can be used as a parallel text for Chinese translators to improve the translation quality of related topics in the future,thus pushing for further commercial and cultural communication of Chinese food culture.