The Application Of The Principle Of Xin-Da-Ya In The Translation Of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a part of traditional Chinese culture with a long history. During five thousand years of development, it has established a comprehensive and unique medical system which is generally accepted by most Chinese people and proved to be effective. It is one of the most outstanding civilizations of ancient Chinese culture. What's more, it is an integration of ancient Chinese philosophy and scientific subjects. Even today, it still plays a vital part in the Chinese medical field, also to the whole world. However, the translation of traditional Chinese medicine has not attracted proper attention in the field of translation practice and translation studies. Due to subjective and objective reasons, there are many mistakes such as minuses in the field of translation of traditional Chinese medicine, which leads misunderstanding to foreigners and add difficulties for them. Therefore, a great deal of work needs to be done to improve the situation.What is translation? Often, though not by any means often, it is rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text (Peter Newmark, 2005:5). The translation of traditional Chinese medicine is a process which involves comprehension, transformation, modification to make the translation itself perfect. What's more, it is also a process of evolution on the basis of accumulation of the translator's comprehension towards traditional Chinese culture. As it is known to all, traditional Chinese medicine is a summary of rich experience of Chinese ancient factors for dealing with diseases and keeping healthy. It is an important part of understanding and learning traditional Chinese civilization. Traditional Chinese medicine is influenced and guided by ancient Chinese philosophy and ancient Chinese literature with a long term accumulation. Thus, to translate traditional Chinese medicine, especially ancient Chinese classics on traditional Chinese medicine, is not an easy job.According to the current research, interpreters and translators on traditional Chinese medicine often put emphasis on single words or sentences without taking context into proper consideration, especially in ancient Chinese classics. Thus, people often ignore the exact meaning of those words. Such divisions usually lead readers to a wrong understanding, especially for foreign learners. For the most of translators, some long sentences in classic books such as The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine are really hard to understand, not to mention the equivalent English translation.Yan Fu once wrote in the introduction of his translating work Evolution and Ethics, about the three difficulties existing in translation, that is, Xin, Da and Ya. According to Yan Fu, the principle of Xin can be understood as faithfulness. Thus, the essence of Xin lies in the loyalty to original meaning, in other words, to reach the principle of Xin, source language text should be equivalent to the target language work. The principle of Da stresses on the expressiveness in translation, which means the translation work should be fluent and easily understood. The principle of Ya means elegance which is generally accepted as a standard rule in language, that is, the translating language should be brief and elegant. Then, how to translate traditional Chinese medicine into English under the Chinese context remains a problem.In this thesis, the author makes a general overview of the translation of traditional Chinese medicine on the basis of the principle of Xin-Da-Ya with her valuable experiences. By writing the thesis, the author wants to improve the quality of the translation of traditional Chinese medicine and give her suggestions, to promote the internationalization of traditional Chinese medicine.This thesis is generally divided into four parts. In the first part, the author shows the history and the current situation of the translation of TCM, and then points out the main problems which are existed in the translation of TCM. Then the thesis continues to explore and explain reasons for the above issues. These reasons, including insufficient qualified translators on TCM, inadequate text books on TCM translation and misuse of western medical terms.The second part of this thesis analyzes the contents of the principle of Xin-Da-Ya, including its background and the relationship among the three principles. By comparing the principle of Xin-Da-Ya with related principles, the author finally chooses the principle of Xin-Da-Ya as the guiding principle in the translation field of traditional Chinese medicine. For her part, the principle of Xin-Da-Ya is actually an integration of western translating theories with the contemporary Chinese translating theories. It occupies advantages of related translating principles and easily accepted by Chinese scholars. Thus, it is available in the field of traditional Chinese medicine translation.The third part emphasizes on the measures by which the principle of Xin-Da-Ya is applied to the translation of traditional Chinese medicine. In this part, the application of the principle of Xin-Da-Ya is analyzed in great detail. At first, it deeply probes the feasibility of the principle of Xin-Da-Ya in the translation of traditional Chinese medicine by semantic approach and literal approach. Then, the author shows how to apply those principles in the translation of traditional Chinese medicine by using four case studies.The fourth part analyzes limitations of the principle of Xin-Da-Ya. In the field of traditional Chinese medicine translation, there are not enough researches on this subject. Though a lot of professors overseas and at home devote themselves to the traditional Chinese medicine translation, the quality and quantity still fall behind. Another limitation is the conflict between the principle of"Da"and the principle of"Ya". Many scholars will complain that the principle of Xin-Da-Ya cannot be applied to the contemporary TCM translation, because the contemporary Chinese language is simple and language of traditional Chinese medicine, to some extent, belongs to the technological type. Thus, the principle of Ya cannot be available in the field of contemporary TCM translation. To solve the problem, the author proposes some suggestions of the application of the principle of Xin-Da-Ya in the TCM translation for the further research.At the end of this thesis, there is a conclusion for the whole. This conclusion will review the major findings of this thesis as well as its limitations. Then the author will propose suggestions for the further study.