A Study Of C/E Translation Of Tcm Terms

With a long history of thousand years, TCM is an indispensable part of traditional Chinese culture. It has absorbed the classical Chinese philosophy, culture and religion. It is the summarization of our ancestors'experience in fighting against disease in daily life. After several thousand years of development, it has now become an integrated medical system. As a special kind of Chinese cultural products and with its remarkable curative effects, TCM gets more and more attention from foreigners. But the specialties of TCM make it difficult not only for foreigners to understand but also for translators at home to interpret. Language is the carrier of culture, thus to understand the language of TCM, one must understand the profound culture contained in it. Influenced by ancient philosophy, concepts and expressions in TCM contain philosophical ideas. Nowadays, with the increasing cultural exchanges between the East and the West, translation of TCM plays an important role in promoting the transmission and communication of traditional Chinese culture. Translation is the bridge of intercultural communication, thus translation of TCM is a course of intercultural communication. However the current situation of translation of TCM is not optimistic. There exist many problems: chaos in translated versions, abusing transliteration, interpreting without true understanding, lengthy translation and so on, which will hinder the transmission and development of TCM.Nowadays, because of the frequent academic activities about TCM, the translation of TCM terms receives more and more attention from scholars at home and abroad. TCM terms carry cultural connotation, which provides a base for the study of translating them from a perspective of intercultural communication. Adopting the theory of intercultural communication can not solve all the problems occurring in this field but it can help translators to increase their awareness about cultural obstacles which hinder the transmission and translation of TCM in intercultural communication. The thesis is divided into five parts.Part one is introduction. Nowadays, with the increasing cultural exchanges between the East and the West, the author argues that the theory of intercultural communication should be introduced into the translation of TCM terms in order to strengthen the intercultural consciousness of translators, thus to promote the transmission of traditional Chinese culture.In part two, the author expounds the concept, development and characteristics of TCM as well as the history and characteristics of translation of TCM. From all the theories stated in this part, we know TCM is a part of traditional Chinese culture. Language is the carrier of culture. Profound traditional Chinese culture can be found in the language of TCM, especially in the lexical form which plays an important role in spreading TCM. Thus it can be concluded that the translation of TCM terms is a course of intercultural communication.Part three is the theoretical part of this thesis. The author describes the concept of language, culture, communication and intercultural communication. The relationships between language and culture, culture and communication as well as translation and intercultural communication are also described. As the bridge of intercultural communication, translation of TCM terms is not only a transmission of traditional Chinese culture but also a process of language exchange.In part four, the author states the needs for studying the translation of TCM from a perspective of intercultural communication. Then the current situation of translation of TCM terms and the reasons why these problems occur are described. Language is the carrier of culture and translation is the bridge of intercultural communication. Communications between different cultures are reflected in languages, especially in the lexical form. As stated in the previous part, profound cultures are reflected in the language of TCM, especially in the noun terms. TCM terms are translated with the help of the language of western medicine. So the author compares the terms of TCM and western medicine in semantic meaning, and then finds out the cultural obstacles are caused by the partial equivalence and non-equivalence between the terms used in TCM and western medicine. In the end of this part, the author concludes that the translation of TCM terms not only conveys the conceptual meaning but also the connotative meaning.Based on semantic equivalence analyzed in part four and the intercultural communication theories expounded in part three, in part five the author suggests that in order to avoid cultural obstacles in translating of TCM terms, some principles should be followed by translators: scientificity, conciseness, national character, backwardness and restrictiveness. In the end, several strategies are put forward according to the semantic equivalence between terms of TCM and western medicine.On the basis of the arguments stated above, the author comes to the conclusion that TCM terms, with profound cultural connotations, provide the base for studying translation of TCM terms from the perspective of intercultural communication. Based on the theory of intercultural communication, the cultural obstacles which hinder the transmission of TCM are found and strategies for translating TCM terms are offered. However, the theory of intercultural communication cannot be applied to solve all the problems occurring in this field, but it can help the translators to cultivate cultural awareness and then to find the most appropriate strategies.