English Translation Of Traditional Chinese Medicine Documents From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

The dissemination of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) to thewest in recent years has encouraged its translation study. However, theprose style and ancient Chinese language of TCM texts, the greatdifferences between Chinese and western cultures and the highlytechnical terms of TCM all render TCM translation an extremely difficulttask. Although some translators and scholars of TCM trahslation haverecognized the significance of translation theories in TCM translationpractice in recent decades, the lack of suitable and effective translationtheory is still one of the main problems in TCM translation.In the present thesis, the author ventures to apply Relevance Theoryinto TCM translation. Relevance Theory, which was first presented bySperber and Wilson in their co-authored work Relevance:Communication and Cognition, is a pragmatic theory on communicationfrom the cognitive perspective. The theory holds that its nuclear notion isrelevance and optimal relevance is the principle with which peopleunconsciously comply in communication. Though not meant fortranslation, Relevance Theory is powerful in accounting for "the mostcomplex thing in the cosmos". (Richards, 1953 see Zhao Yanchun,1999:276) Since the relevance-based account of translation is powerful not only in theoretical aspects, but in practical translation as well, thisthesis attempts to prove that Relevance Theory is not only powerful inaccounting for the phenomena of translation theory and practice ingeneral, but also in directing the translators to translate TCM into English.This thesis is divided into five parts.The first part begins with the literature review of TCM translationhistory, and then gives a brief introduction to the main ideas about thepresent translation of TCM and points out the lack of a forceful andunified theory of TCM translation. Finally, the author puts forward thepurpose of the present thesis: the application of Relevance Theory toTCM translation.Part Two is about the theoretic study of this thesis. It is divided intotwo sections. The first section introduces the basic notions of RelevanceTheory: the nature of Relevance Theory, cognitive environment andcontext, and the principle of relevance and optimal relevance. The secondsection examines the relevance-theoretic account of translation whichincludes the enlightenment that translation gains from Relevance Theory,what being translated in relevance translation: informative intention andcommunicative intention, and the criterion by Relevance Theory fortranslation: transference of optimal relevance.The third part starts with the description of the aims of TCMtranslation on the present stage—the integration of TCM and Western Medicine and the modernization of TCM. Then, the problems of TCMtranslation is put forward: the problem of mechanical translation, theproblem of non-identical terminology and the problem ofunder-translation. Finally, this part points out the underlying causes forthe problems of TCM translation which are mainly posed by the culturaland linguistic barriers as well as the great differences between TCM andWestern Medicine.In Part Four, the application of Relevance Theory to TCMtranslation is illustrated in great detail. In the first place, this part explainsthe feasibility of the application of Relevance Theory to TCM translation.Then, the author illustrates how to apply Relevance Theory to TCMtranslation from the three respects——the role of cognitive environment inTCM translation, the role of informative intention and communicativeintention in TCM translation, and the three—participant relationship inTCM translation. The above illustration proves that Relevance Theoryenables a translator to better understand both the informative intentionand communicative intention expressed by the writer of TCM and toconvey them to the target language readers by estimating the cognitiveenvironment of the western readers. In practice, it also can help the TCMtranslator to adopt proper approaches in the process of TCM translation.In addition, the limitations of Relevance Theory are briefly discussed inthis part. Part Five is the conclusion of the whole thesis which summarizesthe main idea of the author about translating TCM documents intoEnglish from the perspective of Relevance Theory.