The English Translation Of Chinese Dish Names From The Perspective Of Sociosemiotics

Food culture, which has a distant source and long history, is an indispensable part of Chinese traditional culture. With the development of the communication between China and foreign countries, the translation of Chinese dish names, has accepted extensive attention, as one of the channels to spread Chinese culture. However, it is not easy to translate Chinese dish names, which are too numerous to mention individually. In the expression, their names not only display the characteristics of the Chinese language, including the features of phonetics, semantics and syntax, and they also employ a lot of figure speech, such as assonance, pun; but also imply rich historical and cultural connotations. Thus, the translation of Chinese cuisine and food names takes into consideration both linguistic elements and cultural transference. In order to achieve successful information spreading and cultural communication, the thesis, through the analysis of the meaning and function of Chinese dish names and with translation standard–correspondence in meaning and similarity in function, makes an attempt to the translation of Chinese dish names into English from the perspective if sociosemiotics.According to semiotics, language is a special sign system and each kind of sign system has its meaning, so language as a sign system contains three kinds of meanings: designative, linguistic and pragmatic meanings. Besides, language has different functions. Peter Newmark, an English translation theorist, classified language function into six types: informative, expressive, imperative, aesthetic, phatic and metalingual functions. Chinese dish names also contain three kinds of meaning and conduct different language functions.The thesis classifies the naming ways of Chinese dish names. From the perspective of sociosemiotics, it analyzes the three meanings and functions (informative, imperative, aesthetic, phatic). During the translation of Chinese dish names into English, according to the classification of Chinese dish names, different translation methods, such as literal translation, liberal translation, transliteration and literal translation plus annotation, should be employed, in order to achieve successful information spreading, advertisement and cultural communication, and maximize the reproduction in English the meanings and functions of Chinese dish names.