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Cultural Functional Equivalence And The English Translation Of Chinese Dish Names

Posted on:2013-06-27Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:Y ZhangFull Text:PDF
GTID:2255330401451009Subject:English Language and Literature
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
Chinese dish names, with their unique expression and profound cultural connotation,reflect the colorful Chinese cuisine culture. With the ever-broadening international exchanges,our foreign friends show increasing interest in Chinese food culture. It is now necessary tostandardize the English translation of Chinese menu so as to better disseminate the Chinesefood culture to the world, which will enhance the publicity and better realize the integration oflocalization and globalization. However, as no sufficient attention is paid to the transmittingof cultural information in the process of English translation of Chinese dish names, someEnglish translations of Chinese dish names being awkward or even unintelligible fail toachieve the function as intended. The paper seeks to present some English translations ofHunan dish names to study the translation principles and methods of transmitting culturalconnotations of Chinese dish names from the cultural functional equivalence perspective.Cultural functional equivalence and functional equivalence are closely related with eachother. As the representative of cultural translation theories, Susan Bassnett applies the theoryof cultural functional equivalence to reflect her attitude of dealing with the cultural factors inthe process of translation from the macro-level of communicative function, taking the culturaland social factors on translation, particularly the cultural factors into consideration. Bassnettpoints out that equivalence in translation are cultural functional equivalence between thesource text and the translation. In the process of translation, translators should endeavor tomake the translated texts in the target culture exert the same function as the original does inthe source culture due to different texts have different functions in certain culture. Functionalequivalence theory, however, from the micro level of communicative function, gives moreattention to the transmission of the text information. Nida holds that translation is toreproduce the spirit of the original text to the greatest extent from meanings to styles. Both ofthe theories pursue the realization of the communicative function. The macro culture and themicro message in translation mutually intersect with each other and cannot be separated.Therefore, based on the comparative relationship of the two theories, the paper seeks to findeffective cultural translation principles for English translation of Chinese dish names in order to better realize the culturally functional equivalence of Chinese dish names.The main body of the thesis is divided into four parts. Part one gives a detailedintroduction of cultural connotation of Chinese dish names from the aspects of linguistic andcultural features with the special reference to Hunan dish names. And it also points out theproblems in current translation of Chinese dish names. Part two introduces the culturalfunctional equivalence theory and asserts that it can give guidance to the cultural informationtransmission in English translation of Chinese dish names. And translation concepts related tocultural functional equivalence are also listed. In part three, principles for translation ofChinese dish names are put forward after giving an overall analysis about the comparativerelation between cultural functional equivalence and functional equivalence. In part four,According to the concrete form of the cultural connotation of the Hunan cuisine names, theauthor puts forward some specific translation methods under the translation principle ofChinese dish names and gives a detailed analysis of translation methods to realize themaximization of cultural functional equivalence of Chinese dish names. Based on the abovediscussion, this thesis points out that Chinese dish names translation should conform to theprinciple of cultural functional equivalence to fulfill the transmitting of cultural informationsuccessfully. A translator should adopt different translation methods according to the concreteform of the cultural connotation of the Chinese dish names to realize the intended culturalfunction of the dish names.
Keywords/Search Tags:cultural functional equivalence, English translation of Chinese dish names, Hunan dish names, translation principles, translation methods
PDF Full Text Request
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