Research On C-E Translation Methods Of Culture-loaded Words In Traditional Chinese Medical Classics

As a comprehensive clinical book that has great medical and cultural value, QianJin Fang has epitomized the experience of diagnosis and treatment before TangDynasty and made a great influence on Traditional Chinese Medicine. Being rich incontent and wide in research scope, this book involves various aspects, includingmedical ethics, Chinese material medica, prescriptions, and clinical symptoms, etc.Influenced by ancient Chinese philosophy, language and religion, Qian Jin Fangis concise in language and profound in culture. And lots of culture-loaded words arefound in this book, which are the difficulties and focuses in C-E translation. The C-Etranslation of Qian Jin Fang has been listed into the national-level majorproject--Research and C-E Translation Project of Traditional Chinese MedicalClassics. The project leader Luo Xiwen has passed away in2012during his translationof this book. The translation has been finished but not yet been published. Therefore,there is no integrate and authoritative English version for reference so far. The relativeliteratures are less and the scholars who fix their research on translatingculture-loaded words in this book are also few.Based on the theorists· translation theory of Traditional Chinese Medical Classicsand my own translation practice of Qian Jin Fang, this thesis attempts to explore thefollowing two questions:(1)What kinds of culture-loaded words in Qian Jin Fang canbe classified into?(2) What kinds of translation methods could be adopted and how touse them? In order to achieve the research target, this thesis mainly uses thesummarization and enumeration methods, and comes to the following conclusions:(1) According to the properties of the culture-loaded words in Qian Jin Fang, theauthor classifies the words into the following three categories:1) Proper names;2)Chinese medical terms;3) Philosophical and religious culture-loaded words;(2) Several translation methods, such as transliteration, literal translation,transliteration combined with literal translation, free translation, annotation, andinterpretive translation can be adopted in C-E translation of culture-loaded words inQian Jin Fang. When the translators use those methods above, they should payattention to the following aspects:1) In order to keep the integrity of meaning andunderlying information, transliteration, annotation and interpretive translation can beused;2) For the Chinese medical terms, such as meridian names and acupoint names,the transliteration or transliteration combined with literal translation can be adopted;3) For those untranslatable words, special manipulation should be made to ensure thereadability of the texts and the integrity of underlying information so as to avoid theunnecessary obstacles and errors in cultural understanding;4) Besides, the translatorsshould also take readability of the translation and reader·s acceptability intoconsideration. Free translation and annotation could be adopted in a flexible way whentranslators do translation of the religious and philosophical culture-loaded words.After a comprehensive study, this thesis hopes to offer some constructivesuggestions or advice to other scholars who are engaged in medical classicstranslation.