A Study On English Translation Of Traditional Chinese Medicine Instructions Under The Guidance Of Tytler’s Three Principles Of Translation

As one of the outstanding cultural heritages of Chinese nation, Traditional Chinesemedicine has existed for several thousand years. Under the guidance and influence of thethoughts of ancient Chinese materialism and dialectics, and after several-thousand-yearmedical practice, traditional Chinese medicine has gradually formed and developed into aunique theoretical medical system, which has made a substantial and indelible contributionto the health of peoples inside and outside of China. To spread it throughout the world andmake it serve more people would be the magnificent mission of traditional Chinesemedicine workers and translators. In recent years, as Chinese opening up and reformproceeded and the exchange of Chinese and western culture became frequent, traditionalChinese medicine has increasingly attracted the attention of the international medical field,and its translation work has also gained the further development. However, increasingproblems in its English translation are emerging; some problems directly affect the spreadof traditional Chinese medicine to the rest of the world. Therefore, a number of domesticand foreign scholars and translators have focused on research work of the Englishtranslation of traditional Chinese medicine. Their original research has laid a practical andtheoretical basis for the healthy development of the translation of traditional Chinesemedicine. However, due to the differences of the cultural background, areas of expertiseand translation theories, it is difficult to form a unified principles and methods of Englishtranslation of traditional Chinese medicine, while the English translation of traditionalChinese medicine presents the tendency of various schools. The author will analyze andtranslate the chosen materials under the guidance of Tytler’s three translation principles onthe basis of the valuable experience and theories of predecessors, associating with my ownworking experiences, trying to study how to propagandize traditional Chinese medicineculture at the same time to introduce traditional Chinese medicine, and how to make it inthe process of translating traditional Chinese medicine instructions without losing originalinformation.This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one is the introduction, a general presentation about the stimulus of the research and the significance of the research.Chapter two is mainly about the literature review of Tytler’s translation principles and theprevious studies on the translation of traditional Chinese medicine instructions. Chapterthree points out the difficulties in the translation of traditional Chinese medicineinstructions are the traditional Chinese medicine culture contained in them and the featuresof their language and then gives brief explanation about the two aspects. Chapter Fouranalyzes the selected translation of traditional Chinese medicine instructions under theguidance of Tytler’s translation principles, and then sums up the strategies and methods oftranslating traditional Chinese medicine instructions and gives the author’s version underthe guidance of Tytler’s translation principles. Chapter Five is the conclusion. Thelimitations of the thesis are commented in this chapter, with the expectancy of furtherresearch. However, The English translation of traditional Chinese medicine is an arduousundertaking. It needs not only good translators’ participation, but also needs the positiveand effective guidance of Chinese government.