Research On The Standardization Of English Translation Of Pharmacy Of Chinese Materia Medica General Terminology

Objective: The standardization of English translation of Pharmacy of Chinese MateriaMedica general terminology is one of the important tasks of "Chinese medicine basic subjectnoun terminology standardization research",which is a special key project of Ministry ofScience and Technology of the year2012. According to the Chinese-English norms andrules established by the project,referencing to the relevant literature and related translationtheories and combining with the characteristics of English Translation of Pharmacy ofChinese Materia Medica terms,the topic made English translation research on244ChineseMateria Medica general terminologies provided by the project team/TCM TerminologyCommittee.The establishment of a English standard terminology database provides referenceto the further research on pharmacology noun terminology translation.Methods: Studying on the244Chinese Materia Medica general terminologies provided bythe project team/TCM Terminology Committee,Referencing to the English translation of the244Chinese Materia Medica general terminologies in12kinds of TCM terminologytranslation standards commonly used in China and foreign countries,the study made it into aform.The consistent rate of English translation of the244Chinese entries in these12kindsof standards was divided into A, B, C, D four grades.A was completely consistent, theretention of the original English translation.B was basically the same, using the highest rate of English words.C and D were partially consistent and inconsistent.They were the focus ofthis study. This entry was split according to the words,phrases or morpheme to make thesecond statistics.After the second statistics, if reached to the level B consistency rate,it canbe directly used.If it still not up to the level A or B consistency rate, the study would select atranslation from the standards according to the Chinese-English rules established by theproject.If all the English translations were not proper,the author would choose othertranslation as the recommended translation.The Chinese meaning of Chinese entries mainlyreferred to traditional Chinese medicine terms, Chinese materira medica, prescriptions ofChinese materira medica. The meaning of English translation of the entries mainly referredto Oxford Advanced Learner’s English Chinese Dictionary.Results: According to the statistics,Of all the244Chinese Materia Medica generalterminologies,there were13entries which reached to level A translation consistent rate,5.33%of the total. English translation consistency rate reached B grade is122,50.00%of thetotal. English translation consistency rate reached C grade is59,24.18%of the total. Englishtranslation consistency rate reached D grade is50,20.49%of the total. Of all244Chinesemedicine entries translation, there were225entries selected from the12standards.Theauthor though that the translation was not appropriate and19entries were chosen bymyself.The rate of level A was very low, only5.33%of the total.The main reasons were asfollowing: the first was the difference in the input volume among12versions of thestandard on the244terms,resulting in the large difference in the sample. The second was thevarious understanding of terms, resulting in different translation.The third was although themeaning of entries’ translation was the same, the words’ choosing angle, grammaticalstructures and the writing were different which results in they were not up to screeningrequirements.Conclusion:(1) A series of TCM terminology translation principles and methods made byTCM Terminology Committee has high feasibility, applicable to the English translation ofChinese Materia Medica general terminologies.(2) Some translation of the terms stultifiesthemselves are not in a system even at the same standard.(3)when translating,we can base on Chinese entry’s logical relationship and structure,using a fixed pattern, which cansimplify and reach a systematic translation.(4)the Chinese English translation of terminologyis changing from a general term to term direction; from the long explanation to concisepractical transformation; from individual scattered to whole system.(5)This paper focusedon the level C and level D translation, and the translations of244pharmacy of Chinesemateria medica terms were made into a data table as one of the achievements.