Studies On English Translation Of Chinese Menus From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

Chinese cuisine has a long history and contains abundant Chinese culture. With the development ofglobalization and China’s frequent participating in international events, Chinese food has become moreand more popular around the world. Nowadays large numbers of foreigners get to know Chinese cultureby means of tasting Chinese food. However, translations of one and the same Chinese food vary fromplace to place, and this can be seen in high-end restaurants or small chophouses. In order to improve thequality of menu translation and catering service, the Foreign Affairs Office of Beijing MunicipalGovernment published the book——Enjoy Culinary Delights: The English Translation of ChineseMenus (hereafter referred to as TETCM), which includes translations of the “eight regional cuisines”,serving as a good reference for the English translation of Chinese menus.Though the above-mentioned book TETCM has great referential significance, it is not perfect.Some translations of the culture-loaded dish names that are closely related to historical information aretoo straightforward. Translations given by the book TETCM only offer the cooking ingredients andmethods but not the original cultural or aesthetic elements. How can we better translate the menus,making our translation better received and our culture better known to the foreigners? This is a topicthat calls for more researches.This thesis chooses the book TETCM as a case for study. In the light of Reception Aesthetics raisedby Wolfgang Iser and Hans Robert Jauss in the1960s, the author gave a detailed analysis of thetranslations of the names of Chinese food and the methods adopted by the translator. ReceptionAesthetics shifts the centre of literary studies from texts to readers, emphasizing readers’ understandingand reception of text meaning and aesthetics. Based on it, and based on her analyses of the translationsgiven by the book TETCM, the author proposes some translation principles and methods for Chinesemenus. The first suggested principle is that our translation should be readers-oriented and the second isthat we should try to convey as much Chinese cultural connotation as possible. Moreover, somemethods for translating Chinese menus are offered in order to improve our translation. Translators canadopt literal translation with the pattern of “Cooking method+main ingredients+with (in)+otheringredients or sauce” or the combination of literal translation with free translation for self-descriptivedish names. For culture-loaded dish names, Translators can adopt foreignization, conversion, amplification, omission etc. Sometimes we also need additional notes to deliver comprehensive foodinformation to English readers.