A Comparative Study Of Two English Versions Of Huangdi Nei Jing From The Perspective Of Foucault’s Power And Discourse Theory

With the acceleration of globalization, powerful culture will inevitably influence other cultures, resulting in weaker cultures faced with the threat of being assimilated. On the other hand, these weaker cultures begin to realize the importance of maintaining their cultural identity. While in the context of globalization, how can these weaker cultures maintain their cultural identity by means of translation? Culture-loaded words can best reflect a nation?s cultural features, and one of the most effective means to maintain the cultural identity of a nation is the correct translation of culture-loaded words. Culture-loaded words play a very important role in cultural exchange. At the present stage, in order to make wider spread of traditional Chinese culture to the world, the translation of culture-loaded words is of great importance.As a representative of the Chinese medical classics, the study of the English translation of Huangdi Neijing has been attracting increasing attention and is of great significance of traditional Chinese culture. It can be studied as a perfect example of culture-loaded words translation in the cross-cultural communication. However, so many studies focus on the comparison of different English versions or the translation techniques adopted, while there are few studies mainly focus on the translation of culture-loaded words in Huangdi Neijing. By contrast, the strong Chinese cultural characteristics make it possible to have a study of cultureloaded words.In the light of Nida?s classification of culture-loaded words and Foucault?s Power and Discourse Theory, this thesis selects two versions of Huangdi Neijing Su Wen from the first 34 chapters, one translated by an American sinologist named Ilza Veith(1945) and the other translated by A Chinese linguist called Li Zhaoguo(2005). The thesis studies the manipulation in the translation of culture-loaded words at the linguistic level by making a summary of translation strategies for translating Chinese culture-loaded words and phrases. Then the thesis analyzes the power manipulation of different historical backgrounds and the individual power and discourse from an extra-linguistic angle. The two versions were translated under different social ideology, translation purposes and the translators manifested different strategies. All are the results of power manipulation.Power and Discourse Theory not only provides a new perspective for translation studies and is of great guiding significance for translation practice, but also broadens the scope of studying the English translation of Huangdi Neijing.