Multi-Dimensional Adaptation And Selection-an Eco-Translatological Study On The English Translation Of Chinese Dish Names

As China is a multinational country with a vast territory and a long history, its dish culture is extensive and profound with its own national characteristics. There are an enormous amount of dishes in China. Thus, the translation of Chinese dish names has become a unique part of translation studies. With the international globalization progress and increasingly frequent trade exchanges between China and other countries, the English translation of Chinese dish names is playing an increasingly important role in the transmission of Chinese dish culture.Meanwhile, as the loss of “right of discourse” is a result of the over-westernization phenomenon in Chinese academy for the past century, it is necessary to return the Chinese tradition to dig up Chinese terms. The Chinese dish names can be termed as a kind of manifestation of Chinese language and culture. If the translator can translate them in an idiomatic and esthetic way, they will be surely an impetus to help China gain discourse power of translation and make a difference in the field of international translation studies. Therefore, to select a theory which can study and guide the translation of Chinese dish names from multiple dimensions is a certain trend in the translation field. In this paper, the author attempts to select Eco-translatology as the theory to make a comprehensive analysis of the English translation of Chinese dish names.Eco-translatology explores translation from the perspective of ecology, which takes the basic principle of Biological Evolution as its cornerstone, such as “natural selection”, “survival of the fittest”, etc. It studies translation from multiple dimensions, namely, under the principle of multi-dimensional adaptation and selection, relatively focusing on the selective transformation among linguistic dimension, cultural dimension and communicative dimension. Eco-translatology aims to offer a new description and explanation of the nature, process, standard and principles of translation. Based on the theoretical framework of eco-translatology, the author first lists some problems in the exiting translation and then makes an analysis on the translators’ adaptive selection in the English translation of Chinese dish names from three dimensions, namely, linguistic dimension, cultural dimension and communicative dimension. Also, some translation principles and methods are suggested for the translation of Chinese dish names under eco-translatology, in the hope of stimulating further studies and providing a new angle for the English translation of Chinese dish names.