A Study On English Translation And Acceptability Of Huangdi Neijing Suwen

Huangdi Neijing Suwen represents one of the most outstanding traditional Chinese medicine classics.It records plenty of scientific medicine knowledge as well as Chinese humanism philosophy and culture,which deserves translation research greatly.In translation research,source text,translation strategy and target text are indispensable to each other.This thesis draws a general and corresponding outline on classifying categories of genre,translation strategy and acceptability,which aims to explore how target text meets reader's horizon of expectation and therefore promote international cultural communication.Chapter One classifies categories of genre of Suwen,because genre determines translation strategy.Chinese medicine classic Suwen largely embodies philosophy thoughts and cultural images,thus it can be roughly divided into science genre,philosophy genre and cultural image genre.Different genres require different translation strategies.Science genre requires target text to be precise and concise.Philosophy genre requires target text to be simple and readable.Cultural image genre requires target text to reproduce and explain its inner meaning in source text.Chapter Two applies translation quality assessment theory proposed by Juliane House to compare mismatches in lexical and syntactic meanings of three versions.It analyzes the causes of these mismatches and the types of translation strategy.Different translators emphasize different genres and adopt different strategies,which leads to mismatches in other ignored genres.Maoshing Ni emphasizes science and philosophy genre and adapts covert translation,so mismatches mostly appear in the cultural image genre.Li Zhaoguo and Unschuld adapt overt translation.Li emphasizes science and cultural image genre so mismatches mostly exist in philosophy genre.While Unschuld emphasizes philosophy and cultural image genre but there are not many mismatches that appear in science because he adopts strictly word-for-word translation.Different translation strategies and mismatches have a direct influence on acceptability.Chapter Three classifies target readers into three groups on the basis of the theory of horizon of expectation: practitioners,laypersons and researchers.Different groups areequipped with different horizons of expectation so that they have different interest and requirements for different genres.Through comparing three target texts on different genres,this chapter analyzes whether potential reader groups match translators' expected reader groups.It also assesses Suwen's degree of acceptability in different reader groups.Ni's version wins higher acceptability among practitioners and laypersons.Li's version wins higher acceptability among researchers.Unschuld's version wins higher acceptability among laypersons and researchers.This paper concluded that translation strategy is determined by textual genre and therefore influences the acceptability of target readers.Because category of genre requires classifying and target readers need grouping,so translation strategy also needs to be changed to promote acceptability while facing different genres and reader groups.As a result,the source text will gain a variety of regeneration by various strategies.Different reader groups will also enjoy Suwen through reading different styles of versions and experience the charm of Chinese medicine and Chinese culture.