A Report On The C-E Translation Of The Cultural Roots Of Traditional Chinese Medicine (Excerpts)

Traditional Chinese medicine(TCM),as one of the best protected aspects of Chinese culture,has long been translated into English and introduced to Western countries.However,it hasn't spread to these countries as successfully as Western medicine has done in China.This phenomenon can be attributed to many reasons,but the major one is that the cultural environment in Western countries is quite different from that of China,and Western readers may not understand the philosophical and cultural origins of TCM.Thus,more attention should be paid to the translation and introduction of the cultural roots of TCM instead of the discipline itself.This is also the reason why the translator wants to translate The Cultural Roots of Traditional Chinese Medicine.The Cultural Roots of Traditional Chinese Medicine systematically discusses the relationship between TCM and different aspects of traditional Chinese culture.It gives readers a better understanding of the cultural roots and theoretical basis of the major concepts of TCM.In its long history,generations of TCM doctors,inspired by the major theories of ancient Chinese philosophy,religions,ethics,etc.,build up a medical science with great Chinese characteristics by inheriting and developing these theories scientifically in practice.Therefore,TCM has been constantly influenced by the mainstream culture of ancient China,and how to translate these cultural messages faithfully is the most difficult problem to be conquered.And the difficulty lies mainly in cultural untranslatability.The untranslatability caused by cultural differences is the biggest obstacle in intercultural communication,and it is widely believed that Zero-translation is a feasible approach to this problem,because it cannot only turn the cultural untranslatability into cultural translatability,but also effectively retain the expression patterns of the source text and convey the messages faithfully.Translation of the cultural roots of TCM is also a means of intercultural communication,so Zero-translation can be employed to solve the untranslatability of the culture-loaded concepts and words in TCM.In this translation report,the translator aims to discuss how to use Zero-translation to convey the cultural messages and the unique expression patterns of the source text in TCM translation,and try to realize the aim of helping the target readers get a better understanding of the cultural characteristics of the discipline.