Distorted Evidence:Research On J.G.Kerr’s Translation Of Da Sheng Bian

By adopting the methodology of Descriptive Translation Studies,this study aims to construct a comprehensive description and systematical analysis of American Protestant missionary John G.Kerr’s English translating of Da Sheng Bian regarding historical context,translation motives,translation strategies and methods as well as translation quality and effects.The main findings and conclusions are as follows.As a male surgeon,Kerr’s expertise in obstetrical operation suffered rejection in China.Therefore,he bothered himself to translate it and sent it to America though he regarded its views as “sophistic” and “contradictory”.He believed the book was solid evidence to confirm the “backwardness” of TCM obstetrics,which could be utilized to attract more support for his enterprise of spreading Western obstetrics in China.TCM principles in Da Sheng Bian underwent serious distortions after Kerr’s translating.In terms of the classic’s purport,he mistook the midwiferies who were repeatedly derided and criticized by the author as the target audience.He always adopted a generalization strategy in the translating of TCM expressions,which causes a lot of TCM information loss,as well as a series of mistranslations in the translation cause illogical translation,which objectively confirms the “backwardness” of TCM obstetrics.Kerr published the distorted version of Da Sheng Bian together with his paper derogating TCM obstetrics and took this translation as solid evidence for his arguments in the paper.Because of Kerr’s authoritative position and his claims of “literal translation”and “exhibit the author’s ideas in his own style”,this translation imposes notoriety of “absurd,ignorant,unenlightened” on TCM obstetrics and resulted in the inferior image of TCM obstetrics and TCM in the West.