| Since the Ming and Qing dynasties,Western medicine had been introduced into China through missionaries under the background of "Western Medicine Propagation to the East".However,the course of "Western Obstetrics Propagation to the East" had been repeatedly obstructed."Obstetrics" had become a field where western medicine had difficulty in "invading",China during the eighteenth to the nineteenth century.Under this historical background,Da Sheng Bian,a widely-circulated medical classic on childbirth of the late imperial period,became a "rare channel" for missionaries to gain insight into traditional Chinese obstetrics and midwifery traditions.Da Sheng Bian,also known as Da Sheng Pian and Chan Jia Da Sheng Bian,was published in the fifty-fourth year of Emperor Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty(AD 1715)by Lay Buddhist Jizhai and was the first Chinese obstetrical classic translated into English,which can be seen as a "mirror" of mutual acquaintance between Chinese and Western obstetrics.Over the past three hundred and eight years,the English translation of Da Sheng Bian has been spectacular and four English versions with their own characteristics have been produced successively,respectively are William Lockhart’s full translation(1 842),Mary West Niles’s selective translation(1890),John Glasgow Kerr’s full translation(1 894),as well as John Preston Maxwell and Jui-Lai Liu’s selective translation(1923).These four English versions have complemented each other and jointly contributed to the communication,study and reception of Da Sheng Bian,While in comparison to the positive reception of Lockhart’s version,there is little attention and recognition paid to Kerr’s version.In view of the fact that previous researches on Da Sheng Bian mainly focus on its ontology research with only a few studies concentrating on the case studies of Lockhart’s or Kerr’s English versions,this study takes the five elements in Medio-translatology as its theoretical framework,exploring the reasons for the poor reception of Kerr’s version and the popularity of Lockhart’s version by making a comparative study on these two English versions from five aspects,respectively are translation subjects(who translates),translation contents(what to translate),promotion channels(in which way to translate),translation audiences(to whom)and translation effects(with what translation effect).The research findings can be shown as follows.In terms of translation subjects,Lockhart and Kerr are both professional medical missionaries to China who are proficient in both Chinese and English and have a good command of western surgery and obstetrics but their translation purposes are totally different.In terms of translation content,concrete embodiment of translator’s creative treason can be found in these two English versions.In Lockhart’s version,the translator makes creative treason against the source text to balance the relationship between "preserving the cultural characteristics of Chinese medicine" and "maintaining the promotion effects",while in Kerr’s version,there are a large number of mistranslations due to the differences between Chinese and Western obstetrics and his desire of "praising Western obstetrics"and "derogating Chinese obstetrics",omissions due to translator’s deletion,simplification and negligence,as well as personalized translations for the purpose of fabricating a "backward" and "unenlightened" image of Chinese obstetrics.In terms of promotion channels,in contrast to the traditional "publishers looking for translators"model,Lockhart takes the initiative to contact authoritative English medical journals to promote his translation,and successfully achieves the secondary promotion and communication,opening up new promotion channels and platforms such as medical officer’s report.While the original translation manuscript is used as the promotion vehicle for Kerr’s version for the first time,and after the translation owns little effect,the international medical conferences and medical journals are used by him as the promotion channels.In terms of translation audiences,the readership of both these two versions is mostly professional male readers.Lockhart’s version owns broad and diverse audiences and readers of his version mostly are medical missionaries,medical historians,medical writers,obstetricians,surgeons,librarians,literature researchers,translation researchers,sinologists,journalists,students and etc.However,Kerr’s version has a relatively narrow circle of audiences and readers of his version are mainly medical missionaries,medical historians,obstetricians,surgeons,archivists,librarians,students and etc.In terms of translation effects,this study relies on OCLC and the Tableau visualization software,as well as other academic databases and adopts the research method of exhaustively searching the official websites of major foreign libraries to dig out global library holdings,readers’ book reviews and feedback,citation frequency and research mentioning of Da Sheng Bian’s two English versions.The results of the study show that both translations are rare and precious in world collections,and Lockhart’s version is more popular and recognized by readers around the world,with a relatively higher citation than Kerr’s.Last but not least,by the end of March 31st,2023,diverse Chinese editions of Da Sheng Bian have been distributed to many countries and regions in the English speaking world(13 separate editions and 66 bound editions),such as the United States,the United Kingdom,Canada,Australia,Malaysia and etc.Among these editions,the earliest engraved copy is the Bao Wu Lou edition printed in the 32nd year of the Qianlong era,and the most engraved copy is printed by the Shanghai tu shu ji cheng yin shu ju in the 22nd year of the Guangxu era,the most exquisite copy is published by Fu Xian Tang in the 5th year of the Daoguang era.Based on the above analysis,this study summarizes the experiences and lessons learned from the English translation and communication of Da Sheng Bian with a hope to shed some lights for more excellent TCM classics and culture to "go abroad".In summary,from the perspective of Medio-translatology,the translation of TCM classics can adopt the translation model of sino-foreign cooperation,that is,foreign sinologists and Chinese TCM scholars can complement each other’s advantages and cooperate in translation;Secondly,selecting the translation contents with Chinese medical characteristics and highlighting the value of Chinese medicine;Thirdly,strengthening the cooperation with foreign mainstream publishers and international authoritative medical journals and promoting TCM culture through new media technologies and multi-modal systems,so as to take advantage of the "sail" to "go to the sea";Fourthly,positioning the translation audiences and clarifying the acceptability and reading habits of them;Last but not least,improving the evaluation and feedback mechanism of the translation and communication of TCM classics. |
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