A Study On The English Translation Of Traditional Chinese Medicine Metaphors In Political Texts From The Perspective Of Embodided-Cognitive Translatology

Political texts reflect national attitudes and disseminate diplomatic ideas,and their translation is particularly significant due to their close association with the government’s governing philosophy,policy direction,and political stance.The ability to translate political texts is also a crucial component of a country’s discourse power.In recent years,Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM)expressions,with their implicit metaphors,frequently appear in political texts to convey profound cultural connotations.To ensure that the translated version conveys the original ideological content to the greatest extent while preserving the original language style and readability,the translation of TCM metaphors is of vital significance.The theory of EmbodiedCognitive Translatology proves an effective framework for the translation of TCM metaphors in political texts.From the perspective of embodied translation studies,a small bilingual parallel corpus of the original texts and their English translation of Xi Jinping: The Governance of China I,II & III has been constructed.With the help of the ‘Chinese Medicine Language System’ developed by the National Basic Database Project Team of Chinese Medicine of the Ministry of Science and Technology,and adhering to the team’s technical standards for collecting Chinese medicine terminology,a comprehensive exploration and categorization of TCM metaphors has been carried out within the corpus.With the aid of the MIP,the study identified 293 instances of TCM metaphors and their English translations and outlined the metaphorical mapping between TCM metaphors and political discourse,and subsequently examined the translation methods and effects of metaphorical expressions in both the source and target languages,based on the “Reality-Cognition-Language” principle.The study finds that: 1)From the first to the third volume,the TCM metaphors for “human body” show a sharp decline,those for “signs and symptoms” tend to be at a stable level,and those for “diagnostic treatment” is on a steady rise.The data suggest that Xi Jinping: The Governance of China is increasingly focused on presenting the measures that the country has taken and should take in response to the current situation,which to a certain extent reflects the changing attitude of the state leader.2)Translators adopt three main methods,literal translation(34.8%),liberal translation(paraphrasing 44.0% and loan translation 11.6%),and omission(9.6%),when dealing with metaphors,while retaining(30.38%),explaining(42.32%),supplementing(5.8%),replacing(11.94%)or omitting(9.56%)them according to their inherent cultural characteristics.The methods chosen by translators are closely linked to China’s confidence in its road and culture,and reflect the enhancement of their political discourse power.It is hoped to enrich political text translation research and help experts and professional translators jointly enhance the influence of Chinese translation research and the overseas dissemination of Chinese culture.