中餐菜名的语言文化解析

Cultural Analysis in the Naming of Chinese Dishes

将菜名分为写实菜名和写意菜名,希望能够通过分析菜名中丰富的文化信息为菜名翻译提供更全面的文化分析语境。发现写实菜名和写意菜名有几乎相等的比率,这意味着写意菜名尽管在传递菜的基本信息上欠缺,但仍然是很重要的文化和菜色信息的传递载体。

Chinese dish names have always been discussed by scholars for their cultural connotations and metaphorical references. Dish names are special because they convey Chinese images and transmit Chinese hospitality to the world. Yet many current dish names do not have the best translated versions. As a result, Chinese culture behind them is not well understood by foreign- ers. This essay divides Chinese dish names into two groups, descriptive dish names and dish names of aesthetic senses, hoping to explore more comprehensive cultural meanings in the dish names and therefor provide rich cultural information for translation. In this essay, we found that the proportion of these two groups of dish names is half to half which means that metaphorically structured dish names are equally important in the transmitting of dish information despite their difficulty in grasping the main ingredients of the dishes.