Standardization of Basic Terms Translation of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Standardization of translation of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) terms has been the focus of TCM translation for a long time; and it is the important force to enhance the steps of TCM internationalization. The standardization of translation of TCM terms is also the key to promote the theoretical research of TCM translation and the international exchange and scientific research.

Comments on Nigel Wiseman s A Practical Dictionary of Chinese Medicine(Ⅰ)——On the“Word-for-word”Literal Approach to Translation

Comments were made on the ＂word-for-word＂ literal translation method used by Mr. Nigel Wiseman in A Practical Dictionary of Chinese Medicine. He believes that only literal translation can reflect Chinese medical concepts accurately. The so-called ＂word-for-word＂ translation is actually ＂English-word-for- Chinese-character＂ translation. First, the authors of the dictionary made a list of Single Characters with English Equivalents, and then they gave each character of the medical term an English equivalent according to the list. Finally, they made some minor modifications to make the rendering grammatically smoother. Many English terms thus produced are confusing. The defect of the word-for-word literal translation stems from the erroneous idea that a single character constitutes the basic element of meaning corresponding to the notion of ＂word＂ in English, and the meaning of a disyllabic or polysyllabic Chinese word is the simple addition of the constituent characters. Another big mistake is the negligence of the polysemy of Chinese characters. One or two English equivalents can by no means cover all the various meanings of a single character which is a polysemous monosyllabic word. Various examples were cited from this dictionary to illustrate the mistakes.

Comments on Nigel Wiseman's A Practical Dictionary of Chinese Medicine (Ⅱ) ——On the Use of Western Medical Terms to Express the Concepts of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Mr. Wiseman believes that Western medical terms chosen as equivalents of Chinese medical terms should be the words known to all speakers and not requiring any specialist knowledge or instrumentation to understand or identify, and strictly technical Western medical terms should be avoided regardless of their conceptual conformity to the Chinese terms. Accordingly, many inappropriate Western medical terms are selected as English equivalents by the authors of the Dictionary, and on the other hand, many ready-made appropriate Western medical terms are replaced by loan English terms with the Chinese style of word formation. The experience gained in solving the problems of translating Western medical terms into Chinese when West- ern medicine was first introduced to China is helpful for translating Chinese medical terms into English. However, the authors of the Dictionary adhere to their own opinions, ignoring others＂ experience. The English terms thus created do not reflect the genuine meaning of the Chinese terms, but make the English glossary in chaos. The so-called true face of traditional Chinese revealed by such terms is merely the Chinese custom of word formation and metaphoric rhetoric. In other words, traditional Chinese medicine is not regarded as a system of medicine but merely some Oriental folklore.

On Strategies of Translating Chinese Characteristic Terms into English-Taking Chinese Economic Terms as Examples

After the reform and opening up to the outside world,great changes have taken place in many fields like economy,politics,and culture in China.In the field of economy,a multitude of new phenomena,new ideas and new things spring up continuously.At the same time,many Chinese characteristic terms reflecting these new things have been emerging.The creation of these terms requires the translators to provide accurate and idiomatic translation of them in time.The English translation of Chinese characteristic terms plays an important role not only in promoting Chinese characteristic socialist economy but also in deepening the understanding of Chinese economy for English readers.Therefore,this paper will analyze the features and translation obstacles of Chinese characteristic terms,then point out some practical guidelines and methods to solve the problems in translating Chinese characteristic terms into English.This paper aims to improve the translation of Chinese Characteristic terms.

Nominalization in the Translation of Chinese Medicine

Chinese medicine has not only made great contribution to the Chinese culture,but also generated positive influences on the world civilization.With China’s entry into WTO,Chinese medicine has been paid great attention.Nevertheless,the nature of the Chinese medicine language makes its translation very hard,particularly it is very difficult to deal with the phenomenon of nominalization when translating Chinese medicine into English.This paper explores how and why there are nominalizations in the English translation of Chinese medicine.

A Prototype Approach to the Chinese-English Focal Color Term Translation

Color terms constitute the color category in linguistic categorization.As the prototypical members of color terms,biologically-motivated focal colors are derived from human’s perception and embodiment of the real world,and they represent relatively stable properties of objects.Based on the prototype category theory,the cross-linguistic properties of the specific focal colors"red"and"white"are examined,hence some problems are confronted in Chinese-English translation due to the different cognitive models operating in different nations.As a future step,some hints and strategies for Chinese-English color term translation are rendered afterwards:direct translation method as well as the cultural meaning-equivalent method can be conducted in an overall manner.Sometimes,the moderate form without translating the color name may be an appropriate counterpart of the source language.

Comparative study on WHO Western Pacific Region and World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies international standard terminologies on traditional medicine: Diseases in External Medicine (Part 2)

This is a continued study about how to understand and translate the names of diseases in the external medicine of TCM included in the WPRO Standard and the WFCMS Standard according to the discussion made in the book entitled International Standardization of English Translation of Traditional Chinese Medicine： Study of Theory, Summarization of Practice and Exploration of Methodst, the explanation made in A Concise Dictionary of Traditional Chinese Medicine,

Comparative study on WHO Western Pacific Region and World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies international standard terminologies on traditional medicine: Diseases in External Medicine (Part 1)

External medicine, also frequently described as surgery, has a history as long as that of traditional Chinese medicine （TCM）. There were important doctors in each dynasty who devoted themselves to the study and practice of external medicine. In TCM external medicine, diseases are named either according to their location （such as neck abscess and back carbuncle）, or viscera involved （such as intestinal abscess and lung abscess）, or causes （such as tetanus and chilblain, which are literally known respectively as wind damage of wound and sore caused by cold in TCM）, or shape （such as snake head boil and goose web wind）, or the color （such as erysipelas and vitiligo which are literally known respectively as red toxin and white skin wind）, etc.

Comparative study on WHO Western Pacific Region and World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies international standard terminologies on traditional medicine: Diseases in External Medicine (Part 3)

rocky mass/cancer： any malignant tumor occurring on body surface that looks and feels like rock In classical Chinese medicine, the character 岩 （literally meaning rock） means the same thing as 癌 （malignant tumor）. That is why it is now usually translated as ＂cancer＂ or ＂carcinoma＂, which is adopted in the WFCMS Standard. To translate it as ＂rocky mass＂ in the WPRO Standard appears quite unique and sounds semantically equivalent to the original term.

Comparative study on WHO Western Pacific Region and World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies international standard terminologies on traditional medicine:Diseases in External Medicine(Part 4)

The following is a continued discussion about how to understand and translate the names of diseases in external medicine included in the WHO International Standard Terminologies on Traditional Medicine in the Western Pacific Region （abbreviated as the WPRO Standard）[1] and the standard compiled by the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies （abbreviated as the WFCMSStandard）[2], according to the studies made in the book entitled International Standardization of English Translation of Traditional Chinese Medicine： Study of Theory, Summariza- tion of Practice and Exploration of Methods[3].

Methods of Translating Chinese Philosophical Terms

In this article, some translation methods such as literal translation, interpretation,t ransliteration, creation and integrated translation are introduced,they are all applied in the English translation of Chinese philosophical terms since each of them has its own merits and demerits as well. It is proposed to make an integrated use of these methods depending on situations so as to accurately convey Chinese philosophy in its entirety.

To watch English Chinese Translation of online language from the perspective of the theory of dynamic

English and Chinese belong to different language families, so they have difference on their own characteristics, habits expression, syntactic structure and many other aspects. Nida＇ s dynamic equivalence theory thinks that translation is not Simple literal equivalence, but it is corresponding to two languages meanings and styles that are not rigidly adhered to forms. Therefore, we also need consider the cultural context in addition to understanding features of two languages in the process of translation, This paper makes a preliminary summary research on the parts of speech translation of English and Chinese translation to help translators better to deal with the parts of speech translation in the English and Chinese translation under the guidance of dynamic equivalence.

A history of standardization in the English translation of traditional Chinese medicine terminology

In order to facilitate and propose further international standardization of traditional Chinese medicine（TCM） terminology, this article applies methods of historiography, philology and descriptive study to divide the history of TCM into three phases, based on representative experts and social events; to illustrate different aspects of these experts and their translation principles and standards and to discuss associated factors and inherent problems. The authors find that the development of a terminology standard for TCM has generally progressed from early approaches that were ill-suited to the contemporary needs to culturally and professionally referenced approaches, from uncoordinated research to systematic studies, and from individual works to collaborative endeavors. The present international standards of TCM terminology have been attained through the work of numerous scholars and experts in the history of the field. The authors are optimistic that a more comprehensive and recognized standard will come out soon.

On English translation of infant Tuina points in traditional Chinese medicine

1 Introduction In recent years, several international standardized traditional Chinese medicine （TCM） nomenclatures have been published, including the major ones A Proposed Standard International Acupuncture Nomenclature by World Health Organization （WHO） in 1991, International Standard Terminologies on Traditional Medicine in the Western Pacific Region by WHO in the Western Pacific Region （WPRO） in 2007 and International Standard Chinese-English Basic Nomenclature of Chinese Medicinet31 by the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies （WFCMS） in 2007. However, an English translation of points applied in infant Tuina therapy is neither contained in any of these standardized nomenclatures,

Introducing Considerations in the Translation of Chinese Medicine

This article introduces the document, Considerations in the Translation of Chinese Medicine, published in PDF form online in both Chinese and English. This 20-page document includes several sections describing why the Considerations is necessary, the specificity of texts in Chinese medicine; the history of translation in Chinese medicine; who constitutes an ideal translator of Chinese medicine; what types of language exist in Chinese medicine; and specific issues in the translation of Chinese medicine, such as domestication versus foreignization, technical terminology, period-specific language, style, polysemy, and etymological translation. The final section offers a brief advisory for consumers, and concludes with a call to further discussion, and action, specifically in the development of international collaborative efforts towards the creation of more rigorous guidelines for the translation of Chinese medicine. The current article provides an overview of several of these sections, and includes links to the original document.

An Analysis of Domestication and Foreignization from the Perspective of Originality in TCM Translation

Domestication and foreignization are two major translation methods, both of which should be adopted properly accordingto the specific TCM translation conditions. One thing that can't be ignored is that the essence of TCM translation is to retain theoriginal meaning and make it be received. This requires the translator to balance the use of domestication and foreignization intranslation. There are some examples in three situations of TCM translation respectively:clinical interpretation of TCM, TCM texttranslation and TCM terms translation.

《伤寒论》英译问题研究

基于《伤寒论》6个全译本,从语言、文化、译法三个方面探讨翻译中存在的问题,为今后的中医典籍翻译工作提供参考。研究发现,在语言方面,译本存在因译者对原文术语理解不准确、编辑排版不细致等原因导致的疏漏;在文化层面,主要表现为漏译一些术语所蕴含的中国文化;在译法方面,主要涉及音译依赖和文化过滤不足。建议今后组建跨学科翻译团队和平台克服以上问题,使中医典籍英译真正起到传播中国优秀传统文化的重要作用。

不同语境下虚邪的英译问题

此文通过梳理文献,厘清了虚邪在不同语境下的主体内涵。在中医学中,虚邪的含义主要有两种,一指外感之邪,一指在疾病传变过程中从母脏传来的邪气。作者认为,虚邪的英译应随着语境的不同而有所调整,才能准确表达其中文内涵。虚邪若是指外邪,译为vacuity evil,抑或是译为deficient pathogen,都不是最佳译语;作者认为exogenous pathogenic factors是较佳选择。虚邪若指从母脏传来的邪气,作者认为译为pathogenic factors from mother zang organ较好。

“四层学习身份模型”下中医英译思辨能力培养的教学建议

中医英译对中医跨文化传播具有重要意义,然而当前课程教学对学生思辨能力的培养有待提升。文章从思辨能力培养的“四层身份模型”理论框架入手,提出思辨材料准备、课堂思辨教学活动、教学评价和课后思辨反思四个阶段的建议,探讨启发学生对现有中医英译文、译法策略进行批判性思考。