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On Translation of the Disease and Syndrome Terms in Treatise on Cold Damage (Shang Han Lun) from the Perspective of Nida's Functional Equivalence Theory

Author: ShengJie
Tutor: YaoXin
School: Nanjing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine
Course: TCM foreign language
Keywords: functional equivalence Treatise on Cold Damage (Shang Han Lun) the diseaseand syndrome terms translation
CLC: H315.9
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2013
Downloads: 48
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Abstract

Treatise on Cold Damage (Shang Han Lun) plays a very important role in the traditional Chinese medical (TCM) history. The different diseases and syndromes recorded are the dominant part of the book. A better translation of the disease and syndrome terms can improve its overall translation quality. However, with the strong TCM features and the ancient written style, the simple disease and syndrome terms in the book always contain large amounts of information, which makes them hard to be understood and translated.Based on Nida’s functional equivalence theory, this thesis focuses on the analysis of the disease and syndrome terms’ translation in Treatise on Cold Damage (Shang Han Lun). It consists of two parts:theoretic review and text research. In the first part, the functional equivalence theory, Treatise on Cold Damage (Shang Han Lun) and its7English versions, and the disease and syndrome terms in this book are briefly introduced. In addition, the present TCM translation researches based on the functional equivalence theory, the translation researches of this TCM book and those of TCM disease and syndrome terms are briefly reviewed. In the second part, two English versions of the book translated by Nigel Wiseman and Luo Xiwen respectively are selected for the comparative research analysis. Sixty-one disease and syndrome terms are found in the original text (from Chapter5to Chapter14). The thesis then compares and analyses their translation in the two different English versions.Firstly, it is found that for the disease and syndrome terms, the two versions have apparently different translation methods. Wiseman’s version mainly applies literal translation and retains the original form; while Luo’s version uses literal translation, paraphrase and transliteration, and pays less attention to the original form. Then, by the way of comparing and analyzing the two translations of the terms, three translation strategies of the terms based on the functional equivalence theory are summarized:taking account of both form and content to realize functional equivalence by applying literal translation; approaching functional equivalence by changing forms and supplementing semantics; achieving a special "functional equivalence" by transliteration and utilizing the context. And some translation examples are given for each strategy. At last, the thesis gives general commentaries on the terms’ translation of the two English versions on the basis of the analysis. Wiseman’s version achieves formal correspondence, but except that only a few of translated terms are proper, most of the translation distorts the original message, which does not satisfy the standard of functional equivalent translation. In consideration of the readers of the translated text, Luo’s version focuses on massage transformation and communication, which makes the translation fluent and easy to be understood. Although a few of the translated terms in Luo’s version should be improved, the majority of them may satisfy the standard of functional equivalent translation basically.

On Translation of the Disease and Syndrome Terms in Treatise on Cold Damage (Shang Han Lun) from the Perspective of Nida's Functional Equivalence Theory

Abstract

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