从文化差异角度谈中式菜名的英译_英语毕业论文.doc

分类号 密 级 编 号 本科生毕业论文题 目 从文化差异角度谈中式菜名的英译 学 院 外国语学院 专 业 英 语 姓 名 张 婷 班 级 2009级7班 学 号 294010230 指导教师 杨慧文 提交日期 2013.5.25 目 录一、 论文正文. 1-15二、 附录1 毕业论文成绩评定表2 答辩小组意见3 答辩成绩评分表4 论文指导记录5. 开题报告On English Translation of Chinese Dishes from the Perspective of Cultural DifferencesZhang TingA thesisSubmitted to the School of Foreign Languages and Literature Tianshui Normal University in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degreeofBACHELOR OF ARTSInENGLISH LANGUAGETianshui, GansuMay, 2013原创性声明本人郑重声明：本人所呈交的论文是在指导教师的指导下独立进行研究所取得的成果。学位论文中凡是引用他人已经发表或未经发表的成果、数据、观点等均已明确注明出处。除文中已经注明引用的内容外，不包含任何其他个人或集体已经发表或撰写过的科研成果。本声明的法律责任由本人承担。论文作者签名： 年 月 日 论文指导教师签名：CONTENTSAbstract:i摘要ii. Introduction1. Literature Review22.1 Early studies on cultural perspective22.2 Other studies of English translation of Chinese dishes32.3 Summary4. Theoretical Foundation of English Translation of Chinese Dishes43.1 Culture and Translation43.1.1 Definition of Culture43.1.2 Definition of Translation53.1.3 The Relation between Culture and Translation63.2 Differences between Chinese and Western Culture63.3 Differences between Chinese and Western Diet Culture73.3.1 Differences in Concepts of Diet73.3.2 Differences in Ways of cooking83.3.3 Differences in Materials of Diet8.3.4 Differences in Ways of dining9. Principles of English Translation of Chinese Dishes94.1 Pragmatic principle94.2 Concise principle104.3 Cultural conflict avoiding principle10. Strategies for English Translation of Chinese Dishes115.1 Literal translation115.2 Liberal translation125.3 Transliteration135.4 Comments adding translation14. Conclusion14References16AcknowledgementsiiiOn English Translation of Chinese Dishes from the Perspective of Cultural DifferencesAbstract: From the perspective of the cultural differences between China and the West, and on the basis of analyzing the four aspects(including: concepts of diet, ways of cooking, materials of diet and ways of dining)of diet cultural differences between China and the West, this paper studies the principles and methods of the English translation of the Chinese dish names; it tries to take away the cultural barriers between the Chinese and Western; and makes the English translation of Chinese dishes more accurate and more acceptable by the English-speaking readers. Thus, the time when foreign friends will enjoy Chinese cuisine, they can also understand the culture and art it contained; meanwhile Chinese food culture can also have deep influence on the world.Key words: Food culture; Chinese dishes; Translation principles; Translation methodsii从文化差异角度谈中式菜名英译【摘要】本文从中西方文化差异的视角出发，在分析了中西方饮食文化差异的四个方面，（即：饮食观念，烹饪方式，饮食对象，进餐方式）的基础上，研究中式菜名的英译原则和英译方法，尽量消除中西之间的文化障碍，将中式菜名英译的更为准确，并更能使译语读者理解。从而使外国友人在享受中国美食的同时，了解其中的文化内涵和艺术，同时使中国饮食文化对世界产生深远影响。【关键词】饮食文化；中式菜名；英译原则；英译方法 On English Translation of Chinese Dishes from the Perspective of Cultural Differences1717On English Translation of Chinese Dishes from the Perspective of Cultural DifferencesOn English Translation of Chinese Dishes from the Perspective of Cultural Differences. Introduction With the further development of the internationalization and Chinas reforming and opening up, more and more foreign visitors ,as well as many overseas investors, have been attracted by Chinas abundant tourist resources and huge market. Especially the success of the 2008 Olympic Games in Bei Jing, which once again push the old and new China toward the world with the most shocked and eyes dazzled way. And now, China is stepping its majestic goal of realizing travel and tourism power country. Among the six elements of tourism (eating, housing, transportation, travel, shopping, entertainment), eating rows in the first place and occupy a very specific in the tourism process (Qiu, 2009)Food is the paramount necessity of the people. China, which is known as the kingdom of cooking of the world, has broad and profound Culinary Arts which has a distant origin and a long development. Tasting the unique Chinese delicious food has become a important content for overseas tourists sightseeing in China. As the most important part of Chinese culture, Culinary Arts what is created by Chinese peoples long-term diet practical activity is the sum of the material wealth and spiritual wealth, and is also a way for the foreigners in China to understand Chinese culture.As a mean of convey information and disseminate culture, dishes play a important role in the foreign exchange of food culture. Therefore, if the translation of Chinese dishes is misconduct, not only can it affects the spreading of Chinese excellent food culture, but can influence the appetite of the foreign tourists and lower the functional purpose of the tourism at the same time. That is to say, it can not spread Chinese excellent food culture exactly by character or word of mouth. It is acknowledged that Chinas food culture is rich and colorful, and has a long history. Looking at its naming way, it has both realistic approach and freehand style; not only rich in historical and cultural background, but also full of folk fun and local flavor. Some name of the dish is not simply a name of a dish, but a imagination and an artwork, some name of the dish even has an interesting or moving story. Therefore, translating the Chinese dishs name into English accurately and vividly is very important and thus, from this way, foreign friends can understand cooking art of Chinese cuisine, as well as the cultural connotation it contains, in the time he/she tastes the delicious dishes in China, or just by seeing the name of the dish. Therefore, the name of the English Translation of Chinese cuisine has a practical significance. Literature Review 2.1 Early studies on cultural perspectiveNarrowly speaking, culture refers to the “use of special language to express ideas of a community unique lifestyle and forms of expression”, while language is the carrier of culture, language conversion is difficult to get rid of cultural backgrounds (Zhao, 2002). Guo Jianzhong (2003), in his Culture and Translation, collected many of the foreign experts and professors papers which talking about the language, culture and the relationship between them; Eugene A Nida (2004), in his Language and Culture-Contexts in Translating, analyzed the relationship between language and culture in different sides, and discussed how to deal with all the translation relations and issues from the view of context. Dishes as a direct manifestation of the language and culture, with the widely advent of varied restaurants, has become to be see in everywhere. The English translation of dishes has become an urgent and pressing task. Whereas，many a scholar have done researches on English translation of Chinese dishes. They are:(1) Zhang Lehui(2007), a scholar of Dongbei University of Finance & Economics, taking cultural translation theory as a basis, discussed the problems appeared in Chinese dishes E-translation. After explaining the basis of cultural translation theory, that is language, culture, as well as the relationship between them, he discussed the feasibility of cultural translation.(2) Li Jianwei(2009), taking the two main cultural theories-foreignization and domestication as a support, focused on the importance of cultural factors, and raised four cultural characteristic-protected methods when dealing with English translation of Chinese dishes. (3) Lin Hong (2009), who declared because of the great cultural differences carried by China and the West, English translation of Chinese dishes, in cultural level, appeared nor-translatability. The causes include both cultural factors and non-cultural factors.(4) Qiu Yongqiang (2009), also studied the principles, basic elements and strategies of Chinese dishes English translation on a cultural approach.(5) Li Fuzhen (2010), after deeply analyzing the background of Chinese diet culture, raised three principles of English translation of Chinese dishes, including knowing the dishes absolutely, meeting the aesthetic value and transmission of cultural information.(6) Yan Fanbo(2011), a scholar in North University of China, thought that many of the errors appeared in the English translation of Chinese dish names are main caused by peoples misunderstanding about culture in his paper.It is pleased that the above scholars noticed the importance of affects that cultural factors bring to dishes translation.2.2 Other studies of English translation of Chinese dishes Besides the studies on cultural perspective, there are still some scholars who study the English translation of Chinese dishes or menu from other perspectives.(1) Ren Jingsheng(2001), in her paper, talked about the basic features of the English translation of Chinese dishes and the key food, and raised some of the certain formulas used in English translation of Chinese dishes and the key food.(2) Liu Qingbo(2003), who just proposed the principles and stretregies of English translation of Chinese dishes based on the naming of Chinese dishes.(3) Liu Qi(2005), a scholar of Shanghai International Studies University, after concluding the features and functions of dish names, who analyzed the theoretical basis of the translation of the Chinese dish names, that is, “faithfullness”, “equivalence” and “domesticating & foreignizing translation”.(4) Gong Yang(2007), who also studied the methods of English Translation of Chinese dishes under the guidance of Eugene A Nida functional equivalence theory.(5) Cheng Shuang(2010), who used the functionalism skopos theory of translation in her paper, and emphasis that the English translation of Chinese dish names should be pay more attention to.(6) Wang Ai(2011), scholar of Anhui University, who analyzed the classic cases of translation of Chinese dishes by taking the cultural adaptation as a basis.Indeed, many of the principles and methods that raised by these scholars are usefull and practicable.2.3 Summary All in all, these scholars above are all discussing the principles and methods which using in English translation of Chinese dishes, while many examples are used repeatedly, not only have similar content, but confused the concepts of the menu, the dish names, the recipe and cuisines. Translation of this field has great no determinacy and arbitrariness, and also lacks of unification and standardization, in addition, there have a few references about the English translation of Chinese dishes from the perspective of cultural differences. From the cultural differences, especially the four aspects of cultural differences in diet, this paper systematically discusses the principles of the English translation of Chinese dishes, hoping to find more practical way to make clearer specification, so it can spread Chinas outstanding food culture better. . Theoretical Foundation of English Translation of Chinese Dishes 3.1 Culture and Translation3.1.1 Definition of CultureCulture is reflected in all aspects of humans social life: Chinese eating dumplings in the Spring Festival, eating Zongzi at the Dragon Boat Festival and eating moon cake in the Mid-autumn Festival; westerners dressing Christmas tree on Christmas Day and eating turkey on Thanksgiving Day. As a social phenomenon, culture excited everywhere; it is hard to give culture a complete and scientific definition. According to Yan Fanbo (2011), the English word “culture” comes from the Latin word “cultura”, which basically means “cultivate; crop.” With the development of social civilization, the connotation of culture has been enriched. In 1871, the British cultural anthropologist Edward Tylor first put forward culture as a central concept in his book Primitive Culture, and defines culture from the perspective of anthropology. That is,“Culture, or civilization, is the complex whole that consists of knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, laws, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by a man as a member of society(Yan,2011:19).”Chinas largest comprehensive dictionary Ci Hai defined culture as: From the broad sense, culture refers to the sum of the material and spiritual wealth which are created in the historical practice of human society. From the narrow sense, it refers to the ideology of the society as well as compatible with this system and organization.” (Yan, 2011).Liu Qi(2005) thinks that the definition given by Bates and Plog (Samovar, 2000:36), includes most of the major territory culture on which scholars currently agree: it is a system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that the members of a society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning.With rich and varied contents, culture covers all the sides of human beings social life and has deep implication with history. Thus, it brings many difficulties to translation.3.1.2 Definition of TranslationTranslation is a behavior of exchanging the information of one language into another language on the basis of fluency and accuracy. As a very broad notion, it can be defined in many ways. Some people think that the translation is an art, an innovation requires both form and spirit. It was also regards as a kind of skill, which passes a certain amount of information from one language to another language.After overview the Western Translation theories, Liu Miqing thinks that the cultural patterns of interlinguas transformation are indispensable for any kind of genre theory of translation. He proposed “meaningstructurecommunicative functionTranslation of styleoverall partern” (Fan, Zhou, 2011).“Peter Newmark (2001:7) gives a definition from the linguistic perspective: Translation is a craft consisting in the attempt to replace a written message and/or statement in one language by the same message and/or statement in another language.”(Zhang, 2007)For translation is not only a code-switching process, and relative cultural factor is an integral part of translation studies, so cultural factor must be taken into consideration when translating works occurs.3.1.3 The Relation between Culture and TranslationCulture is a national character, and the translation is a language activity; language is the carrier of culture, and culture is the soil of language, so the communication between different language and culture must rely on translation, and translation process, of course, also have to consider cultural factors. Just like what Kong Huiyi said, in the history of human civilization, there are a lot of progress are due to the impact of foreign knowledge, which makes a huge exchange in the system of society, culture and knowledge and finally makes the whole cultural system a new look (Hou, 2007). Because of the dissemination of knowledge depends on the tool of language and almost all of the adventives knowledge is foreign language, and translation has always been the most important way for the spreading of adventives knowledge. From this point of view, culture is closely related to translation. We can even say that the development of the worlds major cultural system can not separate from translation process (Nida, 2003). Therefore，in the cross-cultural communication activities, it is important to be familiar with the language and culture of both our own nation and foreign nation, as well as differences between two nations culture. As the American translator scientist Eugene A Nida.said: for truly successful translation, being familiar with two cultures are even more important than mastering two languages, because words can only make sense in its background in which it works. 3.2 Differences between Chinese and Western CultureDifferent nation has different culture, so the differences between Chinese and Western culture exist in many aspects.First of all, there is a great difference in historical and cultural tradition, for China and the West have different historical background. As a country with ancient civilization, China has a badly long history of five thousands year. However, the United Kingdom, dating back from eight or nine century B.C. to now, just has a history of about three thousands year. And when mentioned American, it is modern and shorten history. From this point of view, it will easily become setbacks if one knows a little about the historical background of western country. Furthermore, it is different national preferences. For example: the Chinese and westerners views on the dog are different. In Westerners eyes, dog is their pet, friend and partner, and even a member of the family. However, the sentence You are a lucky dog.” is translated literally to the Chinese people, it will annoy them. Another example is the psychological reactions of the word red are positively different between Chinese and Westerners. Chinese people look “red” as a lucky color, while in English it always means bloody, violent.Lastly, Chinese and Westerners way of thinking is different; the Chinese people are accustomed to thinking in terms of images, every person accustomed to non-logical thinking. So when the Chinese writing an article, they like to use the image of the vocabulary words and sentences in order to make the article distinctive, vivid, multi-purpose metaphor, rhetorical particularly. For foreign re