The Art of Translation and the Translation of Chinese Restaurant Menu

1、The Art of Translation and the Translation of Chinese Restaurant Menu Thesis statement:Chinese menus always confuse the foreigners because the translation of the menus is not literary and many scholars come to agree that the translation should be an art, not a science.Outline:I. The overview of tran

2、slation artA. The definition of translation artB. The development of translation art in literary historyII. Restaurant Menu Translation and Translation Art A. The present state of restaurant menu translation1. Problems in restaurant menu translation2. Causes for the problems in restaurant menu trans

3、lation3. Suggestions for improving the restaurant menu translationB. Skills in improving the act of translation1. The cultural background in developing the act of translation2. Historic background in developing the act of translationIII. Some good examples of menu translationIV. Conclusion: The rela

4、tion of the translation art and the menu translation The Art of Translation and the Translation of Chinese Restaurant MenuTranslation is an art. It is not only faithful to the original passage but also have the life of its own. An excellent translation is creative and skillful, which conveys the sam

5、e meaning to people who live in different language systems. The same meaning is not only referring to the words meaning itself, but also involved in the sound, the structure and even the artistic conception. Art is abstract, the same is true in the art of translation. It takes time and effort to ach

6、ieve its beauty. There is a saying, “The history of translation is the history of literary innovation.(Mohit 2) However, through out literary history, translation takes a very low position. People do not admit it as an art or worth studying. Just as the Hilaire Belloc says:The art of translation is

7、a subsidiary art and derivative. On this account it has never been granted the dignity of original work and has suffered too much in the general judgment of letters. This natural underestimation of its character has added to its degradation: Neither its importance nor its difficulty has been grasped

8、. (Mohit 183) However, problems occur when the translation is degraded. Many people are satisfied in the superficial meaning of the words. Take Chinese restaurants translation for an example, Chinese restaurants are facing a sever problem: how to make the foreigners understand their menus. There are

9、 many complaints from the foreigners about the translation in Chinese restaurant menu. Many times, they do not know what to order because they always get confused and even sometimes they are shocked by the names of the menus. There are some examples: < >麻婆豆腐bean curd made by a pockmarked woman

10、, which actual meaning is “Sichuan style bean curd 童子鸡 chicken without sexual life, which actual meaning is “spring chickenThese examples reflect some problems in translation. The translating in Chinese restaurant menu translation is a mechanical transfer process, in which the translation are done w

11、ord by word and then the words are organized in Chinese logic. The point is that what it is translated is the words, not the meaning. Actually, whether the words are in English or not is not the target of translation, what it requires is to inform the foreigners what it is on the menus. “Globalizati

12、on has always been an important aspect of translation. Translation brings cultures closer. At present, the process of globalization is moving faster than ever before.< > With the globalization becomes more and more popular; people in different courtiers are getting closed linked. In order to c

13、ommunicate with each other, they need to acknowledge other countries. So translation becomes a tool in international affairs. But translation between the two countries should not only include understanding the language, but also understanding the cultural history of political and economic circumstan

14、ces. Sometimes the beauty of a language which, translated into another language often become challenges. Many people realize the translations importance and pay more attention to it. Besides, their requirements for the translation quality are higher than ever. So, the translation develops prosperous

15、ly and then comes to the art of translation. Translator, as the Irish scholar Susan Bassnett points out, is also a traveler; someone engaged a journey from one source to another. (Bassnett 176) Translator between the two countries should not only understand the language, but also understand the cult

16、ural history of political and economic circumstances. The challenge in translation between two countries under different cultures informs us the two sides of the translation are both essential. One is the source language and the other is the target language. However, there are so many differences be

17、tween two languages. So it is of great obstacle of translation in conveying completely the whole meaning to another language to people. For a good translation, translator should pay attention to two major aspects.First, it is the cultural background, which is the root in translation. Translation is

18、an art, and it is certainly a highly skilled activity, a first-class art based on a high level of competence not only in the two languages but in both cultures. “People become so accustomed to their own ways of doing things that they cannot conceive of other people accomplishing the same purposes by

19、 quite actions.(Nida 89)As a good translator, one should be true to the original and able to stand on its own for a new audience. In order to achieve this, translator needs to pay attention to the different cultural background when he does the translation work. There is an idea “Each language more o

20、r less controls the way we think because the talk the way we talk. (Nida 185) which explains how the culture affects the translation.According to the translation theory, the target language should be faithful to the source language. So it seems reasonable to translate “夫妻肺片 into “man and life lung s

21、lice because it does not miss any words and the meaning for each word is right. However, the phrase is meaningless, it dose not miss the single word, but it misses the meaning, which is not true to the original. This mistake was made because the different customs in naming the meals. The Chinese nam

22、e it “夫妻肺片 because there once a time one couple is skillful in doing the lung slice cooking, and people named after the couple to reminisce them，while American does not have such a habit. They are straightforward and incline to make everything clear and easy to understand. “Words only have meanings

23、in terms of the cultures in which they function.(Nisa 308) So it is very hard for an American to understand the Chinaese manus.History background is also very important in translation. Every language creates and develops in a certain historical background. Only after you know the history of the targ

24、et language thoroughly, can you get its meaning precisely. As Chinese and English, they are two totally different languages. For instance, “peasant in Chinese refers to the rural people living in the countryside, while the American got confused because in their sense, “peasant is a word of some dero

25、gatory meaning. In OED, the meaning of “peasant is “A person who is rude, behaves badly, or has little education. (Wong 1266) However, Chinese use its primary sense “a farmer who owns or rents a small piece of land (Wong 1266) Besides, Chinese and American may have different reaction towards the sen

26、tence “The poor peasants talked about their happy life today. This statement would be well-accepted by people who know the great changes in Chinese countryside since 1979. While the American may ask how a person who has little money, few goods and a low position has a different definition about happ

27、iness. American is materialism, while Chinese is mental hedonism. American has his own understanding about poor peasant. In China, poor peasant takes with positive connotations. In contrast, it carries some negative meanings to people in the history of the western countries. So the translation shoul

28、d be based on both countries historical background.“Translation, like creative literature, is an art. It needs some methods to be successful and artistical. Translation can be an art, but it needs skills.(Belloc 26) To express the ideas in another language is a creative activity. 翻译能力的提高是一个长期实践和不断积累

29、的过程。 Translation capability is a long-term practice and continuous process of accumulation. In the following, three principal considerations in translation are discussed.First, an accurate translator should have a firm, principled standpoint, that is to say, to indicate the correct point of view. 比方

30、，西方国家常把我国的台湾省和其他国家等同起来，翻译时应作技术性处理，把台湾单列出来，并加上"地区"二字，以示区别。For example, Western countries used to refer to Taiwan as a country, instead of Taiwan province and equated it with other countries. That is a serious mistake in translation. Second, translation must be standardized. The phrases, sen

31、tences and grammar of the language must be consistent with the general norms and habits of a certain language. Some Chinese say that they can speak English excellently with their friends. But they can not even make themselves understood when talking to the foreigners. There is a sentence: I work in

32、the Bank of China. In this sentence, the verb "work" was located before the Adverbials "In the Bank of China". If the sentence was translated into Chinese, the order will be “I in the Bank of China work ". 由此可见，要使译文标准化，必须牢固而又清楚地掌握英汉两种语言文字的相同点和不同点，不然译文将晦涩难懂。 It can be seen th

33、at Chinese and English have their own ability to express. In order to translate literally, and translator must have a good understanding of the difference between the two languages and make clear the standardization of the two languages.Third, we may leave out some content to achieve accuracy. There

34、 are some vivid expressions in English. However, sometiomes we can not translate directly all the information, or we may change something deliberately. There was a scholar said that translation is bond to missing something from one language to the other language. There is an interesting translation.

35、 The English one is “What flower does everybody have? “Tulips. (Tulips=two lips), and someone translate it into“人人都有的花是什么花泪花(What flower does everybody have?tears.)The two sentences have difference, but on the whole, the translation is agile and creative. In the English sentence, the word “Tulips ha

36、s two meanings, one refers to a kind of flower, and the other is two lips. The same usage is in the Chinese one, in which “花has two meanings, one is a flower and other is the tears. So, the equality from the source language to the target language in translation is not to translate word my word, but

37、meaning by meaning.加强自身根本素养所谓根本素养，是指翻译者必须具备的根本条件，亦即对翻译者的根本要求。综上所述，有志于从事英文文献翻译的青年朋友，应不断加强自身素质修养，只要勇于实践，在翻译的田园里辛勤耕耘，翻译能力就会不断提高，一定能结出丰硕之 To sum up, translation is not only the act of translating, but also the act of developing an art, in a creative way. In this way, the Chinese Restaurant menu translat

38、ion can be more literary. It can be translated in these ways:First, the menu can begin with the main material in the meal: “Chicken Cubes with Almond. <>Second, the menu can begin with the cooking mean: “Stir-fried Eel Slices. <> Third, the menu can begin with the taste of a meal: “Crisp

39、 Chicken with Sesame. <> Besides, you can even use Pinyin to name a meal. But it is supposed to add the explanation behind: “Youtiao (Deep-Fried Dough Sticks) & Tangyuan (Glutinous Rice Balls). <> In conclusion, translation is an art. It has a long history and its appearance is to deal with the commun