外国语学院英语专业届毕业论文 ．．．．．．．．．2015．．．．．．．．．
ABSTRACT
Chinese dishes contain a broad and profound diet culture, and it has formed a unique way of naming. With the development of world economy, more and more foreigners come to China to understand China's culture and taste delicious Chinese food. Therefore, the translation of Chinese dishes is paid to more and more attention.
In the translation of Chinese dishes, if only simply translate Chinese into English literally, it will cause misunderstanding. So the translation of Chinese is not only a simple problem of language conversion, but a culture reservation problem. Only keep Chinese culture in Chinese dishes can people correctly transfer the profound Chinese culture to people all over the world. In this paper, the author analyzes cultural factors such as literary quotation, herbs and auspicious meaning embodied in Chinese dishes, which are unique culture factors embodied in Chinese dishes, and analyzes culture diversity should be noticed in keeping cultural factors of Chinese dishes. The author wants to show that, in translation of Chinese dishes, translators should not dwell on the rule of literal translation and free translation, and they should flexibly process translation factors to keep Chinese culture in dishes.
Key words: Chinese dishes; English translation of dishes; cultural factors; reservation
ii
外国语学院英语专业2015届本科毕业论文
Introduction
Food culture in China is profound with long history, so China is called “the kingdom of good food”. Chinese food has “Man-Han banquet” since ancient times, and its name is full of Chinese wisdom and humor. Lavish dishes are important embodiment of Chinese food culture and traditional culture, so it is necessary for us to translate Chinese food correctly to make people around the world know our great food culture. In the meantime, when foreigners eat Chinese delicious food, they can also understand Chinese cooking art and culture connotation from Chinese food.
As we all know, “红烧狮子头” is well-known dishes in China, but how we translate to foreigners? Is it red burned lion head (烧红了的狮子头) ? Or braised pork balls in soy sauce (用酱油炖烂了的肉丸)? As for foreigners, which one do they prefer? Chinese food emphasizes on look and taste, and it is people’s higher pursuit to life. With the improvement of China's international status and increasing foreign exchange, more and more foreigners visit China for travelling and business, so introducing rich and colorful food culture to them is a new task for translators. Excellent dishes translation is of great significance for promoting Chinese dishes culture and help foreigners to understand Chinese culture.
In this paper, the author studies this topic with five chapters. Chapter one is introduction, it is about why Chinese food is so famous in the world and importance of Chinese dishes translation; chapter two is culture embodied in Chinese dishes, such as literary quotation, herbs name and auspicious meaning; chapter three introduces requirements of translation reservation in Chinese dishes translation. It emphasizes the importance of cultural diversity between countries and how to deal with unexpected situations in translation; chapter four is translation principles of Chinese dishes, and the author gives translation formulas in face with different situations of Chinese dishes; the last chapter is conclusion.
From this paper, the author wants to attract public attention on Chinese dishes translation. As a great country with more than 5000 years history, our food culture is also the wisdom crystallization of human development. In order to carry forward Chinese dishes further in the world and set a good example for latter scholar, correct translation of Chinese dishes is very necessary.
1
外国语学院英语专业2015届本科毕业论文
1. Literature Review
Before this paper topic, we should know some background information about Chinese dishes and previous studies has done on this topic. 1.1. Definition of Chinese Dishes
Chinese dishes includes styles originating from the diverse regions of China, as well as from Chinese people in other parts of the world. The history of Chinese dishes in China stretches back for thousands of years and has changed from period to period and in each region according to climate, imperial fashions, and local preferences. Over time, techniques and ingredients from the dishess of other cultures were integrated into the dishes of the Chinese people due both to imperial expansion and from the trade with nearby regions in pre-modern times, and from Europe and the New World in the modern period.
Styles and tastes also varied by class, region, and ethnic background. This led to an unparalleled range of ingredients, techniques, dishes and eating styles in what could be called Chinese food, leading Chinese to pride themselves on eating a wide variety of foods while remaining true to the spirit and traditions of Chinese food culture. 1.2. Previous Studies on Translation of Chinese Dishes
Dishes, as an indispensable part of the Chinese culture，has played an important historic role in cultural exchanges over many millennia. However, the study of dishes translation is a relatively a new area in China as well as in the West. Therefore, an academic study on Chinese dishes is amongst the rarest of the race, which does not match its outstanding position in the Chinese culture. As for the reasons, one is that dishes is rarely considered worthy of serious academic study; the other is that the previous exchanges mainly focused On science, technology, and literature, paying little attention to the study of dishes. However, along with the exchange of food and dishes culture between China and the West, the situation has improved in recent years. As a result, an increasing number of scholars have begun to research into the subject of Chinese dishes translation．
Dishes translation is a new field in translation study, and it is also an urgent and arduous task in China’s translation circle. In a decade of 1990s, there were only 7 papers about this field. According to the author understand that earlier scholar studied on Chinese dishes translation was Mr. Liu Zengyu. He published Translation of Chinese Dishes is to be Examined (1990) on Chinese Translators Journal in 1990. In view of confusion on translation of Chinese dished at that time, Mr. Liu Zengyu suggested to establish approval committee of Chinese dishes translation. Mr. Chen Jiaji published Primary Investigation of Chinese Dishes Translation Ways (1993) on Chinese Translators Journal in 1993, and he proposed several
2
外国语学院英语专业2015届本科毕业论文
types of Chinese dishes translation: literal translation, free translation, literal translation and free translation, local translation, literal translation and free translation and explanation, simple translation with annotation. Afterwards, there were some papers about Chinese dishes translation on magazines. More representative papers are Huang Haixiang’s Analysis to English Translation of Chinese Food Menu (1999); Ren Jingsheng’s Review of English Translation Problems of Chinese Food (2001); Dong Li’s From Source Language to Translation of Chinese Dishes (2002); Liu Qingbo’s English Translation Skills and Principles of Chinese Dishes (2003); Xiong Liyou’s Function and Translation Process of Chinese Dishes (2004); Liu Xuanchuan’s Dishes Culture and Chinese Food Culture (2004) and Qiao Ping’s Classification and English Translation Method of Chinese Dishes (2004) etc. But on the whole, these researches are scattered and not systematic. In Xie Xianze’s opinion, translation of Chinese dishes at least has the following deficiencies: first, research on translation principles of Chinese dishes needs to make a thorough study; second, pertinence of Chinese dishes translation is not enough; third, dishes translation with rich cultural significance from historical allusions is very few, lack of translation model reference and regulation. Yang Yamin said, there were 2 obstacles in Chinese dishes: first, it is lexical gap in Chinese dishes, for example, “饺子, 元宵, 粽子”, there are all food with Chinese characteristics, and it is difficult to find the corresponding words in English, so people usually translate them as “dumpling”. However, as we all know, they are three different kinds of food with completely different cultural background; second one is the particularity of Chinese dishes. Chinese food culture is rich in content with various dish names, and many of them come from literary quotation, metaphor, exaggeration and symbolism, so it takes a great difficulty to translation to cause misunderstanding easily.
Another reason to cause confusion on Chinese dishes translation is translators’ limited English proficiency, moreover, due to food culture difference in different regions, the ironic dishes translation often makes foreigners confused. For example, some restaurants translate “童子鸡” as “Chicken Without Sexual Life” (没有性生活的鸡). On 20th February 2007, “Misinterpreted Translations” of CNN in the United States introduced some dishes translation in Beijing. The news anchor said, wrong and non-standard dishes translation could be seen everywhere. Even some improper and inexplicable translations make foreigner laugh or scared. For instance, “口水鸡” is “slobbering chicken” (流口水的鸡); “夫妻肺片” is “husband and wife lung slices” (丈夫和妻子的肺切片); “四喜丸子” is “four glad meatballs” (四个高兴的肉团); “麻婆豆腐” is “bean curd made by a pock-marked woman” (满脸雀斑的女人做的豆腐); “蚂蚁上树” is “a pile of ants climbing trees” (一
3
