中医药翻译与文化的关系

The Culture and Translation of TCMTCM is a subject to study human physiology, pathology and the diagnosis and prevention of disease. It carries the experience and theoretical knowledge from the ancient Chinese people’s fighting against the disease.The origin of TCM theory comes from the summary of medicinal experience and the idea of yinyang and the five elements.The Basic Theory of TCM1.Yinyang: Yinyang theory is the ancient Chinese philosophy category. yinyang is the summary of the interrelated things and phenomena. People use the waxing and waning of yinyang to explain the movement of things. TCM holds that the world is material which is the result of the interaction of yin and yang.2.The Five Elements: It refers to wood ,fire ,earth ,gold and water, the five kinds of substances and their movement. The five elements complies with the five zang –organs, namely: liver and wood, heart and fire, spleen and earth ,gold and lung water and kidney.3. Qi-blood and fluid :Qi is the essential element constituting human life and maintaining the activities of human body and it has the functions of warming ,preventing and aeration气化.Blood is the basic material to constitute human life and maintain human activities and it has a high nutrition and owns the function of moistening.Fluid refers to the inner fluid and normal secretions of zang-organs and fu-organs.4.zang-organs and fu-organs:It mainly studies the physiological functions and the pathological changes of five zang-organs, six fu-organs and the extraordinary fu-organs.5.Channels and collaterals 经络:It is defined as the channel of body running qi and blood, it has the function to link up internality and externality.6. Five movements and six climates 五运六气:It is the theory to study and explore the change of nature, astronomy, meteorology and climate which make a difference to human health.7.The holism concept :Human body is an organic whole consisting of a number of organs and tissues with different functions .The unity of man and nature: nature has the necessary condition for human survival.The chang of nature will affect human body both directly and indirectly.8.Treatment based on syndrome differentiation:“bianzheng” is to make clear the reason ,property, position and the relationship between zheng and xie of the disease by analyzing and integrating the material ,symptom and data collected through the four diagnostic methods which include looking, listening, asking and feeling.“Lunzhi” also named “shizhi”,is to make appropriate treat principles and methods according to the analyzing result fr om “bianzheng.The difficulties in translating Chinese medicineThe ambiguity of expression:The Chinese medicine theory’s developing isbased on Chinese classical philosophy which is inseparable from Chinese medicine on one hand and makes Chinese medicine ambiguous and obscure. For instance, there are no equivalent words in English to “阴阳”“五行” and “气”.Culture barrier:The words in the articles of Chinese medicine carry not only information, but also Chinese culture. Therefore, the translators always have two problems in translating. One is that the setting of Chinese medicine is very different from western medicine; the other is that it is difficult to understand the cures and skills of Chinese medicine for the foreigners.Being nonstandard of terns:There is no standard for the languages for Chinese medicine theory. Meanwhile, Chinese medicine is always being imparted orally. What’s worse, Chinese medicine has different schools and factions and each of them don’t communicate often, which makes it difficult for the ideas and theories to be developed. Therefore, it is really a problem for us to have the true understanding of it.The demands quantities of translators for Chinese medicineMastery of foreign languages, especially the vocabulary of terms of Chinese medicine;Skills of translating, good understanding of Chinese medicine;Good understanding of archaic Chinese;Realization of Chinese classical philosophy.Tactics in translating Chinese medicineUse some common and easy expression and try to keep the original meaning;Insist of transferring information and avoid being too elegant. It is the knowledge in stand of the beautiful and elegant words that we Chinese want to show the foreigners.Methods of translating Chinese medicine1、Liberate translating: it is a good method to use liberate translating when we can not find an equivalent expression in target language. Sometimes, we can also use some addition.2、Choose the Latin name of the Chinese medicine. As we all know that the name of western medicine is always in Latin and western people are familiar with it. For instance, “复方罗布麻片”(Tabellae Apocyli Veneti Compositae)，“穿心莲片”(Tabellae Andrographitis)，“姜酊”(Tinctura Zingiberis)，ect. However, there are lots of medicine that have no Latin name. for example,“十全大补丸”(Shiquan Dabu Wan)“川贝批把糖浆”(Chuanbei Pipa Tangiang).3、Use an equivalent expression: it makes us easier to use the equivalent expression when we can not translate all the meanings of the terms. For instance, “菊花”(chrysanthemum)；“薏仁”(adlay).。