| Yellow Emperor's Canon of Medicine (or Huangdi Neijing) lays the theoretical foundation for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and is one of the classics all the TCM learners must read. The language of the book is elaborate and refined, which contributes to the value of the book in medicine.Fuzzy linguistics is a discipline developed fast in the last 20 years. Fuzzy numerals are a very important part in fuzzy linguistics. This paper focuses on semantically fuzzy numerals in Yellow Emperor's Canon of Medicine and their English translation. Three English versions are chosen as my research target, translated by Ilza Veith, Li Zhaoguo and Maoshing Ni respectively.Through the empirical research, main conclusions of the thesis are listed as follows:Numerals with semantic fuzziness in Plain Questions of Yellow Emperor's Canon of Medicine can be classified into three groups according to format, namely, single whole numerals, numerals in juxtaposition and interval numerals; according to meaning, namely, approximate numerals, product numerals and multiple numerals. Three translation principles are the principle of the characteristics of the Source Language (SL), using locally of the Target Language (TL) and the principle of readability. Three main translation methods are as follows: maintaining original numerals, omitting original numerals, and modifying original numerals (replacing with another numeral or replacing with non-numeral expression). The first translation method is to maintain the original amount of Chinese numerals in English translation. The second translation method is to omit the original numerals without changing the semantic and pragmatic function of the SL. The third method is to modify the original numerals, that is, to use numerals not equivalent to SL or switch to non-numeral expression.The comparison of the three translation versions reveals that they have something in common yet differ from each other. The method of omitting original numerals is least used in three English versions. The frequency of replacing with non-numeral expression is far less than replacing with another numeral when employing the method of modifying original numerals. Nonetheless, the three English versions have there own preferance in choosing the translation methods. Maintaining original numerals is the most frequently used while modifying original numerals is the least in Veith's version. The frequency of using maintaining original numerals and modifying original numerals in Li's version are both in the middle level compared with other two versions. Modifying original numerals is the most frequently used while maintaining original numerals is the least in Ni's version. |
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