A Study On The English Translation Of The Efficacy Terms Of Tonifying Chinese Medicinals

With the steady growth of overseas demand for Chinese medicinals,the Chinese medicinals industry will gradually develop and throughout the world.The English translation of efficacy terms has become a booster for the spreading of Chinese medicine.Based on the qualitative study of high-frequency efficacy terms,this study uses Eugene A.Nida’s functional equivalence translation theory as a macroscopic guide,the Chinese connotations of relevant efficacy terms are explored,and conducts a comparative analysis based on the connotations of the terms,refers to relevant literature,and optimizes the corpus.In order to establish relatively reasonable English translations of the terms,we proposed an idea and method for the English translation of efficacy terms of Chinese medicinals,and provided appropriate references for future research on the English translation of Chinese medicinals efficacy terms and the optimization of national standards.This study firstly searched the relevant keywords on CNKI to summarize the current status of English translation of efficacy terms of Chinese medicinals,and then summarized and analyzed the problems of efficacy terms of Chinese medicinals.Secondly,the efficacy terms were screened according to the inclusion criteria of this study,and the research objects were identified around the connotation of tonifying Chinese medicinals.It can be divided into five categories: tonifying qi,tonifying blood,tonifying yang,tonifying yin,tonifying for both blood and qi,tonifying for both qi and yin.Together they are 69 efficacy terms.The authoritative and generally recognized English language sources at home and abroad were selected,involving two international standards,a dictionary of Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM)in English translation,and three textbooks of Chinese Materia Medica.The qualitative research tool NVivo12 Plus was used to extract the high-frequency English translations of the efficacy terms related to tonifying Chinese medicinals,and the Chinese connotations of the relevant efficacy terms were explored by consulting dictionaries,ancient literature,and textbooks with Eugene A.Nida’s functional equivalence translation theory as a macroscopic guide.TCM terminology is translated into more appropriate,natural and equivalent language to reproduce the information of each source language from semantics to stylistic aspects.Combined with the principles of English translation TCM proposed by Professor Zhu Jianping’s research team.Finally,the relevant optimal translation suggestions of efficacy terms of Chinese medicinals are given.The results of this study involve two aspects: on the one hand,high-frequency terms with high frequency and representativeness in the subject terminology are examined by way of examples.The high-frequency terms in the six versions have both basically consistent in English translation and not consistent in English translation.The high-frequency terms that are basically consistent in English translation are shèn(肾 kidney),xiě(血 blood),yáng(阳 yang),qì(气 qi),jīng(精 essence),wēn(温warming)and rùn(润 moistening).The terms with disagreement in English translation were analyzed by the qualitative research tool NVivo12 Plus.The recommended translations of high-frequency terms with not consistent in English translation are bǔ(补 tonifying),yì(益 benefiting),yǎng(养 nourishing),zī(滋 nourishing),shēng(生generating),zhuàng(壮 strengthening)and jiàn(健 invigorating).On the other hand,by compiling,comparing and analyzing the English translations of the terms in the six versions of tonifying Chinese medicinals,we found 17 efficacy terms whose English translations were basically consistent,51 efficacy terms whose English translations were disagreed,and 1 efficacy term whose English translation was not collected.Based on the recommended translations given by the preliminary qualitative study of high-frequency terms,36 of the 51 efficacy terms are not consistent in English translation,and they could be directly selected from the corpus,and the remaining 15 efficacy terms with not consistent in English translation and there is 1 efficacy term without any English translation.These 16 efficacy terms need to be supplemented and revised with new English translation entries.In the end,the author summarized 69 preferred English translations of efficacy terms.Eugene A.Nida’s functional equivalence theory can effectively guide the interpretation of the efficacy characteristics of Chinese medicinals from a professional perspective,and the author combined the principles of English translation of TCM terminology to avoid the problem of inappropriate understanding of efficacy terms of Chinese medicinals by translators.The study also summarized and analyzed the highfrequency translations of efficacy terms of tonifying Chinese medicinals in various publications in recent years.By unscrambling these high-frequency translated words,we identified vocabulary that closely matched the meaning of the terms of Chinese medicinals.To a large extent,reproduce the connotation of the source language in the target language,so as to achieve semantic equivalence between the source language and the target language.Using this train of thought as a guide,this dissertation discussed the use of the qualitative research tool NVivo12 Plus for English translation analysis of high-frequency efficacy terms of tonifying Chinese medicinals.The quantitative relationship and qualitative characteristics of the translated terms can be obtained from a large number of texts.Strive to achieve semantic equivalence between the source language and the target language,and promote the research on the English translation of efficacy terms of Chinese medicinals.The standardization of TCM terminology is a fundamental task for the normalization,modernization and internationalization of TCM.The study of the English translation of efficacy terms of tonifying Chinese medicinals can facilitate the translation standardization of efficacy terms of Chinese medicinals,and contribute to the improvement of the English translation level of efficacy terms of Chinese medicinals.