A Study On The English Translation In Shigong(Explaining The Buildings) Of Erya From The Perspective Of Terminology

Erya is the father of dictionaries and the core component of Chinese culture as one of the Thirteen Chinese Classics.Shigong(Explaining the Buildings)as the fifth volume of Erya,is a terminological treasury on ancient Chinese architecture.It contains the entries that explain mainly architectural terms.The English translation of Shigong contributes to presenting ancient Chinese architectural minds and skills to western readers.However,there has been no extant English translation version of Shigong in its full context discovered yet.This paper will study the English translation of Shigong.As the texts in Shigong are mainly constituted by terms,the translation of terms is positioned in priority in this paper.Based on some studies on the combination of terminology and translation,this paper studies the English translation of Shigong from the perspective of terminology.Firstly,“extraction templates” are used to extract all the terms to be translated from Shigong.The terms are divided into the definienda(the explained terms)and the definientia(the explaining terms)in order to delimit the different functions they have.Secondly,the extracted terms are classified based on the “concept theory” in terminology.Only definienda are classified because of systematicness of the definienda and attachment of the definientia.The classification of definienda in different dimensions of concept systems will contribute to the understanding of level relationships of definienda in Shigong,the exploration of its terms’ characteristics and the summary of terms’ translation principles in its ultimate purpose.Thirdly,contextual definition,connotative definition and denotative definition in terminology are used to define the terms in Shigong.Contexutal definition can be found in the text itself,connotative definition in textual research materials and denotative definition based on the former two definitions in its simple and denotative form.The textual research materials cover commentaries and annotations on Shigong in both history and modern times,and studies on ancient Chinese architecture both at home and abroad.Lastly,term table is made in accord with the term formulating procedure in terminological standardardization.The table contains the terms and the classes they belong to,Chinese pinyin and their corresponding three definition ways.The appearance of Chinese pinyin together with Chinese characters embodies that Chinese ideograph is the combination of forms and sounds.This paper also aims at exploring methods for the term translation in Shigong of Erya from the perspective of terminology.Three steps for translation are concluded in this paper.The first step is to locate and translate the contextual definition.The second step is to make connotative definition from contextual definition.The last step is to extract the key object and main characteristic from the connotative definition to make the denotative definition.In this way,term table can be formulated.