A Study On Translation Of Traditional Chinese Medicine Culture In Hong Lou Meng From The Perspective Of Thick Translation

With the development of world medical science,traditional Chinese medicine(TCM)offers complements to Western medicine,satisfies people’s demand for health and fitness,and thus becomes popular around the world.If TCM is to go global,top priority should be given to its culture.However,it is difficult to spread the TCM culture only by translating Chinese medicine books.Owing to its high professional degree,the Chinese medicine books will have fewer readers than those of Chinese classical literature books.Therefore,translation of TCM culture in Chinese classical literature books will indirectly promote the overseas spread of TCM culture.So this thesis,supported by thick translation theory,chooses TCM culture in Hong Lou Meng—the representative of Chinese classical literature—as study subject to have a comparative analysis and research on translation based on two famous translated versions of Hong Lou Meng: one is translated by Yang Hsien–Yi and Gladys Yang,A Dream of Red Mansions and the other is translated by David Hawkes and John Minford,The Story of the Stone.Thick translation,as a translation theory,integrates specific translation strategy and translation criticism.As translation strategy,thick translation can explore the forms presented in translations,while as critical means of translation studies,thick translation can evaluate the quality of translation.Based on the above two aspects of thick translation,this thesis selects the translation of TCM culture in Hong Lou Meng,then divides it into four parts: translation of TCM principles culture,translation of disease diagnosis and treatment culture,translation of traditional Chinese herb culture and translation of health preservation culture.This thesis attempts to find out the "thick translation" phenomena and summarizes its forms in the two versions as well as to evaluate the translation’s quality in light of thick translation’s characteristics and its theoretical key points.Through comparative analysis,this research finds that both Yang Hsien–Yi and Hawkes’ translations show signs of thick translation on translation of TCM culture.In general,there are fewer thick translation forms presented in Yang’s version compared with Hawkes’ version.It proves that Yang has not conducted much deeper comprehension and study on the translation of TCM culture.Both Yang and Hawkes misunderstand some TCM culture for lacking of relevant background knowledge.And these mistakes might have been avoided if researchers had adopted thick translation by looking up some related materials to supplement the context.It also proves that thick translation plays a very important role in terms of translation of TCM culture.