A Report On C-E Translation Of The Fascination With Herbs (Excerpt) From The Perspective Of Roman Jakobson’s Semiotic Translation Theory

With the rejuvenation of traditional Chinese culture,traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM)has drawn attention from foreign people in all sorts of areas.As the fundamental ingredients of TCM,the pharmacology of the disease and the properties of the herbs are the bases of TCM diagnoses and treatments.However,the documented ancient classics of herbs are arduous for foreign readers to understand the relevant pharmacology of the disease and the properties of the herbs.Hence,the translator selected the book,The Fascination with Herbs(《遇见最美的本草》),written by Chu Lin,as the Source Text(ST).As the first collection of aesthetic essays of herbs in China,it won the Outstanding Award of the Eighth National Bing Xin Prose Award.As a prose,the book illustrates the herbs through demonstrating the author’s life experiences and her thoughts of the living with literary expressions,which are readable and refined.The translator selected five kinds of herbs,mint(薄荷),milkvetch root(黄芪),liquorice root(甘草),angelica(当归)and honeysuckle(金银花)in the book to translate with the guidance of Roman Jakobson’s semiotic translation theory,which illustrates that the essence of translation is to realize the transformation between two language signs.Under the specific condition,the same language sign also needs to be converted,and the ultimate goal of translation is to reach the transforming of different language signs in order to let the target readers understand the information translated by the translator.By adapting the three methods of illustrating signs,which are intralingual translation,interlingual translation and intersemiotic translation,the translator completed the project and wrote the thesis.As for the contents of the project,five chapters are presented.The first chapter introduces the descriptions of the project and the translation process as well as the project significance.In the second chapter,features of the ST are analyzed.And Roman Jacobson’s semiotic translation theory is adapted in the chapter 3.Besides,its applicability to the translation is presented.In the chapter 4,case study of the translation process under the guidance of the theory is demonstrated,mainly from three dimensions:intralingual translation,interlingual translation and intersemiotic translation.The fifth chapter concludes the whole project with the obtained inspirations and shortcomings.Through utilizing Roman Jacobson’s semiotic translation theory,the translator has gained quite a lot of knowledge and enlightments of the semiotic translation theory,moreover,the translation abilities along with translation strategies have been improved.Besides,the translator has obtained deeper understanding of the source text selecting and the combination of the source text to the translation theory.At last,the translator hopes that some specific case studies could provide other translators with references for translating the TCM documents.