A Translation Report For Tuinaology Under Koller’s Equivalence Relations

Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM)is the treasure of the Chinese nation.It takes a great responsibility in international exchange to promote Chinese culture to be shared with other countries in the era of “the Belt and Road initiative”.As an external treatment of Traditional Chinese Medicine,Tuina is characterized by simplicity,effectiveness,safety and comfortability and is widely used in the prevention and treatment of various diseases,which has attracted the attention of doctors both at home and abroad.With the obscurity of terminology and the lack of standardization on its translation,Tuina is too easily misunderstood in the progress of dissemination and communication to achieve effective promotion.In this regard,the translator chooses Tuinaology(Introduction and Chapter 1 to Chapter 5)as the source text for translation practice.The source text is a general textbook for education and teaching in higher education institutions of TCM in China,which systematically introduces the basic theories and skills of Tuina,with the characteristics of being scientific and practical.Translation is a dialogue between two languages.Attention is paid by the translator on the equivalence between the source text and the target text in terms of content,form and style that is conducive to achieving effective equivalence between the two languages.Koller’s equivalence relations include denotative equivalence,connotative equivalence,text-normative equivalence,pragmatic equivalence and formal equivalence.Applied to translation practice,the denotative and connotative equivalence focus on the lexis,that is,the translator is required to understand the correspondence between Chinese words and English words and select appropriate words to accurately convey meanings.The text-normative equivalence is inclined to syntax,requiring the translator to grasp the characteristics of the genre to follow linguistic norms.The pragmatic equivalence focuses on syntax and discourse,that is,the translator places the reader of the target language in the center.The formal equivalence stresses on rhetorical style and requires the translator to follow the expression of the source text.Under the guidance of Koller’s equivalence relations,the translator explores appropriate translation methods and techniques to achieve equivalence between the two texts.In the field of lexis,the translator adopts transliteration,literal translation plus annotation,codes with Pinyin forms and borrowing to deal with problems of multiple translations of words,inequality of Chinese and English vocabulary and inconsistent translation of terms to achieve the priority of denotative equivalence and connotative equivalence.In the field of syntax,the translator uses conversion,inversion,amplification and omission to deal with translation on subject ellipsis sentences,complex and long sentences and causative sentences,so as to give priority to pragmatic equivalence and text-normative equivalence.In the field of discourse,the translator adopts transformation of cohesive words and information reorganization to realize the logical explicitation to further achieve pragmatic equivalence.Experiencing this translation practice,the translator further understands the translation of Tuina text and finds that Koller’s equivalence relations are feasible in the translation of Tuina text.In translation practice,considering the constraints of different communicative contexts,the five equivalence relations cannot be achieved simultaneously.Denotative equivalence and connotative equivalence should be given priority at the lexical level,pragmatic equivalence and connotative equivalence should be given priority at the syntactic level and the discourse level,followed by text-normative equivalence or formal equivalence.With the analysis of the report,the translator hopes that theoretical and practical references can be offered for the standardized translation of Tuina terms and the translation of Tuina text.