A Report On C-E Translation Of The Excerpts From China’s Shandong Cuisine:Confucian Dietary Culture

This report is about the translation practice of the cultural text of Confucius’ dietetic thought,China’s Shandong Cuisine: Confucian Dietary Culture,which was published in 2016 and written by Professor Zhao Jianmin,the director of the Chinese Shandong Cuisine Culture Museum and the master of Shandong Cuisine.Through a detailed study and summary of Confucius’ dietetic thought,and systematic interpretation of the formation,development,connotation and characteristics of China’s Confucian cuisine,this book unveils the essence of China’s Confucian cuisine and reflects the dietetic civilization of the Chinese nation that has gradually formed over thousands of years.Therefore,the book was selected as the translation text.As a cultural informative text,the original work has a rich variety of culturally loaded words with profound significance.There are usually no equivalent expressions for these words in the target language,which easily leads to translation loss in the conversion between Chinese and English.Therefore,how to deal with these cultural-loaded words in a scientific way is a difficult as well as fundamental job for the translator.Following the four steps of “trust”,“invasion”,“absorption” and“compensation” in hermeneutic translation theory,the translator deconstructs and reorganize the information of the original text to ensure a qualified translation.First,after reading the original text China’s Shandong Cuisine: Confucian Dietary Culture that refers abundantly to the thoughts of Confucius represented by The Analects and interprets the essence and characteristics of Confucian cuisine in detail from the cultural source with the profound ideological realm,the translator“trusts” the book and believes that it is worthy of translation.Secondly,based on full“trust” in the original text,the translator “invades” into the original text from the linguistic and cultural level,absorbs and studies the essence and profound meaning of the original text,and tries to figure out the author’s writing purpose.Furthermore,in order to better complete the conversion between Chinese and English,the translator“absorbs” the meaning of the original text and the characteristics of the English language,and chooses the expression that is closest to the original meaning for translation,and strives to achieve a balance between English and Chinese languages and cultures.Lastly,the translator uses such translation methods as annotation and augmentation to “compensate” for the loss of language and culture caused by the invasion and absorption process,so as to perfect the translation and realize the equivalence and unity with the style and content of the original text.A nation’s dietetic culture reflects the life philosophy and thinking of its people to a great extent.The Confucian dietetic thought like “Eat no rice but is of the finest quality,nor meat but is finely minced” is a vital part of Chinese culture as well as Chinese dietetic culture.This translation practice hopefully carries forward Confucius’ dietetic thought as well as Confucian dietary culture,and better spreads China’s excellent dietetic culture;at the same time,by summarizing the translation methods of China’s Shandong Cuisine: Confucian Dietary Culture,this report hopes to provide a valuable reference for the practice and research of English translation of cultural informative texts.