Translation Styles in Chinese Medicine
Translation Styles in Chinese Medicine
Published on August 7th, 2009 @ 01:14:54 pm , using 1146 words, 859 views
By Eric Brand
Translation in Chinese medicine is a complex topic. Our field is relatively unique in that most of our primary resources come from a foreign language, and the task of transmission of Chinese medical information is complicated by the fact that both modern and ancient sources are used. Different translation styles are appropriate for different types of material, and translation must be done with attention to the target audience.
The principles of translation used in Chinese medicine are based on well-established basic precedents in linguistics. Depending on the book in question and the target audience, a translator must choose the approach that is the most effective for their goals. Many books, especially basic texts, do not need to be done by direct translation. In fact, basic theory books are often more effective if they are written in a natural Western writing style.
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For a lay audience, adherence to the structure and technical complexity of a Chinese source text would make for an unreadable book. For a professional audience, the technical aspects must be preserved, but the structure and organization may be more effectively presented if the material is not done by direct translation. This is especially suited to basic textbooks. Ideally, our professional bookshelf should have reference books available that preserve the material exactly as our Chinese colleagues learn it, but day-to-day we may prefer to use basic books in which the author creates their own structure and organization.
In the basic literature, we have several examples of each approach in English. We have basic books like Between Heaven and Earth or The Web That Has No Weaver, which are targeted towards the lay audience. Such books do not use translation; they just use a free writing style because they are trying to convey general information to an audience that doesn’t need to be responsible for the technical nuances. Health care professionals require books that preserve the technical nuisances, but they do not necessarily require books that are done by direct translation for their first 101 level classes.
Nigel Wiseman’s Fundamentals of Chinese Medicine is a classic example of a book done by straight translation. It preserves all the technical concepts to the exact same degree of specificity as the Chinese source texts have, and it mirrors a Chinese source text in its density, structure, and style. While this makes it an extremely reliable reference book for beginning students, it is difficult to read because the Chinese style of presenting information is very technical and dense.
To produce a more readable but still technically accurate book, Dr. Wiseman wrote a new introductory book from scratch. With a natural Western writing style and a structure that he designed himself (based on inspiration from Chinese sources), it far surpasses anything that can be done with straight translation. When translating directly from a single source, the structure of the source text can be constraining. Often a single source does not express every individual subject perfectly, so a compilation of multiple sources can often produce a superior English text. In Wiseman’s new Concise Introduction to Chinese Medicine (likely coming out within the next year from Paradigm Publications), he is not constrained by the style of the source text like he is in Fundamentals of CM, so the book is infinitely more fun to read and much more well-written because the English expression style is more natural. Fundamentals will always still be faster for looking up basic textbook information for doing homework and research projects, but the new Concise Introduction will be much more engaging for beginning students.
In many ways, such a book is the ideal balance for presenting basic material. When a student hasn’t yet mastered Chinese medical theory, the dense presentation style of straight translation is not very effective for learning. In some ways, Chinese texts are well-organized; they are good reference books. However, they are often lacking in didactic educational principles that would allow them to be more effective teaching tools. A good author can select primary sources to get the best of all possible material, and then organize and present the information in a stepwise fashion that is accessible to students.
Given that the student will eventually go on to treat people based on their medical knowledge, it is essential that the technical nuances of the source material are preserved. For example, when we wrote the Concise Chinese Materia Medica, we compiled from multiple sources and structured the material so that it would be well-organized for beginning students. We used a natural style of English expression for our sentence structures and we were not overly constrained by the style of presentation used in the Chinese books, but we were careful to maintain all the technical nuances and terminology of the medicine.
This model is ideal for modern books. Modern books convey a tremendous amount of technical knowledge that students must master, but there is nothing particularly sacred about their sentence structure. As long as the concepts are not simplified or altered, the structure can be quite flexible and the writing style can be quite readable.
By contrast, classical texts have totally different needs. Only direct translation is appropriate for classical texts. The translator has no business interpreting what Zhang Ji is saying in the Shang Han Lun. The translator just needs to translate it so that the English reader can see what Zhang Ji really said. Zhang Ji’s words were terse and nearly every line has different perspectives and interpretations. Some kid like me has no right to alter Zhang Ji’s work; it is a sacred text, just like something from King Tut’s tomb. There are reams and reams of commentary that go with each line to explain the perspectives on the text. The modern commentary can be translated to be readable, natural (if technical) English, but the original lines of the Shang Han Lun must be translated literally. Interpolations are often expressed in [brackets] to designate that they are not part of the original text. The principles that guide professional academic standards for classical works are well-established in disciplines like philology (a branch of linguistics that typically deals with historical works).
Beyond the two extremes of classical works and modern textbooks, there is a tremendous amount of information in Chinese medicine available in the Chinese language. Things like journals are translated just like textbooks, their grammar and structure can be flexible as long as accuracy is preserved. Other books, such as works by famous modern physicians like Jiao Shu-De, are probably best off done with relatively straight translation, which tends to be fairly easy reading for advanced students anyway.
To learn more about the fascinating topic of Chinese medical translation, I’d highly recommend the following articles:
Permalink2 comments
Hi Eric, I've been reading some of your posts on FB and I'd like to say thanks for the great info.On another note, I can't help but notice that until this point you seem to have be a fair and even handed representative of Chinese medicine.
I am wondering how you can write a post on translation issues without citing your own obvious prejudice? How about letting people know there are at least two sides? Do you think a post like this truly represents the translation terminology challenges that we face as a community? It seems more like a campaign of propaganda to me.
Why not represent BOTH sides and invite an educated discussion? I am a big fan of Nigel's work but I think there is a dangerous spread of intolerance in the translation/terminology area. I would have hoped that someone in your position would take the opportunity to create a dialogue in the community rather than present only one side of the story.
Hi Frank,Thanks for the comment. I think your comment deserves its own blog post as a response, I'll try to get to it soon. However, a few short commments:
I freely acknowledge that I have a bias in the translation issue. This is a blog, I am not representing an organization, not writing an article for publication in a journal, I'm just expressing my thoughts. If you read my other blog posts, I am obviously biased about many things: I'm biased towards transparency in herbal medicine labeling, I'm biased towards authenticity of herbal medicine, I'm biased towards rigor in translation, I'm biased about virtually every topic that I write about. If I was writing something academic, I'd use a different style, but frankly I don't know that blogs are inherently designed to minimize the bias of the author. Often blogs clearly reveal the bias of the author.
With translation, I think it is a question of academic rigor or lack thereof. I could care less what terminology system anyone uses. It doesn't matter to me if someone uses Nigel's terminology or whatever terminology they choose. All that matters is that the translation preserves the integrity of the original work.
Nigel is my teacher and I think his system is the most comprehensive and consistent, so I choose to use it despite the fact that I find many of Nigel's individual term choices to be a bit cumbersome. We can see many examples of authors that produce good books in other terminologies. For example, Bensky's new books and John and Tina Chen's books both utilize translation and they use non-Wiseman term systems. But they are done with a generally high degree of rigor and they preserve the original material quite well in most circumstances. It doesn't matter what English words are used, all that matters is that the authors attempt to make their work transparent and attempt to preserve all the concepts found in the Chinese literature.
If what you mean by "other perspectives" is the idea that multiple term sets and diversity in the English expression style enriches the literature, I agree with this perspective. Obviously, it isn't a free-for-all, the term sets should still preserve the depth of the Chinese terminology, but the actual English choices are not important- only the principles matter. If by "other perspectives" you mean other term lists, I'm all for it.
Any valid translation approach needs to be flexible to the era of the literature and the natural variance in term use in the original Chinese language. This is not another perspective, it is just a basic element of accuracy and scholarship. No one would propose blindly following a term list without flexibility and scholarship.
However, if by "other perspectives" you mean the idea that some writers have proposed that Chinese medicine has no professional terminology system, I can't honestly say that I see any validity for that perspective. Translation is not a rigid thing, but it needs to be done with a certain degree of rigor. Some people try to say that Chinese medicine doesn't have technical terminology, but this view flies in the face of all the evidence and prevailing expert opinion.
Translation can be done with different goals and can be modified to different target audiences. Translation can be more free or more close depending on the type of work and the audience that the book is intended for. Translation can be done with any published, transparent terminology that appeals to the translator, and all translation should be flexible and accurate. To me, this is just part of the normal diversity of approach. I know any number of people that can translate well without using Wiseman's system, but I do think Wiseman's system solves most common translation problems (the remaining variances and nuances of individual works by definition need individual attention- for example a book like the Nei Jing is incredibly complex in its terminology use).
I am happy to present multiple perspectives, and there are multiple valid approaches in translation. But I can't write an objective, neutral, bias-free article that gives equal space to a perspective that is fundamentally based on nonsense like the "no terminology" position.
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