从功能主义看中式菜单的英译(2)

菜单

4.2.1. Faithfulness 13

4.2.2. Conciseness 13

4.2.3. Considering Culture Factors 14

4.2.4. Attractiveness 15

4.3.Translation Methods of Chinese Menu 15

4.3.1. Literal Translation 16

4.3.2. Literal Translation plus Explanation 17

4.3.3. Free Translation 17

4.3.4. Transliteration 18

4.3.5. Medicine Names Plus Explanation 19

V. Conclusion 20

Bibliography 20

Acknowledgments 21

I. Introduction

With the development of our economy and deep going of opening up, we are now living in a globalized world. Since China joins WTO, more and more foreigners have swarmed into China. With the broadcast of The Bite of China, a Chinese cuisine documentary, in the world, traditional Chinese food is gaining more and more popularity in the world.

Food, as the prerequisite of the survival of mankind, is irreplaceable in the development process of human society and human civilization progress. As one of the representatives of Chinese culture, Chinese food culture is contributing to the association between China and the world. As one important clue running through the Chinese long historical culture, the Chinese menu vividly describes numerous raw material names of dishes, cooking methods, taste and flavor, even the founder of dishes. The Chinese menu also teems with a good deal of auspicious words. As the old saying goes:"People regard food as their prime want, and food safety should be given the top priority." The diet culture represents an important part of traditional Chinese culture which the foreign tourists would like very much to sample and enjoy in the globalized world whenever they visit China. When a diner decides to order a dish, the first impression given to him is the dish name. So it is important to convey accurate information to the customers. However, some small restaurants only provide Chinese menu without translation that the foreigners can not understand. And the English proficiency of the waiters and waitresses in the cafe is limited, so it is difficult for the foreigners who want to eat authentic Chinese food. Of course, the translated menus exist in some star restaurants and western-style restaurants, but these foreigners who study, make a living or travel in China always do not have enough money to eat in these restaurants every day. So the accurate and graceful translations are necessary. They can not only benefit the foreigners, but also be good for the development of Chinese food-service industry and even the spread of Chinese culture .源Z自)优尔+文`论,文]网[www.youerw.com

However, in the academic domain, there are so few academic researches related to Chinese menus translation. Although we can find a large amount of books about Chinese food easily, the English literature researches are pretty deficient when we look about the current English translation of Chinese menus. Some problems like chaos, disorder, and multiple versions of one dish and so on can be found everywhere. The problems such as worse veracity and lack of uniform standard are almost universal. The situation can not satisfy the urgent need of the food culture exchange between China and the West. As far as the author is concerned, for the near term, these low quality menu translations that are full of mistakes will influence the business and image of the restaurant. On a long view, they will impede the spread of Chinese food in the world to some extent. All in all, it is necessary to translate the Chinese menus into English appropriately.