Probably because the old Chinese saying goes, "Gentlemen keep away from the kitchen," cuisine has been ignored by the scholars for a long time. As a matter of fact, cuisine and dishes play an important role in people's life, which is called food culture. Chinese dishes are celebrated for their name, color, taste, smell, etc. Names of Chinese dishes, many of which named by figures of speech, add much beauty to Chinese food. It is recognized that names of Chinese dishes have become a significant part of Chinese food culture. Though there are some scattered studies about names of Chinese dishes, few discuss about their rhetorical names and their translaton in particular. Most of the papers emphasize Chinese culinary terms and their translation. This paper, based on the Chinese theory of figures of speech, explores the formation of rhetorical names of Chinese dishes and related translation. Classification is made to analyze the names of Chinese dishes according to the figures of speech, such as simile/metaphor, allusion, metonymy, personalization, etc. After explaining how these figures successfully describing the dishes in an effective and powerful way, the paper begins to talk about translation of these rhetorical names. The paper suggested literal translation should be applied primarily as to retain the rhetorical effect. Free translation can be added to the literal translation afterwards in order to supply the basic information of dishes. In addition, some kinds of figures of speech are too difficult to be translated literally, which can be treated with free translation and related explanation.
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