Study on Chinese-English Translation of Traditional Chinese Medicine Terms in Empresses in the Palace from the Perspective of the Skopos Theory

摘要

With the globalization developing and deepened, cross-cultural communication between China and the west has been increasing. Today, in the era of mass media, movies and teleplays are the important media and major ways for the transmission of human culture. In recent years, an increasing number of Chinese teleplays have drawn attention from international community. They have gone global and amazed the foreign audience. The quality of subtitle translation not only affects foreign audiences' understanding of the connotation of teleplays, but also affects the incorporation of a country's culture into the international community. Traditional Chinese medicine has a long history of over two thousand years, which is the brightest pearl in treasure house of Chinese culture. With the external communication of movies and television plays, TCM is stepping in the international community in a more specific way, and TCM translation in movies and teleplays has drawn extensive attention from people from home and abroad. The quality of English translation in traditional Chinese medicine certainly affects its' internationalization. Skopos Theory regards translation as a purposeful cross-cultural communication activity. The Skopos rule, coherence rule and fidelity rule should be followed in translation. The communicative function of film and teleplay subtitle translation determines that the translators should not only consider the differences between two languages, but also consider the purpose and audience expectations, cultural backgrounds, etc. Guided by the three rules of Skopos Theory, appropriate translation strategies should be adopted flexibly. Therefore, Skopos Theory enables a new view for subtitle translation of films and television plays. Guided by the Skopos Theory of Translation function, this paper selects court drama "Empresses in the Palace" and its translation of TCM terms within it as the subject investigated. The contrastive study will be made based on corresponding translation of traditional Chinese medicine terms in Chinese and English in Empresses in the Palace, deconstructing and analyzing its translation so as to summarize the translation strategies and provide a reference for TCM translation.