-about translation-

[Guest guest]

response to:

> Re: introduction & herbquestion

>

> I wrote this article in 1993.If that can help you..

> I 'd love to hear your feedback on it.

>

> Philippe Riviere

>

Dear Philippe,

 

thanks a lot for posting your article. It's a big support for me to know

that there are people who understand the particular problems involved in

translating classical chinese texts. It's not for nothing that in my

introduction I wrote that I'm 'preparing' myself to do translation work and

'trying' to read. In college I participated in study-groups preparing

translations from -parts of- the Zhuangzi, Liezi, Daodejing including the

most important commentaries and comparing translations in French, German and

English. I'm sure it'll be no surprise to you that very often we were

spending a day or so discussing the translation of just one or two lines,

sometimes after

fierce discussion not even able to agree upon the exact punctuation.

 

Back to your article, in which you express the need to have annotated

translations of the Chinese commentaries dealing with the basic classical

works on TCM. I'm the first to agree to this, but have to stress that we are

talking about huge and time-consuming projects here. Last week I was

doing a little bit of research for my Materia Medica-teacher, who has an

interest in the psychological effects of herbs. He mentioned the Huangting

Jing /'Classic of the Yellow Court' (a Daoist text in verse, describing the

'inner landscape' and its psycho-physiological practice, originally meant to

be recited by 'adepts') and I marvelled at the very different

interpretations of several Chinese commentaries about just the question:

what is meant by this 'Yellow Court'?. Interpretations vary from (a.o.)

'Three Places in the Head', 'The Spleen', 'Mingmen' and 'Dantian'-the

Cinnaber Field.

Now of course this can be due to the existence of different schools of

thought, but it

really would take a lot of study to get that clear. One annotation would,

during research, be upgraded to a seperate chapter! I sometimes seriously

wonder what would be the value for TCM-students to be informed about that.

This kind of annotations would fall under what you mention in point 3:

 

> The sinologist will tackle a TCM text as:

.....

> 3. A text to be translated in order to be understood by the reader!

> but,too often, the text is confined inside the narrow field of literal

> translation without taking into account the clinical utility of the

> information and its reality in front of illness;

> and as a result the translation becomes sterile and at best an object of

> university curiosity.

 

By the way: I've seen that Michael Saso published a translation of the

Huangting Jing and wonder how he has solved this kind of problems (some of

you maybe know it?). If in translation one would simply leave it with 'the

Yellow Court', what is to be learned from that? The rich metaphors and

images in these ancient texts have to be explained somehow.

 

The ideal seems to be to produce translations which are not sterile and

don't make the reader lose track in a wood of annotations and commentaries.

So indeed such translations can't be done by mere sinologists. My personal

attitude towards this is: if you want to do translations, study the medicine

first (and while studying the medicine, being able to read chinese is of

course valuable).

Your suggestion at the end of your article of working in a team consisting

of 'competent and honest practitioners' and 'open minded sinologists'

expresses exactly what I think would be an ideal situation.

 

best regards,

 

Nicolaas Herman Oving

jetnik

[Guest guest]

There are some excellant examples of balanced translation with good

commentary out there. One is the Shang Han Lun, translated by

Mitchell/Feng, the other Ancient Chinese Medical Literature (the MaWang Dui

manuscripts) translated by Donald Harper.

 

 

>>

>Dear Philippe,

>

>thanks a lot for posting your article. It's a big support for me to know

>that there are people who understand the particular problems involved in

>translating classical chinese texts. It's not for nothing that in my

>introduction I wrote that I'm 'preparing' myself to do translation work and

>'trying' to read. In college I participated in study-groups preparing

>translations from -parts of- the Zhuangzi, Liezi, Daodejing including the

>most important commentaries and comparing translations in French, German and

>English. I'm sure it'll be no surprise to you that very often we were

>spending a day or so discussing the translation of just one or two lines,

>sometimes after

>fierce discussion not even able to agree upon the exact punctuation.

>

>Back to your article, in which you express the need to have annotated

>translations of the Chinese commentaries dealing with the basic classical

>works on TCM. I'm the first to agree to this, but have to stress that we are

>talking about huge and time-consuming projects here. Last week I was

>doing a little bit of research for my Materia Medica-teacher, who has an

>interest in the psychological effects of herbs. He mentioned the Huangting

>Jing /'Classic of the Yellow Court' (a Daoist text in verse, describing the

>'inner landscape' and its psycho-physiological practice, originally meant to

>be recited by 'adepts') and I marvelled at the very different

>interpretations of several Chinese commentaries about just the question:

>what is meant by this 'Yellow Court'?. Interpretations vary from (a.o.)

>'Three Places in the Head', 'The Spleen', 'Mingmen' and 'Dantian'-the

>Cinnaber Field.

>Now of course this can be due to the existence of different schools of

>thought, but it

>really would take a lot of study to get that clear. One annotation would,

>during research, be upgraded to a seperate chapter! I sometimes seriously

>wonder what would be the value for TCM-students to be informed about that.

>This kind of annotations would fall under what you mention in point 3:

>

>> The sinologist will tackle a TCM text as:

>....

>> 3. A text to be translated in order to be understood by the reader!

>> but,too often, the text is confined inside the narrow field of literal

>> translation without taking into account the clinical utility of the

>> information and its reality in front of illness;

>> and as a result the translation becomes sterile and at best an object of

>> university curiosity.

>

>By the way: I've seen that Michael Saso published a translation of the

>Huangting Jing and wonder how he has solved this kind of problems (some of

>you maybe know it?). If in translation one would simply leave it with 'the

>Yellow Court', what is to be learned from that? The rich metaphors and

>images in these ancient texts have to be explained somehow.

>

>The ideal seems to be to produce translations which are not sterile and

>don't make the reader lose track in a wood of annotations and commentaries.

>So indeed such translations can't be done by mere sinologists. My personal

>attitude towards this is: if you want to do translations, study the medicine

>first (and while studying the medicine, being able to read chinese is of

>course valuable).

>Your suggestion at the end of your article of working in a team consisting

>of 'competent and honest practitioners' and 'open minded sinologists'

>expresses exactly what I think would be an ideal situation.

>

>best regards,

>

>Nicolaas Herman Oving

>jetnik

>