'easy terminology'

[Guest guest]

Thank you for your contribution to this thread. If I may ask, do the

numbers next to the pinyin words refer to the inflections or tones of each

word?

 

Thanks again.

 

Sherril Gold, B.Ed, A.P.

Miami, Florida

[Guest guest]

I think the phrase is, " Let a thousand flowers

bloom " . ;-)

 

you wrote:

Exposing students to differing systems of

translation should not only give them a more well-rounded understanding

of the medicine, but impress upon them the need to remain fluid and avoid

rigidity when practicing Oriental medicine.

I think that as more sophisticated writings are produced a lot of this

will shake down into something manageable. (Just the little bit

about Yu, in the previous post was instructive.) Up until now, authors

have been trying to get basic concepts across. We now seem to be (or

maybe its just me) at a point of being able to dive further into the

medicine and its language.

In other words the problem is not the choice of which English word to use

but what the Chinese concepts are and how they work in the medicine.

 

 

 

 

 

L.Ac.

safe, compassionate care

acupuncture, herbs, Chinese Internal Medicine

Santa Monica, California

 

[Guest guest]

Dan,

 

In the discussions of terminology there is often a

confusion between two things.

 

At least two. I'd say there are several issues that

tend to get confused and that this confusion has

become institutionalized in various ways. This

institutionalized confusion has become one of the

great challenges now facing the growth and development

of the subject of Chinese medicine in Western zones.

I will be presenting a paper on this subject at

the upcoming COMP meeting that will take place

during the Pacific College Symposium in November.

So I will leave the broader topic for that later

date and address your remarks below.

 

One is scholarly rigor which is a

collegial, inclusive process using the various tools of scholarship

to better understand and communicate certain issues. Confronting and

dealing with Oriental medicine from this perspective is always a

humbling experience as the process continually reveals how much we do

not understand.

 

I agree. One of the problems I have discovered with

students in a number of schools of Oriental

medicine in California is that they have

little or no idea of what they do not understand.

Unfortunately, the same can be said for a number

of graduates, including those with licenses

engaged in professional practice as well as

teachers.

 

This situation has led me to inquire as to

the origins and nature of the circumstances

that give rise to what amounts to a false

pretense of understanding. One original

finding I made more than ten years ago

was the inadequacy of English language

literature on the subject. This drove me to China where

I continue to delve into the nature of

the literary transmission of the subject

and how it can be successfully extended

to include those areas where Chinese

is not the native language.

 

This has been confused with academic rigidity - the

aggressive and combative use of specialized knowledge used in a

divisive and adversarial manner which can lead to pomposity by those

on the inside and the bewilderment of outsiders.

 

Here I must state that your inference that Bob

Felt is an advocate of academic rigidity does

not match up with my experience of him as an

editor and publisher. In fact, I'd have to say

that Bob's stated objectives as well as his

track record as a purveyor of English language

literature on the subject demonstrate that

he is more or less the opposite of divisive

and adversarial.

 

For example in his post Bob seems to object to a certain transparency

of language,

 

Here again, I submit that your reading of Bob's

post differs with the public record of his

words and deeds. In fact, Bob has always

argued in favor of not just transparent

terminology but transparent methodology so

that readers, students, critics, and anyone

else who cares to can pick up any given text

and know SIMPLY BY READING IT what it is,

how it was produced, and therefor what its

actual value might be.

 

appearing to argue that our existence as a profession

demands that we have our own arcane, technical language that is

completely incomprehensible to outsiders. [his putting a 2500 word

limit on 'easy' vocabulary is such an obvious straw man in this

context that it requires no rebuttal].

 

Again, I have known and worked with Bob for several

years and have never once heard him argue anything

like what you suggest here. Perhaps you can cite

a specific statement of his which you understand

to mean that the English language terminology of

Chinese medicine should be incomprehensible...to

anyone, insider, outsider or otherwise. I've simply

never heard or read a remark by Bob that said

anything of the sort.

 

This argument basically

asserts that the only way Oriental medicine can flourish in the west

is if it becomes some sort of crazy-house mirror reflection of

mainstream medicine.

 

Speaking of straw-man arguments, I'd say this

is a fairly classic one, no? Are you really

suggesting that a man who has devoted more

than 20 years of his life to bringing English

language books on Chinese medicine to the public's

attention is actually engaged in a plot to

turn the subject into a crazy-house mirror

reflection of mainstream medicine?

 

What do you suppose his motivation might be

for doing such a thing?

 

Isn't the co-opting and " standardization " of

Chinese medicine by a state that takes modern medicine as its

standard one of the things that we in the west feel was a mistake

made in China?

 

I've lived in China for much of the past ten years.

And I'd have to say that in general and at best

Chinese attitudes about almost everything are

poorly understood by Westerners and particularly

by " we in the west " who have not had experience

of daily life on the mainland.

 

Chinese attitudes about medicine tend neither to

pro-Western medicine nor pro-traditional Chinese

medicine. They tends to be pro-effective medicine.

 

To be sure the Chinese have committed numerous

mistakes in their planning and implementation

of public health strategies. What country hasn't?

 

In order to get a proper perspective on the

status of traditional Chinese medicine in

China over the past fifty years, we have

to consider what had become of it prior to

the founding of the modern regime in 1949.

 

In short, traditional medicine had been

all but eliminated from official circles

by the KMT by about 1925. Since the mid-50s

the Communist government has launched a

series of initiatives aimed at reviving

and re-establishing traditional medicine.

On balance, these initiatives have been

highly successful at bringing ancient

traditions back to life. To be sure, there

is still a long, long way to go.

 

What, exactly, do you see as the mistake?

 

What is the difference between making Oriental

medicine fit the ideas of a Nationalist commissar, a Communist cadre,

or a middle-manager at an HMO?

 

I think the question of public health administration,

which is essentially what you are describing,

is related but quite distinct from the question

of terminology.

 

Many many years ago Bob and I had a discussion about how technical

the language of Oriental medicine is. I have spent over twenty-five

years with this material and keep coming to the conclusion that

there are simply not that many words used in medical texts that are

outside the realm of understanding of the average literate Chinese

person. Certainly, many words used in Oriental medicine have special

resonance [perhaps not that different from the language of wine], but

the vast majority of the words themselves are neither peculiar nor

off-putting. This can be seen by the large number of medical books

that are for sale in the average Chinese bookstore or by taking a

random stroll through any medical dictionary.

 

Well, just this afternoon I was out with my wife

buying a few of these medical books, and I was

leafing through one of a whole shelf full of

dictionaries of traditional Chinese medical

terminology. These books are dictionaries in

Chinese, not Chinese-English or English Chinese.

 

In every one of these bookstores that sell

these virtually countless volumes of books

on traditional medicine, you can find shelf

after shelf of these great dictionaries.

 

If the terminology is so simple, why do you

suppose all these dictionaries exist?

 

In fact, the most common attitude that I encounter

from Chinese friends who learn that my field of

study is traditional medicine is something like

shock. " Oh my, " they typically say, " how can

you possibly study that difficult stuff? Even

us Chinese have a hard time with it. "

 

I agree that much of the language of Chinese

medicine derives from common words and terms,

but the meanings of medical terms are typically

perceived by Chinese...at least the Chinese

that I know here in Chengdu...to be arcane,

abstract, and difficult. Hence, the large

number of dictionaries that aim to codify

and explicate the meanings of this nomenclature.

 

 

Given that, it seems to me that the best way to transfer this

knowledge into English is to try and make the translation as

transparent as possible. This attempt at transparency is the

mainstream approach [although not the only approach] in sinological

works on all subjects as can be seen by reading the works of leading

scholars.

 

How would you proceed with an ancient text

on astronomy, for example, or mathematics?

Are you suggesting that technical subjects

can be rendered into English without recourse

to technical vocabulary?

 

 

 

1) The place to start when trying to figure out how to translate a

term should be the medical literature itself. If there are problems

that the medical literature cannot fully resolve, then we start

looking at etymology, contemporaneous works, religious usage, etc.

One of the nice things about the Neijing is that it is a composite

work and so includes many parallel passages where the same thing is

said in slightly different ways. For example, there are instances

when the word xu1 [deficiency, depletion, vacuity] occurs in one

passage but is replaced by bu4 zu2 [insufficiency, not enough] in a

parallel passage elsewhere. The Inner Classic contains words for

emptiness, such as kong1, but they are not used in this manner. This

is very strong evidence that the term xu1 should be translated into

English by a word that has something to do with a deficit or

inadequacy.

 

Then how do we cope with a set of English equivalents

that employs deficient (or inadequate) to translate

two distinct Chinese terms, i.e. " xu " and " bu zu " ?

 

Here we get to a specific example of institutionalized

confusion.

 

In a broader sense, I'd differ with your foregoing

remark by suggesting that the place to start to

translate any particular term or text is with

the context of its origins. This is the thesis

of our book, Who Can Ride the Dragon? and as

this post has already dragged on too long, I'll

omit repeating it here.

 

 

2) Terms should be used judiciously, both to reflect as accurately as

possible the meanings of the Chinese term, but to avoid unnecessary

confusion. An example is yu4.

Mr. Wiseman translates this as " depressed " probably based on the term

yu4 zheng4, a primarily mental state that is often translated as

depression. However, when Chinese people feel yu4 they are feeling

over constrained, overly bound in by circumstances and not " down " as

would be implied by the term " depression. " This is a strong cultural

difference. An overly rigid use of idea of using a specific English

word for each specific Chinese word really gets one into trouble

here. What could " depressive heat " possibly mean in English? That as

the qi is pushed down into the body it become hot; or maybe that when

it is low in the body it becomes hot? This idea has nothing to do

with the Chinese concept of yu4 re4, which is heat secondary to some

form of constraint, compression, or stagnation.

 

Mr. Wiseman's suggested translation of this word

conforms to the one I find in my 1978 Chinese-English

dictionary published by the Beijing Foreign Language

Institute. I quote:

 

" yu 1) strongly fragrant; 2) luxuriant; lush; 3) gloomy;

depressed; 4) a surname "

 

The term " yu ji " does indeed mean " pent-up " , but the

Chinese people who chose the English word " depressed "

clearly understood both terms and, in this case,

argue in favor of Mr. Wiseman's suggested term.

 

These kinds of examples are legion I am not suggesting that other

methodologies of translation should be proscribed. Quite the

opposite, as everyone's style has its own advantages and

shortcomings.

 

If I understand the gist of Bob Felt's argument

on this subject it is simply that if anyone is

going to write and publish in the field they

should make their methodology transparent

so that it can be critically evaluated.

 

I strongly agree with this stance...obviously

or I would not have associated myself with

his publishing house. I believe that it is

through this kind of rigorous demand for

transparency that we can resolve some of

the confusions that currently mystify the

study and practice of Chinese medicine in

English language zones.

 

In our own work there are many problems that have not

been solved and translations that are arguable. In part this is due

to our own inadequacies and in part it is due to the fact that there

are many concepts in Chinese medicine which are just not fully

understood.

 

 

By the nature of language and medicine no

translation can be perfect and there are many different, useful, and

interesting ways in which texts on Oriental medicine can be

translated. We should not try and inhibit students, teachers, or

practitioners from using whatever terms are helpful to them, even as

we continue to work on improving our understanding of the medicine

and our translations. We are so far from having a good enough grasp

on this material that only impatience, vanity, and hubris could push

us to think that at this stage we are ready to " standardize " the

translations of these terms.

 

I'd like to raise another somewhat related issue. In much of the

material I have read about translation schemes, it seems taken for

granted that standardization would be both helpful to the profession

and to students. I emphatically disagree. My argument above has been

that the state of our knowledge and abilities with regards to the

many facets of Oriental medicine and its language is much too limited

and incomplete to think about standardizing on any system. But I

think there is even a more compelling reason not to go in that

direction which I have only alluded to. On the one hand Oriental

medicine has always been pluralistic.

 

This argument ignores the fact that defacto

standards already exist. The licensing exams

that serve as the organizing pricniple for

instruction and examination are based upon

a limited number of texts. These texts, your

own included, stand as standards therefore

by which students are educated and qualified

to practice.

 

Were we to enjoy a truly pluralistic environment

based upon the kind of scholarly, collegial

ideals to which you allude in your opening

few lines, things would be quite different.

 

But that's not the case.

 

Students must learn certain understandings,

i.e. certain terminologies if they are to

pass their exams. The simple truth is

that extant, defact standards of

English language equivalents are

inadequate. I see the work of Mssr's

Felt and Wiseman, among others, as

an important step towards correction

of these inadequacies.

 

This is one of its strengths,

which has allowed it to grow and develop over the ages. In addition,

Oriental medicine encompasses a number of ways to look at health,

disease, and treatment. Due to these factors, one of the main

requirements to learn it well has been a combination of flexibility

and the ability to handle ambiguity. What better way to demonstrate

this to students [especially those who do not learn an East Asian

language in school] than to expose them to a wide variety of

translation schemes?

 

I agree, and I believe that Bob Felt would as well,

that students should be exposed to a wide variety

of translations and interpretations of texts. They

should also enjoy the benefits of clearly stated

methodologies so that we can advance towards the

kind of scholarly discussion and development

to which you refer.

 

Ken Rose

[Guest guest]

Ken Rose Rote:

 

>>>If I understand the gist of Bob Felt's argument

on this subject it is simply that if anyone is

going to write and publish in the field they

should make their methodology transparent

so that it can be critically evaluated.<<<

 

Can someone explain to me what it means to make methodology transparent?

 

Ironic, considering the thread, but this term " transparent " has been

coming up a lot and at first I though it meant " easy to read and

understand " and now, I'm getting that you mean " clearly articulated. "

 

--

Al Stone L.Ac.

<AlStone

http://www.BeyondWellBeing.com

 

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

 

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[Guest guest]

greetings all,

 

I've been following the discussion on terminology with great interest,

though as a beginner in TCM with not much understanding. but if i may be

allowed to comment...

 

western thinking since Socrates has spent a lot of energy in the issue of

knowledge and meanings, and socratic tenet was basically they amounted to

the same thing, in order to understand something you must know exactly what

it means.

 

As philosopher of science karl popper pointed out, in reality this is not

really accurate. Scientists don't know exactly what light, or matter, or

electrons are, but this hasn't stopped them making valuable progress in

knowledge in physics making daily use of these terms.

 

The other kind of meaning is a purely arbitary assignation of terms, eg, a

table is a four footed piece of furniture you eat off etc.

 

Mistaking one kind of definiton for the other causes problems. for example,

if two physicists were talking they could come to some agreement on exactly

what they mean by " table " , but they won't ever do that when it comes to

" light. "

 

Chinese medicine terms such as Liver, Deficiency etc, are creatures

belonging to the ' " Light "

category. This I suppose causes nightmares for beginnign students who wrack

their brains thinking what the hell exacly is the Liver if its not the liver

etc. But, in contrast to the morass that socrates has led western thinking,

its a stroke of pure genius.

 

What it does is set OUTER limits of what the term means, so " Liver " is the

organ phase left over after you've eliminated Sp, Ki, Lu, He; 'Xu' is

what's left over after you've eliminated repletion, exces, stagnation etc.

 

One you look INSIDE the term 'Liver,' what awaits is a probably endless

process of discovery of its aspects, nuances, that you can dig out over a

lifetime of investigaton.

 

In a way its like saying, this marks the spot, dig here.

 

when these two diffrent aspects are made clear, you can use a middle of the

road term such as 'deficiency' in the herbal texts, knowing that it is the

opening gambit for a whole family of related terms, which you can pursue in

commentaries and other ancilliary works.

 

Andrew

[Guest guest]

on 7/30/00 3:29 PM, dfbensky at dfbensky

wrote:

 

>This has been confused with academic rigidity - the

> aggressive and combative use of specialized knowledge used in a

> divisive and adversarial manner which can lead to pomposity by those

> on the inside and the bewilderment of outsiders.

 

I think, Dan, that in raising the issue of 'standardization', we need to

understand an adjunct issue here. That is, that state boards and schools

are, either out of desire or ignorance, are creating de-facto standards by

recommending 'gold-standard' texts of quite variable quality. While SIOM

would appear to have an open approach, without the basis of learning medical

Chinese that is required at your school, it would be very difficult to

compare different translation methods. A generation of practitioners, as we

speak, is being raised on standards based on texts required by schools and

licensing boards. Many important texts have been left out by these

arbitrary choices. This leads to graduates who feel that all they have to

do is learn the required English textbooks, master the material, and then

they are finished with their education. Or, they don't know what to study

next, or how to compare different translation schemes. Or, even worse, some

of the required texts are clearly based on a particular interpretation that

was not implied in the original Chinese works.

 

At PCOM, where I have taught for the past ten years, students seem to be

confused by the different translation schemes, because, up until now, THEY

HAVE NOT BEEN EXPLAINED in terms of relationship of translated terms to

pinyin and Chinese characters. People automatically seem to accept the

English text at face value and leave it at that. Then they learn another

text in another class, and confusion begins.

 

Native Chinese instructors in the herb department here, at the N.Y. campus,

and other schools have expressed the same frustration when putting together

classes. They are familiar with TCM textbooks in Chinese, but when trying

to teach a class to English-speaking students, they find it very frustrating

when it is time to recommend an English-language text to use.

 

I have been using your texts, 'Chinese Materia Medica' and 'Formulas and

Strategies' as required texts for these ten years. And, I must, say, your

terminology is excellent, and the books serve their purpose well. It is

even remarkable, considering that Formulas and Strategies has been out for

over ten years now. Eastland Press takes great care and effort to put out

quality texts, and doesn't rush them out to compromise quality.

 

At the same time, I must use the Wiseman dictionary in conjunction with

Formulas and Strategies. Why? There are many important Chinese medical

concepts that are connected with the formulas that are not completely

explained. And, perhaps, a prescription text is not the place to do it.

But if students cannot understand seminal concepts such as qing yang/clear

yang and zhuo yin/turbid yin, and its relationship to bu zhong yi qi tang,

how can they truly learn the prescription? I find this to be the greatest

weakness with my students, and with many practitioners as well. They do not

understand basic terminology, and as an extension, how to make a proper

pattern diagnosis.

 

The problem really comes to light when we consider pulses. While

alternative translation names are fine with me, adequate descriptions are

still lacking. How is a student supposed to accurately convey clinical

information gathered from pulse diagnosis without specific terms to describe

what he/she is feeling?

 

>

> Many many years ago Bob and I had a discussion about how technical

> the language of Oriental medicine is. I have spent over twenty-five

> years with this material and keep coming to the conclusion that

> there are simply not that many words used in medical texts that are

> outside the realm of understanding of the average literate Chinese

> person. Certainly, many words used in Oriental medicine have special

> resonance [perhaps not that different from the language of wine], but

> the vast majority of the words themselves are neither peculiar nor

> off-putting. This can be seen by the large number of medical books

> that are for sale in the average Chinese bookstore or by taking a

> random stroll through any medical dictionary.

 

 

The understanding of Chinese medical terms may be seamless to an average

Chinese reader in many cases, although there are more specific uses of terms

that are not layperson's. . . .I don't think this is necessarily the case

for Westerners, however. I think we need to do something about making it

possible to enter the mindset of Chinese medicine, which is quite different

from what the average Westerner is used to.

>

> Given that, it seems to me that the best way to transfer this

> knowledge into English is to try and make the translation as

> transparent as possible. This attempt at transparency is the

> mainstream approach [although not the only approach] in sinological

> works on all subjects as can be seen by reading the works of leading

> scholars. The tools are there to come up with a variety of useful,

> readable translations. While it is not my intention to deal with the

> issues via a " my translations are better than your translations "

> approach [see below], I am afraid that I have to give at least a

> couple of examples to demonstrate what I am talking about.

>

> 1) The place to start when trying to figure out how to translate a

> term should be the medical literature itself. If there are problems

> that the medical literature cannot fully resolve, then we start

> looking at etymology, contemporaneous works, religious usage, etc.

> One of the nice things about the Neijing is that it is a composite

> work and so includes many parallel passages where the same thing is

> said in slightly different ways. For example, there are instances

> when the word xu1 [deficiency, depletion, vacuity] occurs in one

> passage but is replaced by bu4 zu2 [insufficiency, not enough] in a

> parallel passage elsewhere. The Inner Classic contains words for

> emptiness, such as kong1, but they are not used in this manner. This

> is very strong evidence that the term xu1 should be translated into

> English by a word that has something to do with a deficit or

> inadequacy.

 

This is a very interesting point, and I think it is just the type of

response that Nigel is looking for. This is something that I am not at the

level to critique or criticize in either way, and I hope this point will be

discussed at the Pacific Symposium this fall.

>

>

 

 

>> That is exactly the point. By the nature of language and medicine no

> translation can be perfect and there are many different, useful, and

> interesting ways in which texts on Oriental medicine can be

> translated. We should not try and inhibit students, teachers, or

> practitioners from using whatever terms are helpful to them, even as

> we continue to work on improving our understanding of the medicine

> and our translations. We are so far from having a good enough grasp

> on this material that only impatience, vanity, and hubris could push

> us to think that at this stage we are ready to " standardize " the

> translations of these terms.

 

The problem here comes when there is an interpretive approach to material

that comes from lack of understanding.. ..I certainly was a victim of my

lack of medical Chinese and linguistic knowledge in the past. There are few

individuals in our field who are Westerners who have a grasp of the

relationship of Chinese language and Chinese medicine. Without at least a

basic grasp of medical Chinese (which is greatly aided by glossaries and

dictionaries), this relationship is lost. And when this is lost, a student

or clinician is dependant on a specific translation. And without these

tools, it is impossible to know, as a student, the quality of the

translation. And, without quality translation, the information in the

original text is lost.

 

There is an issue of communication of ideas here. Someone else on the list

critiqued the Porkert translations of Chinese medical texts. In the past,

you and I agreed (correct me if I am wrong) that the Porkert work was some

of the best out there, especially his text on diagnostics. While his

'latinese' was difficult, it certainly, for me, was the most coherent in

retaining the connection with the original Chinese. I think his recent

'Classical Acupuncture' text is great as well.

 

So, the problem is not choice of English terms, at least not to me. If

anything needs to be 'standardized' (and I hope that this point was not

lost in my 'Acupuncture Today' article), it is quality, reliability and

connectivity of translation methodology. There is some excellent work out

there, and also some garbage. Every student and clinician has the right to

know when and how they are being sold a bill of goods.

 

 

[Guest guest]

yulong wrote:

 

yulong: stagnated dragon? : )

 

> None of this places any kind of limit on

> what any given author can write. It only

> asks that those who write and publish in

> the field take care to inform those who

> buy and read their book as to the methods

> employed to create them.

>

> Does that help?

 

Yes, thank you.

 

--

Al Stone L.Ac.

<AlStone

http://www.BeyondWellBeing.com

 

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

 

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[Guest guest]

, yulong@m... wrote:

>

>

> yulong: stagnated dragon? : )

>

shouldn't that be depressed dragon, non? :-)