Tardy reply to Douglas

[Guest guest]

Douglas, and all,

 

It was refreshing that you looked at the principles of transmission, instead of

just word use, but I think you have examined the issue too narrowly. The

principle of avoiding the Western or biomedical frame of reference is not just a

term rationale but transmission strategy. In any given term selection the

influence of frame of reference may be more or less narrow than the

quantification bias of ``deficiency,'' but in a whole translation, muchless an

entire literature, the effect of applying the principle consistently is to avoid

the

death of a thousand cuts; that is, loss of the Chinese frame of reference in

small

increments.

 

Consider, for example, the other issue noted when you posted, the labelling of

the Chinese diagnostic map of the upper body. The range of choices are to drop

these divisions (judging them worthless), to use a unique English equivalent for

each (judging them worth preserving with their Chinese definitions), or to grab

the nearest ready-made words (assuming that the Chinese divisions don't have

their own definitions or are ``close enough''). The choices are just for the

sake

of example because if you aim to translate you do not have the option to

override the source text. But, in any case, the frame of reference principle

makes you aware that you gain nothing from loose translation. You will have

the same number of words, the same concepts, the same need for explanation,

yet the loose equivalences complicate the discussion increasing the tendency to

simplify. By introducing a Western frame of reference you exchange the

Chinese map for the biomedical map but you gain no readability while losing

specificity.

 

The frame of reference principle serves to conserve the source language

orientation and to discipline the expression. If you accept the responsibility

of

not simplifying the subject by reducing, summarizing or dropping concepts in

the Chinese text, the application of general principles keeps the myriad

decisions from drifting off course. Principles of transmission are the

intersection of writers' views of Chinese medicine with their working

decisions.

Once you start teaching people to translate, building translation methods that

can be used by others, and undertaking a literature much of which will never see

the attention of audience-oriented writers, principles of translation become

necessary tools.

 

Although I think the principle of preserving the Chinese frame of reference is

justified by its value to any single translation; I also think that it is very

useful

as an acculturation strategy. As the English literature of Chinese medicine

drifts toward the values of the dominant culture, so too does authority over the

field. The overall effect of the many instances of re-labelling things in the

Western mode, whether these are slight or entire as in the case of translation

to

biomedical terms, is an erosion of authority. This is more than just the

``giggle

factor'' when people read a paean to CM's wholism in a Preface then turn to

chapters full of biomedical terms. It is particularly dangerous when

researchers drop into the simplified and biomedicalized English literature and

announce that CM fails because six treatments with four needles didn't cure

``asthma.''

 

Bob

 

 

 

bob Paradigm Publications

www.paradigm-pubs.com 44 Linden Street

Robert L. Felt Brookline MA 02445

617-738-4664