中国菜名语音层面可译性与不可译性分析

不同于语词层面,中国菜名在语音层面表现为极强的不可译性。这是因为人们在接受外语概念时尽可能回避语音直接引入,而总是希望用本民族语言的原有概念来表述或解释外来概念。这是一种人类普遍的文化心理,这种心理导致语言在语音层面极强的不可译性。然而,当原语的一个概念在译语无法找到对应的概念表达,甚至很难用译语对它作出很好的解释时,语音的直接切入则是更好的办法。中国菜名语音层面的不可译性在不同的历史时期是可以转化的,中国菜名翻译实践中不乏这样成功的例子。

Translatability and Untranslatability Analysis of Chinese Dishes on Phonetic Level

Different from morphological level,there is strong untranslatability of Chinese dishes on phonetic level.The reason is that people try possible ways to avoid transliteration when accepting a foreign language concept and always use their source language concept to express or explain the target language concept.This is a commonly accepted psychology which leads to strong untranslatability on morphological level.However,when people can’t find a language concept in their source language to convey its corresponding concept of the target language,even difficult to give a very good explanation,transliteration tends to be the best choice.Untranslatability of Chinese dishes on phonetic level can be changed at different historical periods and there are many successful examples in translation of Chinese dishes.