Comments on Comments [on Wiseman translation]

[Guest guest]

(Thanks to ??? for posting the PDF file of the

" Book Review " by ZhuFan Xie and Paul White)

 

The intent of these authors, I find, can be

epitomized in two passages, near the beginning (page 305):

 

" o far as the medical terms are concerned, we

feel that the translation should be aimed at

precisely expressing the genuine meaning in the

medical sense rather than reflecting Chinese

customs, idioms and other folkways. "

and, near the end (page 308):

" There is no denying that fact that the

historical development of characters is a part of

Chinese culture, but it is not the essence of Chinese medicine. "

What do they mean by " the genuine meaning in the

medical sense " , and " the essence of Chinese

medicine " ? Obviously, as the two authors are

associated with, spokespersons for government

sponsored agencies, CM here is ZhongYi, or, in

its official export translation, 'TCM'. And

" medical sense " means Western medical terminology

(and its mindset). One can feel a clear sense

here of the inherent necessity, in their

worldview, for the notion of 'integrative

medicine', i.e. Western medicine enhanced by as

much of pre-modern Chinese therapeutics as can

survive the filter of validation (by Western standards).

(Continuing the passage on page 308) " We wonder

if the rendering of dansha as 'cinnabar sand'

instead of 'scarlatina', or the rendering of

fengsha as 'wind sand' instead of 'rubella', can

really give Westerns an insight into the essence

of Chinese medicine. It is more likely to cause confusion. "

'Wind sand' does give insight into the

etiological and descriptive aspects of a

pre-modern Chinese medical approach. 'Rubella'

carries with it the Western mindset, i.e. the

'essence' which, I suggest, they really intend.

Again, further down page 308: " It is a pity that

in his [Wiseman's] discussion the common notion

of the characters xu and shi was stressed, while

the medical sense of the technical terms was neglected. "

The authors clearly wish to distance 'Chinese

medicine' (ZhongYi) from " Chinese customs, idioms

and other folkways " , " the historical development

… [in] Chinese culture " , and " [Chinese] common notion " .

They argue explicitly, with long lists of

examples, that the multi-word literal

translations by Wiseman et al should be replaced

by Western correlate technical terms (which they

are personally fluent in by virtue of extensive

education in WM). One has to grant that the

modern Chinese medical scientific mind is

conditioned to aspire to Western standards, to

stand up as equals in the modern world,

globalized according to largely Western economic and scientific standards.

The difficulty with this position arises then

approaching translation, not of contemporary

literature, but of Chinese medical writings prior

to the 20th Century. Translating 'classical'

writings necessarily involves interpretation. The

thrust of both Wu's and Ni's NeiJing translation

is interpretive validation of the modern TCM

framework. I mention the two, as examples of

their renditions are cited in the Book Review

article (on page 306). Some who have tried to

compare those translations (with each other

and/or the (Wang Bing) Chinese) will have noted

that the interpretations are largely a) TCM

dogma, or b) widely varying, even at time

idiosyncratic. And in many instances, passages

which may be seen as confusing (in the sense of

the above quotation from page 308) are simply

omitted from the translation, being not

intelligible in TCM terms, or just not of interest to the translator.

A virtue of the Wiseman literal character

combination translations (for instance, as cited

extensively in this Book Review) might be exactly

that they are confusing, that they cannot be

comfortably understood from the viewpoint of

Western technical medical terminology. That one

is reminded that these are descriptive usages

from a distant and foreign context (perhaps even

to contemporary Chinese). That some degree of

immersion into the characters, the images, the

usages and history is essential to arriving at

plausible and potentially useful interpretative sense of meaning.

Not that I don't agree that the Wiseman system

should take more in account idiomatic

combinations of characters as opposed to

individual characters as units of meaning (as,

most notably, is heavily the case in modern,

Western influenced Chinese), as well as polysemy.

But, even in the state that it is, a Wiseman

translation has, as literal, a degree of

faithfulness to the original text of classical

writings, which is otherwise missing in

translations. This provides a fulcrum against

which intrepretive rendition can be leveraged. In

the (relative) presence of the original text, the

degree and nature of the interpretation clearly

demarcated. This, in a sense, enforces a degree

of honestly on the part of the translator.

A last point here is that, while many (and in

this forum) agree that the classical literature

is mainly useful as traditional validation of

modern TCM (and what's not clear from that

perspective is to be discarded), many have also

convincingly demonstrated that much medical

information is there available, which is not

accessible from a naïve modern Western mindset.

[Guest guest]

Chris,

You hit the nail on the head.

 

 

On Apr 21, 2006, at 2:54 AM, wrote:

 

> (Thanks to ??? for posting the PDF file of the

> " Book Review " by ZhuFan Xie and Paul White)

>

> The intent of these authors, I find, can be

> epitomized in two passages, near the beginning (page 305):

>

> " o far as the medical terms are concerned, we

> feel that the translation should be aimed at

> precisely expressing the genuine meaning in the

> medical sense rather than reflecting Chinese

> customs, idioms and other folkways. "

>

> and, near the end (page 308):

>

> " There is no denying that fact that the

> historical development of characters is a part of

> Chinese culture, but it is not the essence of Chinese medicine. "

>

> What do they mean by " the genuine meaning in the

> medical sense " , and " the essence of Chinese

> medicine " ? Obviously, as the two authors are

> associated with, spokespersons for government

> sponsored agencies, CM here is ZhongYi, or, in

> its official export translation, 'TCM'. And

> " medical sense " means Western medical terminology

> (and its mindset). One can feel a clear sense

> here of the inherent necessity, in their

> worldview, for the notion of 'integrative

> medicine', i.e. Western medicine enhanced by as

> much of pre-modern Chinese therapeutics as can

> survive the filter of validation (by Western standards).

>

> (Continuing the passage on page 308) " We wonder

> if the rendering of dansha as 'cinnabar sand'

> instead of 'scarlatina', or the rendering of

> fengsha as 'wind sand' instead of 'rubella', can

> really give Westerns an insight into the essence

> of Chinese medicine. It is more likely to cause confusion. "

>

> 'Wind sand' does give insight into the

> etiological and descriptive aspects of a

> pre-modern Chinese medical approach. 'Rubella'

> carries with it the Western mindset, i.e. the

> 'essence' which, I suggest, they really intend.