Translatability and untranslatability of religious terminology: A hermeneutics perspective

Medical translation is an area of specialization where accuracy is crucial in ensuring that appropriate medication and courses of treatment are administered. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), based on Chinese philosophy and on complex cultural ideas and theories about the human body, uses a very different approach to conventional medical practice. Therefore, a comprehensive understanding of classical Chinese language and culture as well as clinical Chinese medicine is required for a translator to provide a thorough translation. This chapter begins with a brief review of the history and status quo of TCM, through which it is revealed that a major problem with international communication and interlingual and cross-cultural knowledge transfer lies in the difficulty of translating TCM into English, especially its distinctive concepts and terminology. Then a descriptive analysis and categorization of the approaches and methods is conducted into the official translation of TCM terminology in two authoritative documents: Chinese Terms in Traditional Chinese Medicine and Pharmacy and International Standard of Chinese–English Basic Nomenclature of Chinese Medicine. Finally, general principles for TCM terminology translation are proposed by reconsidering such a translation practice as both technical translation and cultural translation and by considering the ISO principles of terminology work. This chapter argues that the translation of medical terminology would require further interdisciplinary cooperation among specialists in a concerted effort to conduct interdisciplinary research.