TCM has a history of thousands of years。 TCM reflects all aspects of ancient Chinese culture just like a mirror, and its language form retains a train of the ancient Chinese characteristics。 In the meanwhile, TCM terms mostly come from ancient books of TCM, and on the basis of one word, it has developed into the form of two words, three words or four words and so on。 There are numerous four-character structures in the TCM terms, and it is extremely important language form in TCM terms (Zheng 20)。 These four-character idioms contain all aspects of knowledge including traditional Chinese medicine theory, nomenclature, and means of diagnosis and treatment of diseases。 They are essential to reveal the thought of TCM。 Consequently, how to effectively make the translation is related to the standardization of Chinese medicine terminology and the success of foreign exchange for Chinese medicine。 

Under the condition of foreign exchange’s growing prosperity, the translation of Chinese medicine plays a crucial role。 English as an international common language has the most widely application scope。 The degree of loyalty, accuracy and acceptability of the English translation directly affects all aspects of traditional Chinese medicine in foreign exchange。

The study has some practical meanings: First, the result of this study can be used as a reference for people who want to translate four-characters of Chinese medicine。 Second, this study can be useful to English learners, as it offers some principles and solutions in translating four-characters of Chinese medicine。 论文网

2。 Literature Review

2。1 Previous study on the translation of TCM

Li Zhaoguo is an expert in translation of TCM, and the English specialist who earlier focuses on English translation of TCM。 He puts forward the principles and standards of TCM translation in the book Introduction to the Translation of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and discusses the basic ways of translation of Chinese medicine。 He proposes five principles of translation of TCM decades ago: “naturality”, “simplicity”, “nationality”, “back-translatability” and “regularity”。(Li 75-76)He also builds morpheme translation method and conciseness of TCM translation。(Li 93) In addition, several influential Chinese-English TCM dictionaries and articles have been published in mainland China and Taiwan: Xie Zhupan’s English Translation of Common Terms in Traditional Chinese Medicine; Chinese-English Dictionary of Traditional Chinese Medicine issued by Guangdong Science and Technology Press, etc。 Several articles such as Some views of English translation of traditional Chinese medicine by Chen Jiaxu and The study of TCM terms translation issues by Hou Chan introduce their views and solutions in the translation of TCM。 While few investigate the translation of the four-character structures in TCM。 Actually, the researches of the translation of four-character structure is relatively less at home and abroad。 Two academic articles entitled The Four-Character Structure in English-Chinese Translation written by Cheng Tongchun and Cheng Xin and The study of Four-Character Terms’ characteristic and translation by Yu Meifang and Ding Qingnian study the characteristic and methods in the translation of four-character structure。 Consequently, by analyzing some examples in the TCM, the author demonstrates the problems in the translation of Chinese four-character structure, and principles and methods of the translation of four-character structure in CMI。

2。2 Connotation of Chinese four-character structure 

2。2。1 Definition of four-character structure

Four-character structure by definition is phrases which is made up of four characters, or can be said to be adopted by two double character form, which is a unique vocabulary phenomenon in the Chinese language and traditional Chinese medicine terminology。 Until now, it is found that there is still not a specific definition of the four-character structures。 Based on different research backgrounds, many scholars put forward their own opinions。 Some researchers have provided some comprehensive and systematical definitions of four-character structures in a broad sense。 Lv Shuxiang regarded four syllables idioms as four-character structures; Ni Danlie said:“ In Chinese, the four-character structure includes two main forms, namely a fixed four-character structure and non-fixed four-character structure。 The former, to a large extent, are idioms, while the latter are temporary new words imitating the four-character structure。 What’s more, four-character structures are concise as well as meaningful。”(Ni 14)文献综述