The following paper was made possible by a grant from Prof. Yang. The author have received invaluable assistance and guidance from Prof in preparation and development of this thesis. Prof. Yang’s recommendation of references, great patience and stimulating supervisions played vital part in completion of this paper. I owe to Prof. Yang’s advice and practical help at the early stage of my research. Thanks should also be extended to Prof. Yang for his friendly discussions, and his careful proofreading. Without his encouragement and help, it would be quite difficult for me to carry the work through to its end. 

Abstract

The translated names of the Chinese dishes in the menu, as the first impression to the customers, to some extent, have an influence on sales, which is closely related to the survival of restaurants. Besides, Chinese food, as one of the key elements of our profound culture, provides foreigners an access to experience Chinese culture. In that, Chinese menu translation is supposed to both attract customers and maintain the cultural aesthetic perception of Chinese dishes. Therefore, great importance should be attached to the Chinese menu translation. For the Chinese dishes are usually fastidiously named, concerning their color, shape, scent, social and historical background, and other factors, it is nearly impossible to achieve equivalence in meaning and stylistic value in the translation process.Surveying the English-version menus, two approaches are are used to translate the name of Chinese dishes, sense to sense translation and sense to reference translation, respectively. In terms of the former approach, retaining unique Chinese factors, which people from other cultures are mostly unfamiliar with, the English Chinese menu is not so understandable for foreigners. Moreover, it may lead to culture shock. While under the sense to reference translation, customers, even those who know nothing about the China are given a brief account of the dishes from their names, which always show the ingredient and flavor. Therefore, customers could make an order by their preference, neglecting the refined original names of the dishes. With several alternatives are available, the menu designers will choose certain translated names for the dishes. This paper is aimed to give an analysis of the decisions made by the menu designers from the semantic perspective by the decision-making theory.Based on the previous research, this paper will firstly analyze a number of translated menu examples to divide them into two parts: the sense to sense translation and sense to reference translation from the decision-making perspective. This paper will try to figure out why the menu designer

Keywords: Chinese menu translating, sense and reference, decision-making theory

1. Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study

Nowadays, China has been one of the most important venues of some significant events and international summits. With the increasing needs of the world to know more about China and the soaring development of international tourism, international trade and commerce in China,  the Chinese-English translation work has became a considerable project. 

Besides, China has gained a rising country status.The communication between China and the Western word now is not limited in the political domain, and it has almost reached to every aspect of daily life. China is regarded as one of the three cooking nations in the world, the other two are the Italian flavor and Turkish flavor. The translation of Chinese menu, to some extend, plays an important rule in spreading Chinese culture.

1.2 Purpose of the Study

This paper is aimed at analyzing Chinese menu translation from the decision-making perspective. With lots of efforts, plenty of Chinese cuisines has got their English names and been listed in many menus. Comparing the menus in different restaurants, we may find that there may be several English versions for one certain dish, the English version of “东坡肉”, for example. The name of “东坡肉” has been translated into “Lacquered Pork”, “Braised and Sauced Pork”, “Red Braised Pork of Hangzhou”, “Dong-Po Pork”,and so on. When design the menu, the owner makes a decision to choose a English version. For there are several alternative translated versions for a definite dish, and the menu designer has to choose one from the alternatives, therefore the Chinese menu translation is a decision-making process. 

Sharing the same reference, the different English Versions emphasis differently. The former two versions of “东坡肉”focus on the cooking method and the ingredients, neglecting the cultural meaning of the dish. This kind of translated names implies the elements of the food, which can help the foreigners get the brief account of the dish. The translated names are food-oriented, without any information about China. However, the latter two translated names consist of the cultural part or the China-related part. However, they may be not understandable for those foreigners who know little about China. To some extend, we can think of those two tendency of translation as the translation method of foreignization and domestication.

Except the translation of “东坡肉”, there are many other examples, where the name of a certain dish is translated into different versions, cutting out the inherent part of the name which is an obstacle for foreigner to understand, or trying to keep the original sense. It seems that sometimes it is not easy to both keep the original sense of the dish and let the translated name understandable to the target-language people. Chinese are facing the dilemma choosing to keep the unique beauty of dishes’ name and spreading the Chinese culture, or choosing to sacrifice the aesthetics and the culture to satisfy the target-language-speakers.

This paper will analyze the factors of decision making, and try to reveal the psychological purpose of the decision makers.

1.3 Structure of the thesis.

1.4 Methodology of the Study    

This essay will mainly base on the essay On Sense and Reference, written by the German philosopher Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege, and the Choice-making Theory. According to his theory, the real object is the reference. And one reference can be described or defined in different ways. In the case of Chinese menu translating, the dish can is the reference, and one reference can have more than one senses. Therefore, one dish( a certain reference) can have more than one name(sense). Each sense focuses on a specific aspect. The menu translation now are facing the dilemma to make choices, sense to sense or to reference.