Sichuan cuisine: "Chuancai Jiaoshi" by Benteng Zhang. Translation and commentary

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the translation of a Chinese recipe book, namely 川菜教室 (A Course on Sichuan Cuisine) by 张奔腾 (Zhang Benteng), accompanied by an overview of culinary translation and a linguistic and translational commentary. This paper is divided into three sections. The first section consists of an overview of culinary translation, which aims to provide general information and an overall understanding of the peculiarities of translating a culinary text, specifically from Chinese to English. The second section is a translation from Chinese into English of specific passages of the selected text. The first part focuses on the translation of the first chapter, fourth subchapter, 川菜概述 (Overview of Sichuan cuisine), while the second part involves the translation of a selection of recipes. The third and final section consists of a linguistic and translational commentary, which shows the main problems and difficulties faced during the translation process, and the techniques and solutions adopted in order to produce the final English text. As a part of this analysis, a glossary of the technical terms that can be found in the source target text is included. The terms of the glossary are divided according to their different uses, for example, whether they are being used as a single ingredient or in the name of a recipe. A bibliography can be found in the appendix at the end of the paper.