Wang, Amily and Guo, Changyu (2024) Traditional Chinese Medicine and Metaphor : The Translation and Intercultural Communication in the UK. New England Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine, 6 (2).
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
This study presents the translatability of metaphor in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in the UK context. In this article, we first examine the modern theory of metaphor from cognitive and practice-based perspectives. The role of metaphor in the construction of health communication and medical system in China and the West is then discussed. An inquiry into the metaphors used in the expression of wellbeing in English and Chinese follows. The article then focuses on the ecology of the intercultural communication and translation of TCM in the UK. The possibility is that the sharing of medical metaphors cross-cultures has broad implications for the deeper understanding of human health experiences. This research also demonstrates that anyone reaching across cultures to treat Westerners with Chinese medicine, or Chinese with Western psychology/biomedicine can benefit by learning more about the structures of conceptual metaphors in each system (Chinese and western). Although human body is a potentially universal source domain for metaphors expressing abstract concepts, cultural models that are set up from specific perspectives where certain aspects of bodily experience or certain parts of the body are viewed as especially salient and meaningful in the understanding of those abstract concepts. The classification of “five elements of wood, fire, earth, metal and water” “Qi blockage and flow” “Yin-Yang balance” allows for more positive metaphors for envisaging recovery, greater sensitivity to patients, more flexible treatment strategy, and more sensitive communication by healthcare providers.