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Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Science

ISSN Print: 2576-0556 Downloads: 1380024 Total View: 9329588
Frequency: monthly ISSN Online: 2576-0548 CODEN: JHASAY
Email: jhass@hillpublisher.com Citations: 301
ArticleOpen Access http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/jhass.2025.11.010

A Comparative Study of Two English Translations of The Yellow Emperor Ling Shu from the Perspective of Grammatical Metaphor

Zhangjun Lian*, Jingjing Zhao

College of Humanities and Foreign Languages, Xi'an University of Science and Technology, Xi'an 710054, Shaanxi, China.

*Corresponding author: Zhangjun Lian

This research was funded by the Degree and Graduate Education Reform and Research Project of Xi’an University of Science and Technology in 2024 (grant number YJG202420).
Published: December 8,2025

Abstract

The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon (hereafter referred to as the Inner Canon) comprises two parts: the Suwen and the Ling Shu. Current research on English translations of the Inner Canon primarily focuses on translations of the Suwen, while studies on translations of the Ling Shu remain scarce. As one of the four major classics of traditional Chinese medicine, multiple translations of the Inner Canon have been provided by various scholars. Based on the theory of gram-matical metaphor within Systemic Functional Linguistics, this paper primarily employs a conceptual metaphor perspective from grammatical metaphor theory to conduct a comparative analysis of two translations of the Ling Shu section of The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon. It concludes that grammatical metaphors serve distinct functions in their application within the texts. It concludes that grammatical metaphors serve different functions in textual application. The appropriate use of grammatical metaphors can highly condense the original information and enhance the rigor and objectivity of the translation. This, in turn, promotes cross-cultural communication of the Inner Canon and other Chinese medical classics, thereby aiding the dissemination of Chinese medical culture.

Keywords

Linguistic metaphor theory; Chinese medicine translation; The Yellow Emperor Ling Shu; Ling Shu; comparative study

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How to cite this paper

A Comparative Study of Two English Translations of The Yellow Emperor Ling Shu from the Perspective of Grammatical Metaphor

How to cite this paper: Zhangjun Lian, Jingjing Zhao. (2025) A Comparative Study of Two English Translations of The Yellow Emperor Ling Shu from the Perspective of Grammatical Metaphor. Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Science9(11), 2136-2142.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/jhass.2025.11.010