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Translation and Foreign Language Learning

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ArticleTranslation Theories and Skills http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/tfll.2026.02.012

A Study on English Translation Methods of Intangible Cultural Heritage Terminology of Traditional Crafts from the Perspective of National Image

Qianyu Liu

School of Humanities and Foreign Languages, Chongqing College of Humanities, Science & Technology, Chongqing 401524, China.

*Corresponding author: Qianyu Liu

The research project entitled A Study on English Translation Methods of Intangible Cultural Heritage Terminology of Traditional Crafts from the Perspective of National Image is supported by Chongqing College of Humanities, Science & Technology “Research on the Translation of Intangible Cultural Heritage Terms and the Construction of National Image from the Perspective of National Translation Practice” (CRKSK2024012).
Published: February 28, 2026

Abstract

China’s intangible cultural heritage is rich in content and diverse in variety. Its terminology is the conceptual expression of the content of intangible cultural heritage, reflecting the wisdom of China’s intangible cultural heritage in history, culture, philosophy, and aesthetic art. In the foreign communication of intangible cultural heritage, the translation of the terms is related to the understanding and cognition of the international community on the essence of intangible cultural heritage. From the perspective of national image, this paper takes the traditional craft terms in intangible cultural heritage as an example to explore how the commonly used translation methods of literal translation, free translation and transliteration combined with literal translation can shape the national image in the process of term translation, and reflect the national and technical characteristics of intangible cultural heritage, so as to provide reference for the English translation of Chinese traditional technical terms.

Keyword

Intangible Cultural Heritage; Terminology; National Image; Traditional Crafts

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Copyright

© 2026 by the author(s).
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license, which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not modified or adapted.
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How to cite this paper

A Study on English Translation Methods of Intangible Cultural Heritage Terminology of Traditional Crafts from the Perspective of National Image

How to cite this paper: Qianyu Liu. (2026). A Study on English Translation Methods of Intangible Cultural Heritage Terminology of Traditional Crafts from the Perspective of National Image. Translation and Foreign Language Learning2(2), 254-258.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/tfll.2026.02.012