Towards Corpus-Based English Education and Translation of Ancient Chinese Terminology

This paper discusses the corpus-based English education and translation of ancient Chinese terminology. China has a long history of language and culture. The recorded history of Chinese ancient characters dates back to Banpo Times about 6000 years ago. Based on statistical data from the largest academic corpus in China (CNKI), we analyze the English translation of eight typical ancient Chinese terminologies in academic articles. The corpus-based results show that sometimes English translation is rough for these traditional terminologies by researchers, and there is no further mention of the potential meaning for these special words to avoid confusion.This undoubtedly prevents the greater spread of education of Chinese ancient terminologies. The conclusion suggests that the ancient Chinese characters have independent phonological, morphological, lexical semantic systems; a substantial corpus is effective to overcome the language barriers of translation; and it is necessary for researchers to receive both Chinese and English education for translation of ancient Chinese terminologies.