A Study on English Translation Strategies for Fujian Traditional Textile Crafts: Practices and Challenges from a Cultural Communication Perspective
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Abstract
The international exchange of engineering knowledge increasingly relies on standardized technical terminology to ensure the accurate interpretation of manufacturing processes, material properties, and experimental methodologies. Similar requirements exist in electromagnetic engineering, antenna technology, and wave propagation research, where inconsistent terminology may lead to ambiguity in technical documentation and cross-disciplinary communication. Against this background, this study investigates the English translation of Fujian traditional textile crafts from the perspective of technical knowledge representation and cultural communication. Through a systematic analysis of terminology associated with textile materials, loom structures, weaving mechanisms, and pattern semantics, three major challenges are identified, including inconsistent technical expressions, lexical gaps for indigenous manufacturing technologies, and information loss during literal translation. To overcome these limitations, a hybrid translation framework combining transliteration, technical annotation, and functional adaptation is proposed to preserve both engineering semantics and cultural specificity. Rather than treating translation as a linguistic conversion process, the proposed framework reconstructs process-oriented knowledge and manufacturing logic embedded in traditional textile terminology, thereby improving the precision of technical documentation and international knowledge transfer. The methodology provides a reference for the standardization of specialized vocabularies in engineering disciplines and contributes to more reliable cross-language communication for digital archives, technical databases, and interdisciplinary research involving complex material systems.
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