# My Journey through Chinese Art History



## ellindea

I am trying to make a title in Chinese for my portfolio for my Chinese Art History class.

我的中国艺术的历史的征程  ？
我的中国的艺术历史的征程  ？

It seems like there are too many 的.  My I should just leave out 我的.  Also, is 征程 good or would something else be better?  How could I give the sense of "through"?  Maybe I should say 我通行？ 

很谢谢！


----------



## gazagoal

中华艺术史之旅
溯游中华艺术长河


----------



## MarcF

gazagoal said:


> 中华艺术史之旅
> 溯游中华艺术长河



Maybe you should add a "我的".
我的中华艺术史之旅
我的中国艺术史之旅


----------



## fredisaking

_My Journey through Chinese Art History_

征程, literally _conquering process_, sounds like you are in a war. It would be fine if you were trying to be creative, which is what I usually do. But for foreign speakers, you just find others a good excuse to say you are wrong. Native speakers have what I call _native speakers' privilege_, which makes weird sentences sound ok. However, it is even kind of dangerous for native speakers to use 征程 in this sense.


----------



## fffa4lulua

If your are talking about _art_ _history,_ I think you can consider the idea of writing it in traditional characters (especially as a portfolio title)

我的中華藝術史之旅
溯游中華藝術長河


----------



## DavidCornell

Chinese Art History is usually translated as 中国艺术史，but not 中华艺术史. so I think 我的中国艺术史之旅 is the best translation. As for the use of traditional Chinese characters or the simplified Chinese characters, I think it depends on the purpose of your portfolio. If you just want the title to be a decoration, traditional Chinese characters should be good. If you want to show the portfolio to your colleagues in China, then I think simplified characters are preferred.


----------



## gazagoal

Sorry, but I cannot agree with you. 中国, though dates back to 100 B.C., now means the nation, while 中华 the race. There's American Literature but no USA Literature. So except the art portfolio is exclusively about works after 1949, 中华 is preferred.


----------



## DavidCornell

You should know that even in Taiwan, Chinese Art History is translated as 中国艺术史，you can take a look at course offerings at National Tsinghua University here ( you can scroll down the page to find the course listing)

http://www.dhss.nthu.edu.tw/course/riki.php?CID=1&id=%E6%AD%B7%E5%8F%B2%E5%B0%88%E6%A5%AD%E5%AD%B8%E7%A8%8B

Your understanding of 中国 is very narrow. Even people from Taiwan would have to disagree with you. If what you said were true, then we would have to translate Chinese calligraphy, Chinese painting into 中华书法、中华绘画。That would really be very wrong.

There is standard translation for names of a certain discipline. In the academic circle, Chinese art history is standardly translated as 中国艺术史. there is nothing political about it. If you use 中华艺术史, then it would mean something totally different from the standard terminology.

The term 中国 is used to refer to Mainland China by people outside China. Sometimes 中国人 is used to refer to only people from Mainland China. These are the only cases where the kind of distinction you mentioned between 中国 and 华 is actually maintained by certain groups of people. I understand that 华人 is a preferred term for people of Chinese descend all over the world. That is it.

But in compound nouns, 中国 refers to Chinese， e.g. 中国思想史、中国文化、中国历史, etc. Here the use of 中国 does not have any political import at all. Actually if you try to use 中华 instead of the standard terminology, then you are making a political claim, which is not welcome in this forum about language.



gazagoal said:


> Sorry, but I cannot agree with you. 中国, though dates back to 100 B.C., now means the nation, while 中华 the race. There's American Literature but no USA Literature. So except the art portfolio is exclusively about works after 1949, 中华 is preferred.


----------



## fffa4lulua

to DavidCornell:
I think you confuse me(Taiwanese) with gazagoal(who I believe is Mainland Chinese).

And for the usage of _zhong guo_ or _zhong hua_ in this context, you should know that in Taiwan we like to distinguish ourselves from being part of China,  though making the class title _zhong guo yi shu shi_ (China's art history) to indicate it as the art history of another country. 
(of course this is just what I think, maybe they have been using this title for decades already)


----------



## DavidCornell

I was not referring to your post. I did not confuse you with gazagoal. It does NOT matter to me where you are from. I am ONLY stating the fact that Chinese Art History is translated as 中国艺术史，and it is not a political claim. I have made it very clear that Chinese Art History (not China's art history) and 中国艺术史 are standard terminology. Since the original post asked for a Chinese title for her/his COURSE, I think she/he is a student/researcher in that discipline. You cannot give her/him the wrong translation. That would only make her/him appear less professional and make her/him appear to be making a political claim. 

Of course you can regard Chinese Art History as having nothing to do with Taiwan, but only referring to Art History in Mainland China throughout history. I have no objection to that. But as far as I know, many Taiwanese people do regard 中国历史，中国思想文化,中文 etc as their own history，culture　ａｎｄ language. As I said, you can have different political persuasions, but the terminology is agreed upon.

For example, in National Taiwan University, you have Department of Chinese Literature (国立台湾大学中国文学系) and Department of Foreign Language and Literatures （国立台湾大学文学院外国语文学系暨研究所）．Apparently, 中国文学 is regarded as your own literature. Otherwise it should have been affiliated with the Department of Foreign Language and Literatures.  

I have many Taiwanese friends. I know some of them consider Taiwan not part of 中国, as you do. I respect your opinions. But 矫枉过正 does sometimes exist. 



fffa4lulua said:


> to DavidCornell:
> I think you confuse me(Taiwanese) with gazagoal(who I believe is Mainland Chinese).
> 
> And for the usage of _zhong guo_ or _zhong hua_ in this context, you should know that in Taiwan we like to distinguish ourselves from being part of China,  though making the class title _zhong guo yi shu shi_ (China's art history) to indicate it as the art history of another country.
> (of course this is just what I think, maybe they have been using this title for decades already)


----------



## fffa4lulua

to DavidCornell:
I guess you're right!
And since this is not a political forum I guess I have nothing else to say~

and back to the question, I think both 中华艺术史 or 中国艺术史 is ok,
but it is true that most institution does use later more often~


----------



## gazagoal

Guys, please, let's just leave anything political aside for a while。
It's for his/her portfolio, not Chinese Art History class, whose translation is 中国艺术史 for sure.
不打英语了太累。
至于能不能用中华google下近年出版的《中华艺术通史》。
http://news.xinhuanet.com/book/2007-09/15/content_6725430.htm
当然叫中国艺术史的也有。说明中华和中国可以混用。但“我觉得”中华指的范围更大（中国指的范围当然不只是国家，我都说了这词跟孔子岁数差不多当然不可能只指国家），在这里更适用。这不是政治问题而是你说的standard terminology问题。如果是课程我同意叫中国艺术史，不叫中华。如果是小型展览的名字，而且是很personal的My Journey through Chinese Art History名字。我认为中华更合适。特别是翻译过来。
“我的中国艺术史之旅”和“我的中华艺术史之旅”
前者怎么看怎么不对劲。所以我建议后者。
我拿1949作例子可能引起了误会，那就别看那个了。


----------



## samanthalee

其实“中华艺术史” 和 “中国艺术史”都OK的。就只是语文习惯问题。就像Chinese Music，不同人有不同叫法。中国内地，香港，台湾，新加坡分别将之叫做“民乐”，“中乐”，“国乐”，“华乐”。（四个叫法很好记，凑起来刚好组成“中华民国”。只是凑巧，没别的意思，那也是中国的“前朝”国号。）没有谁对谁错；大家都对。


----------

