A Glass of Two Languages: Translating Specialized Terminology of Italian Wine in Chinese

Recently, Chinese consumers have shown growing interest in Italian wine tradition. The wine sector has become a promising ground for the cultural encounter between Italy and China and therefore needs linguistic tools to develop. Cultural and language mediators must explore innovative ways to facilitate communication between Italian and Chinese speakers targeting the specific field of “the language of wine”. The Dictionary of Italian wines and grape varieties (original title Dizionario dei vini e dei vitigni d’Italia, hereafter the Dictionary), compiled by the Confucius Institute at the University of Milan and published by Gambero Rosso in 2019 meets the need of systemising, from a terminological perspective, the transmission in Chinese of the Italian wine culture. This paper aims to illustrate the methods and strategies used to compile this bilingual Italian-Chinese lexicographical work, providing numerous examples useful to reflect on the difficulties encountered and the solutions adopted. The study pertains to research on language for specific purposes (Trace/Hudson/Brown 2015) and Chinese translation (Pellat/Liu 2010), though, given the nature of the project, follows an interdisciplinary approach, tapping into specific issues of linguistics and applied linguistics.