中国传统哲学概念英译模型初探——以《道德经》之“道”的英文翻译模型为例

On English Translation Model of Chinese Traditional Philosophical Concepts: With the English Translation Model of “Dao” of Dao De Jing as an Example

中国传统哲学概念植根于中国文化的土壤,具有与西方文化显著不同的特点。几百年来无数翻译者在面对此类概念的翻译时承受了巨大的挑战。本文从认知语言学的角度出发,以中国传统哲学概念"道"的英译历程为研究范本,提出在中国传统哲学概念的英译领域存在着一个共同的翻译模型即从潜概念到概念形成,并进一步提出各种翻译文本的出现都有其存在价值和必然性。该翻译模型的提出将为中国传统哲学概念的英译研究提供一个新的研究方向,为中国传统哲学概念英译译本的历时研究提供一种可资借鉴的翻译理论模型。

Chinese traditional philosophical concepts, with roots in Chinese culture, are different from their Western counterparts, which pose a huge challenge for thousands of translators who want to trans- late these concepts into English. This paper brings out a translation model based on the research of the English translations of the Chinese traditional philosophical concept ＂Dao＂ from the perspective of cog- nitive linguistics. The model is that Chinese traditional philosophical concepts .are introduced into Eng- lish as latent concepts in the beginning and as concepts in the end. And in this paper, the author ar- gues that all the translated versions of ＂Dao＂ should have their places in the world. This model proposes a new direction in research on translating Chinese traditional philosophical concepts and provides an adaptable theoretical model of translation for the diachronic studies in this field.