“中国梦”英译研究再思考——兼论政治术语翻译的概念史研究方法

On the English Translation of Zhongguo Meng from the Perspective of Conceptual History and its Implication for the Translation of Political Terminology

作为当代中国政治话语的显著标记,"中国梦"凸显了政治术语所具有的观念性和社会性特征。这种术语概念类型的特殊性对于"中国梦"的译介具有重要影响。但在现有的"中国梦"英译研究中,这一点并未得到充分重视和有效利用。本文所借鉴的概念史研究方法是以社会政治概念为主要研究对象的德国史学研究范式。它能够从历时衍化和共时比较的双重维度对"中国梦"概念认知的复杂性做更全面的描述,从而有利于对该术语跨语传播与接受的问题展开更深入的探讨。这种基于历史文本语境对政治概念进行深度解读的研究方法对于其他政治术语的翻译研究亦具有方法论意义上的参考价值,从而对于当代中国政治话语的建构和跨语传播具有积极的现实意义。

The past two years have witnessed Zhongguo Meng’s ascension to prominence in contemporary Chinese political discourse.The ideational nature and the socio-political property,both of which are essential to political terminology,combine to be the source of complexity of Zhongguo Meng’s cross-lingual activity.However,this underlying dynamics has not been given due consideration in the current pool of researches both at home and abroad.This article attempts to adopt the conceptual history of German provenance,within the framework of which both the diachronic thrust and the geography-based contrast concerning the use of Zhongguo Meng will be covered.In this way,the conceptual complexity of Zhongguo Meng as a political term will be given full analysis,which is essentially necessary for the term’s translation.The conceptual and comparative perspective is also applicable in the translation studies of other political terms,which are the stepping stones in the trans-lingual communication of Chinese political discourse.