论英汉音译之用字原则

Principles of Selecting Chinese Characters in E-C Transliteration

当前,英汉音译用字不规范的情形主要可分为8种:同一音素或音节用读音不同的汉字音译、同一汉字用于音译不同的音素、同一英语单词用不同数目的汉字音译、同一英语单词音译时用同音字或近音字、用多音字、用生僻字、使用方言、用有误导性联想的字。基于现有英汉音译用字规范及英译实践,英汉音译选字用字应遵循以下原则:名从主人的音近原则、基于常用字的简化原则、基于避免误读的联想原则、基于约定俗成的趋同原则。

Non-standard English-Chinese transliteration falls into eight categories： the same phoneme or syllable translated into Chinese characters with different pronunciations; different phonemes translated into the same Chinese characters; the same word translated into Chinese characters of different numbers; the same word translated into Chinese characters with similar pronunciation; the same word translated into Chinese characters with multiple pronunciations; the same word translated into rarely-used Chinese characters; the same word translated into Chinese dialects; and the same word translated into Chinese characters that cause misleading association. To avoid improper transliteration,the author puts forward four principles regarding character selection,on the basis of the already known principles in transliteration： closeness for translation of names,simplicity based on commonly-used characters,association that would help avoid misreading,and convergence based on convention.