佛教文化的翻译——以敏公上师的生平英译为例

On the Translation of Buddhist Culture——Taking the English Translation of Guru Zhimin's Biography as an Example

敏公上师是当代的高僧,其摄受的弟子遍及海内外,对敏公上师生平的英译有着极其重大的意义。文章从三个方面探讨了这次翻译实践的特点:(一)佛教文化特色词的翻译当中,译者们多采用直译和音译,突出佛家的本源异域文化;同时基于表达的需要,也综合采用意译、增译、加注等翻译手段。(二)对句子的翻译中,如果英汉有类似的句型,则顺应源语句型,但调整语序,以符合译出语的表达习惯;如果英汉句子差距较大,则完全打破源语结构,按照译出语地道的表达习惯来。(三)语篇把握方面,汉语靠词汇重复等构成语篇前后连贯,英语则多用连词、副词、介词短语等衔接前后句子,翻译时去掉原文中的冗余信息,"化虚为实";另外,偈颂等是特殊的语篇,按照诗歌的韵律及排版来译。

Guru Zhimin is the contemporary highly-esteemed monk. He has cultivated a host of monastic scholars home and abroad. Therefore,it is of great importance to translate his biography into English. This article analyzes the translation of Guru Min＇s biography from three aspects and gets its conclusions：（ 1） With respect to translation of the culture-loaded words,the translators prefer to adopt the methods of literal translation and transliteration so as to highlight Buddhist native culture; meanwhile,the translators also combine other methods such as free translation,amplification,annotation,etc.（ 2） In light of sentence patterns of the source language and the target language,if they are similar,the target language will adapt to the source language and make some alterations; if they are quite different,the sentence pattern will be modeled on the target language.（ 3） Considering discourse analysis,Chinese tends to apply repetition in the aspect of coherence while English will use conjunctions,adverbs,prepositions,etc. to make the passage coherent. So,in the process of translation,the translators need to get rid of the redundant information in the source language and turn them into more concrete sentences. In addition,Buddhist verses belong to special discourse which calls for poetic form of translating them.