《论语》英译修辞策略刍议

On the rhetoric strategies in the English translations of The Analects

中国文化典籍文质兼美,其修辞方式也是意义的一种深层体现,因此在典籍翻译中采用适当的修辞策略对于文化传播具有非常重要的意义。本文以五个具有代表性的《论语》译本为基础,从"修辞风格"、"核心术语"和"汉语特色修辞格的处理"三个方面来探讨相关的翻译修辞策略,得出结论:在典籍翻译修辞实践中,要摒弃"归化"和"异化"非此即彼的思维定式,唯有善于利用源语和目的语的修辞共性,充分尊重源语和目的语的修辞差异,力求做到形神兼备,才能使典籍翻译真正起到文化传播和文化交流的作用。

Ancient Chinese classics boast both profound culture and superb rhetoric;the content of Chinese classics is encoded and shaped by the traditional Chinese rhetoric.As a result,the rhetoric strategies play an essential part in the translation of Chinese classics.Based on five representative translations of The Analects,the present study explores the rhetoric strategies in the translation of Chinese classics from three perspectives,i.e."stylistic features","key terminology"and"the transformation of figures of speech",and concludes that it is time to dismiss the presupposed single choice between domestication and foreignization in terms of rhetoric strategies in the translation of Chinese classics.In other words,the translation of Chinese classics requires a successful representation of both form and content,which can only be achieved by utilizing the similarities between the rhetoric of the source language and that of the target language,and by identifying the differences between the two.Only in this way can the translation of Chinese classics fulfill its mission of cross-cultural communication.