跨文化·双语性:华裔美国作家的名字

华裔美国作家的父母或祖父母为他/她们从小就起了汉字书写的中国名字,在其家庭成员、亲戚和中国朋友之间以及就读的中文学校里使用。早期华人移民重视中国传统的传承,总是慎重地给子女起汉语名字,现在也仍然保持珍视家姓的传统。为了在讲英语的主流社会里接受教育、生存和发展,他/她们拥有英语书写的美国名字(一般前面是美国人通用的名字,后面保留中国的家姓)。于是他/她们的名字具有跨文化和双语性的特点。中国学者在20世纪70年代晚期和80年代早期开始译介他/她们的作品时,按照英文的发音直译他/她们的名字,那时常常出现这样那样的变异,甚至发生可笑的错误。原来他/她们大多数人是广东移民的后代,他/她们的中国名字或家姓是按照广东地方话的口音变成英文,这给中国国内非广东人译者造成难以辨认的困难。为此,本文梳理了中国译界和学界在译介和使用华裔美国作家名字上的混乱现象,探讨他/她们名字的跨文化和双语性特点,论证他/她们在使用英文书写的美国名字的同时使用汉字书写的中国名字的重要性和必要性。

Chinese American writers are named in Chinese by their immigrant parents or grandparents,which are used among their families,relatives and Chinese friends as well as in the Chinese language schools they attended when they were very young. According to Russell Leong,a well-known Chinese American poet and critic,the early Chinese immigrants valued family,and the naming of sons and daughters was not to be taken lightly. And the names help them to discern and know where they are — within the Chinese enclave or Chinese world — or outside,in the bigger,English-speaking America,so says he. In order to receive better education,work and live in American society,however,they adopt American names with American names as their first names,and keep their family names translated from Chinese. Across the two cultures,their names are thus bilingual. But we just transliterated their names from English into Chinese when we began to introduce them to China in late 1970s and early 1980s. As a result,it made much confusion,and even grave mistakes in dealing with their family names translated in the Cantonese dialects phonetically as most of their parents or grandparents or great grandparents were the immigrants from Guangdong Province. It has improved a lot,however,when we can trace their original Chinese names in characters as we have more chances to meet them either in China or in America with the development of cultural exchanges between the two countries,though there are a few Chinese scholars who still stand for literal translation of their names because of this or that reason,nevertheless. But,according to the Chinese American writers,merely transliterating the English is an injustice in a sense. This essay reveals the argument against or for transliteration of their names from English into Chinese,dwells on the characteristics of their names in bilingual across the two cultures,and emphasizes the importance and necessity of keeping their Chinese names in characters and American names in English as well through an investigation among Chinese American writers.