“中国文化走出去”语境下跨文化传播的基本问题--以“龙”和“Dragon”为例的词语文化轨迹探讨

Basic Issues of Cross-Cultural Communication in the Context of Introducing Chinese Culture to the Outside World: Long and Dragon as a Case for Culture-loaded Key Words

在当前"中国文化走出去"的语境中需要思考跨文化传播的有效性,其基本问题之一涉及语言转换性使用。由于语言本身是文化不可剥离的一个部分,故词语的指涉意义往往与其文化内涵、言语构成以及表述语境等要素相关。重要的是,其中一些基本词汇在跨文化交流中往往成为中心词。因此,如果对这些词语缺乏对比性和关联性研究,只是停留在表层转换上并认定为在文化意义上等值,就不仅会造成误读,而且还有可能遮蔽词语背后的思想文化特质。中文的"龙"和英文"dragon"就是其中的一个典型例子。在"中国文化走出去"的历史时期,从学理性要素探索语言的跨文化理解、诠释以及有效交流等基本问题值得特别重视。

In the context of introducing Chinese Culture to the outside world,the effect of cross-cultural communication lies in the effective transformation of language usage,which consists of one of the basic issues.As language is an integral part of culture,the meaning and signification of words or characters derive from their cultural connotation,linguistic formation and pragmatic context.What is more,some of the keywords turn out to be crucial to effective cross-cultural communication today.Therefore,without relative studies of those key words,any surface word-to-word translation might not only lead to misreading but also fold the underlying thought if the translation were taken as equal articulation of the original key word.The Chinese Long and its English version Dragon could be a typical case.In terms of research principle,such basic issues involving cross-cultural understanding,translation and effective communication are worthy of our special attention during the current phase of introducing Chinese culture to the outside world.