再论中国特色翻译学——基于《中国翻译》和Babel的研究(1987～2016)

“Translation Studies with Chinese Characteristics”Revisited: A Bibliometric Study Based on Papers in China Translators’ Journal and Babel from 1987 to 2016

《中国翻译》和Babel杂志近30年刊文情况表明,中国翻译研究与西方翻译研究表现出了明显的区别,主要体现在研究话题上。具体而言,中国翻译研究更加重视翻译教学、翻译史、翻译行业、翻译技术、翻译技巧的研究。这几个领域其实也是中国翻译学与西方相比的优势所在,代表了中国翻译学的特色。这些特色与中国特色翻译学大讨论中学者们的设想并不一致,并非因为汉语或中国文化的特色才形成,主要原因在于学者们过于注重翻译理论的建构,未能预见国内翻译实践的新发展。

A statistical analysis of the articles published in China Translators’ Journal and Babel shows that there are some growing differences between translation studies in China and the West,in terms of topics covered by these articles.Translator and interpreter training,translation history,translation industry,translation technology and translation skills have attracted much more attention from Chinese scholars than from their western colleagues. It is on these topics that translation studies in China now leads the world, and therefore they should be viewed as the"characteristics" of translation studies in China. These characteristics,however,are a far cry from what is envisioned by scholars in debates about"translation studies with Chinese characteristics"in that none of them results from peculiarities of the Chinese language or culture. Chinese scholars’ envisions have not come true because of their obsession with developing new theories and failure to foresee the new forms of translation practice.