从译员到侨领——梅光达在澳洲的赞译关系研究

From Interpreter to Leader of Chinese in Australia:A Study of the Patron-Client Relationship of Quong Tart as Interpreter

梅光达是清末澳洲的知名侨领,但是他以经商为主、口译为辅的职业模式,以及他与不同翻译赞助人之间的关系,至今鲜为人知。他少年时通过矿区翻译工作获得了经济资助和社会地位,成年后还以政府译员的身份入籍澳洲。搬到悉尼后,他继续为法院、检察院、政府等赞助机构在处理华工问题时担任口译和调停工作,并为中国首个访澳使团提供口译服务。通过这些机会,他积极周旋于澳洲政府与华人社团之间,有效帮助中澳双方调解华洋矛盾,实现从译员到侨领的转变。

Quong Tart(1850-1903)was a well-known leader of the Chinese community in Australia in the late Qing Dynasty,but his dual career of trader-cum-interpreter and his relationship with different patrons are hardly known yet.As it is,when he left home for Australia as a young boy,his plan,made by his family,was to make a living as an interpreter in the colonist mining district.Luckily his plan fared well because he was adopted by a white family that owned a large mine with hundreds of Chinese miners.By interpreting for his foster father during his boyhood he gained economic support and social status,and he then got naturalized as a government interpreter when he became an adult.After moving to Sydney,he continued to work as an interpreter and mediator for the courts,the procuratorate,the government and other agencies dealing with Chinese laborers,and provided interpretation services for the first Chinese delegation to Australia.Through these opportunities,he actively navigated between the Australian government and the Chinese community,effectively helped to mediate the conflicts between China and the west,and realized the transformation from interpreter to leader of overseas Chinese.