古汉语辞书英译的文章学路径——谈《尔雅》英译文本构建

The writing-based English translation of ancient Chinese dictionaries:Taking the composition of the English version of Er'ya for an example

古汉语辞书内容及体例的复杂性是其翻译难点,以《尔雅》英译为例,难点主要体现在近义字词辨析、训诂体例呈现、解经义旨传递等三个方面。文章翻译学的“义、体、气”三合之说,为解决上述难题提供了路径。基于此说,《尔雅》译文可用以下八种方法加以构建:汉语原文在场、被释汉字不译、汉英义素匹配、词源语义解析、注疏文本英译、训诂气韵呈现、典籍语境溯源、辞文义旨注释。基于这八种方法所构建出的英译文本,充分传递了汉语辞书在释义、体例、功能等方面的特点。

The complexity of ancient Chinese dictionaries both in content and style brings about difficulties for their translation.The difficulties in the English translation of Erya,for example,lie mainly in the following three aspects:differentiation of the synonyms,presentation of its exegesis style,and manifestation of its function in explaining the ancient Chinese classics.The theory of combining 3 things-meaning,genre and literary strength in writing-based translation-provides ways to solve the problems mentioned above.Based on this theory,the translation of Erya could be accomplished with the following eight specific methods.They are:the presence of Chinese original text,the presence of untranslated Chinese explicanda,the matching of Chinese and English sememe,the etymological interpretation of sinograms,the presence of literary strength in exegesis,the English translation of commentary texts,the presence of classical contexts,and the manifestation of the philosophical principle for Er'ya.This version of Er ya will fully convey the philological features of ancient Chinese dictionaries in meaning,style and function.