“观”与中国典籍范畴的“时中”式翻译

“Guan”and the“Timely Mean”Model of Translating Traditional Chinese Classics

古汉语表现出强烈的“观”之特性——其以“象”保留自然印记,且与直观经验强烈关联,其以联想和譬喻来感知并表述世界,在此基础上所形成的中国古代思想特质是“综合直观式”的,而非印欧语言所构建的那种“纯概念思考”式的。相比西方思想的“求真”传统,中国古代思想更关注人生之“求道”。而中国典籍的思想范畴,常在被翻译成西方语言时遭遇“抽象化”的困境,其与“观”相连的“求道”与指引行为的特质被消隐,变成与西方哲学概念范畴非常相似的原理阐明。为了保持典籍范畴所传达的思想的异质性,提出“时中”的翻译策略,旨在让译语读者感悟一种新的思想方式,进而获得对中国典籍更深刻、更切近本旨的领悟。

The ancient Chinese language exhibits a strong observative and intuitive peculiarity.Its pictographic characters preserve a natural trace and are strongly associated with intuitive experience;moreover,the use of association and metaphor to perceive and represent the world makes ancient Chinese thought“comprehensive and intuitive”while the worldview constructed by alphabetic Indo-European languages is perceived as“pure conceptual thinking”.Therefore,compared with the“truth-seeking”tradition of Western thought,ancient Chinese thought is more concerned with the“way of life”.The Chinese canonical categories of thought,however,often suffer from the dilemma of“abstraction”when translated into Western languages,and their intrinsic characteristic of“seeking the way”and guiding people’s behavior,which are linked to the integrative and intuitive nature of Chinese characters,are eliminated and transformed into principle clarifications very similar to those of Western philosophical concepts.In order to maintain the heterogeneity of the ideas conveyed by the canonical sphere,the authors of this paper propose practical translation solutions based upon the Confucian concept of“timely mean”,aiming to let target text readers perceive a new way of thinking,and thus gain a deeper and more relevant understanding of the Chinese canonical texts.