从“新知”到“新媒介”:晚清时期的译报实践与媒介新知

From "New Knowledge" to "New Media":Newspaper Translation and Media Cognition in the Late Qing Dynasty

自林则徐译报开始,新闻纸阅读、办报尝试、报刊观念逐渐进入晚清士绅学子的日常视野和话语体系。译报初兴于官场,在激烈的中西对抗中,官员士绅自上而下翻译西方新闻纸,探察夷情,学习西艺,却参与者少,译报面窄,传播面小。官方译报带有“中体西用”的局限,媒介认识肤浅,西报仅被视作一种“新知”,这种新知既不能从根本上解除内忧外患,也未能助产真正意义上的近代报刊。甲午之后,国事日艰,译报盛行于民间,民间报人自下而上,广设新报,广译西报,参与者众,译报面宽,传播面广。民间报人对西报的认识加深,视报纸为一种“新媒介”,西报的内容、体例与媒介逻辑通过译报得以引进并付诸实践,译报与办报相互结合,参与政治,引领舆论,传播新知,成为推进社会变革的重要力量。从官场到民间,从“新知”到“新媒介”,从“译”报到“办”报,西报与中国的政治文化需求相结合,成为近代报刊发展的一个起点。

Since Lin Zexu’s translation of foreign newspapers,newspaper concept,reading and practice entered the vision and discourse of Chinese gentries and intellectuals in the Late Qing Dynasty.Amid intense competition between Chinese and Western ideas,officials top-down newspaper translation meant to explore foreign countries and learn Western skills but these practices suffered from great limitations of Chinese style for Western practices,such as few participants,narrow scope,few readers as well as superficial media cognition and newspaper being considered as a kind of new knowledge only.The so-called new knowledge could not find solution to inner struggle and out threats.After the Sino-Japanese War of 1894,some progressive civil intellectuals established their own newspapers and began to participate in political discussions and enlighten the people.Together with patriotic intellectuals,the professional translators undertook large scale translation of foreign newspapers,which was welcomed by Chinese readers,journalists and editors at that time.Form officials to civilians,from new knowledge to new media,from newspaper translating to newspaper establishing,Western newspaper met the political and cultural needs of China and produced the starting point for Chinese modern newspapers in the late Qing Dynasty.