理学核心概念“理”的现当代英译述评

Renditions of the Neo-Confucian Keyword Li by Modern and Contemporary Translators in English-speaking Countries

本文考察了现当代英语世界对理学核心概念“理”的英译。不同于以往的传教士翻译,现代时期的译者开始将理学作为严肃的哲学看待,但对“理”的英译方式基本上仍然是在目标语中努力寻找合适的对等词;而当代译者较之现代译者有着更强的哲学意识,对“理”的理解更加深入,“理”的英译也打破了传统对等词模式,推陈出新,突显阐释,甚至以释代译。当代对“理”的英译方式呈现出多元化、多角度的特点,对“理”的译释深度也远迈现代时期。

This paper investigates how the Neo-Confucian keyword li has been rendered by modern and contemporary translators in the English-speaking world.Differing from their missionary predecessors who found mainly religion in classical Chinese texts,modern Anglophone translators treated Neo-Confucianism as a serious philosophy and endeavored to find a lexical equivalent for li in the target language.Contemporary translators are even more philosophically conscious and tend in general to command a deeper understanding of the concept li.Abandoning the convention of finding a literal equivalent for li,they put forward hermeneutically informed new renditions and,in some cases,use their interpretation of li to refer to the term in lieu of a translation.As such,contemporary Anglophone translators'ways of rendering li are diversified and multi-dimensional involving more insightful hermeneutical interpretations than those offered by modern translators.