公示语中“残疾人”英译文的礼貌性研究

The Politeness of the English Equivalence of Canjiren in Public Signs

本文从语义和语用两个维度,利用词典释义、语料库数据检索以及政策或写作指南进行三角互证,分析cripple、deformed、handicapped、disabled和with a disability/disabilities等5种“残疾人”相关公示语国内英译文的礼貌程度及其历时性变化。研究发现前3种表述都曾用于表示残疾人,但后两种译文最终取代前3种表述,成为当前礼貌程度高的主流用法。此结论表明词汇的礼貌程度随时代变迁而变化,同时印证了《公共服务领域英文译写规范》提供的译文的适切性。本文采用的三角互证法对翻译实践中选词有一定的指导意义,其中通用语料库数据检索的不足进一步说明了建设公示语翻译语料库的必要性。

The paper analyzes the politeness of the English equivalence of canjiren in public signs,namely,cripple,deformed,handicapped,disabled and with a disability/disabilities,from the semantic and pragmatic perspectives.By triangulating the dictionary explanations of the expressions,the results of corpus and Google retrieval,and the rules and regulations of government departments and writing manuals by research institutions and organizations of disabled persons,it is concluded that disabled and with a disability/disabilities rank top in terms of politeness and are the most frequently used today,while the former three expressions have been used to refer to canjiren,but indicate negatively today.The findings echo the idea that the politeness of words is subject to time,and validate the translations of canjiren provided by the Guidelines for the use of English in Public Service Areas.The methodological triangulation adopted in this paper is also applicable to word selection in translation practice,but the deficiencies of general corpora and Google retrieval illustrate the necessity of developing a corpus of public sign translation.