从语义翻译和交际翻译的角度论清朝职官的英译

Study on the Translation of Official Titles in Qing Dynasty from Perspective of Semantic and Communicative Translation Theory 

摘要

本文旨在以彼特·纽马克的语义翻译和交际翻译的翻译理论为理论基础，分析探讨中国清代官职名称的英译，从而探索官职名称翻译及相似特定文化词语的有效英译方法。

作为中国古代官僚制度的重要组成部分，中国古代官职已经有千年的历史。中国古代官职数量多并且承载着许多重要的文化信息。在翻译这些职官名称，应该如何将职官名称中蕴含的文化信息传递出来是翻译的一个重要问题。本文首先简单阐述了中国古代官僚制度以及清代时期的职官制度。然后，为分析之便，本文将官职名称分为三类：中央文官，地方文官以及武官。通过对清朝官僚制度下不同品级职官的历史背景、具体职权范围及其英译名称的对比研究，本文分析归纳了职官名称英译时采用的翻译策略和方法，并且进一步从语义翻译和交际翻译理论的角度分析了这些翻译方法以及其达到的效果。

通过详细分析，本文得出以下结论：在翻译官职名称以及相关文化词时，翻译者根据其不同文本特点及目的语读者的理解力，灵活地对这些名称进行翻译。一些翻译名称尽量保留原文的文化特色，遵循了语义翻译原则；一些名称则应用了交际翻译理论，以便目的语读者理解；其他的名称则结合了语义翻译和交际翻译。然而，由于中国古代官职的难度比较大以及中英文化的巨大差异，大多数官职的翻译都以目的语读者的接受能力为首要考虑因素，应用交际翻译方法进行翻译。

关键词：清代官职，翻译策略，语义翻译，交际翻译  

Abstract
This paper aims to probe into the translation of official titles in Qing dynasty on the basis of Peter Newmark’s theory of semantic translation and communicative translation, in quest of efficient ways for translating official titles and such culture-specific words. 
Officials, as vital components of ancient Chinese bureaucracy, have accumulated for thousands of years. They are in a great number and contain a great deal of cultural information. It is a big issue to transfer the abundant cultural information loaded in the titles clearly and reliably in the translation. This thesis firstly provides a general introduction of bureaucracy in ancient China and official system in Qing dynasty. Then for the sake of analysis, the official titles are divided into three groups, that is, civil officials in the central government, civil officials in the local government and the military officials. Next, through a comparative analysis between the historical background, position, and responsibilities of officials of different ranks and the English names is conducted, the author summarizes the translation strategies and applies the theory of semantic and communicative translation to analyze these methods and their effects.
Through the detailed analysis, a conclusion is obtained that when translating official titles and such cultural-specific terms, the translator adopts flexible strategies according to the features of the texts and the comprehension of the Target Language (hereafter referred to as TL) readership. Some titles are translated in a semantic way, trying to retain the form of Source Language (hereafter referred to as SL); some are translated communicatively, facilitating the TL readers to understand; and others are outcomes of combination of semantic and communicative translation. Because of the great difficulties of ancient Chinese official titles and huge disparities between Chinese and English culture, most official titles are translated in a communicative way, taking the TL reader reception as primary consideration.
Key words: official titles, translation strategies, communicative translation, semantic translation