第三形态特质下政治文本翻译语境的再造性

The Recreation of Context of Political Texts Translation under the Properties of the Third Form

As China’s role in the global discourse becomes increasingly irreplaceable, the significance of translating Chinese political texts into English for an international audience is self-evident. This paper focuses on the English translation of quotations from the Analects in the work Xi Jinping: the Governance of China and Xu Yuanchong’s translation of the Analects as objects, and finds that there are significant differences between the two in terms of the choice of words and the construction of the target language context. These differences can be explained by translation properties of the Third Form, which means that the translation is both dependent on and independent from the source and target languages. This paper holds that it is the difference in the purpose and audience of the English translation of the two quotations that causes the existence of rational difference. The Third Form of translation endows different target texts with unique cultural identities, thereby recreating the context of political text translation. This finding provides useful insights into the practice of translating political texts.

随着中国在世界话语体系中的地位愈发不可替代，我国政治文本英译的重要性日益凸显。本文以《习近平谈治国理政》中引用《论语》的英译与许渊冲《论语》译本为对象，发现两者在选词及目标语语境构建上存在显著差异。同时，这些差异可通过翻译的第三形态特质来解释，即译文与源语、目标语既依存又独立。本文认为，正是由于两种典籍引用英译的目的、受众等不同造成了这一合理性差别的存在。翻译属性的第三形态特质使得不同的目标文本具有独特的文化身份，并使政治译文的语境在此形态下得以再造。这一发现为政治文本翻译实践提供了有益启示。