跨文化传播视角下《天工开物》术语英译策略研究

A Study on English Translation Strategies of Terminology in Tiangong Kaiwu from the Perspective of Cross-Cultural Communication

摘要: 在中国文化“走出去”背景下，古代科技典籍外译是传播中华传统技术智慧的重要路径。《天工开物》被誉为“中国十七世纪的工艺百科全书”，其科技术语兼具科技信息与历史文化内涵，英译需兼顾准确性与文化输出。本文以拉斯韦尔5W传播模式和霍尔高低语境文化理论为支撑，将书中术语分为器物工具、工艺动作、计量单位三类，对比任以都、李乔萍两译本，指出过度归化、过度异化、注释失衡及策略同质化等问题，进而提出“三层补偿”策略：以异化保留文化标识，借注释实现功能形态补偿，靠术语表和插图完成系统化知识补充，并对不同术语差异化处理。研究表明，科技典籍术语翻译应超越归化与异化的二元对立，译者需在可读性与文化保真之间寻求动态平衡。

Abstract: Against the backdrop of China’s going global cultural strategy, the translation of ancient scientific and technological classics serves as an important pathway for disseminating traditional Chinese technological wisdom. Tiangong Kaiwu, hailed as “the craft encyclopedia of seventeenth-century China”, contains a large number of scientific and technological terms that embody both technical information and historical-cultural connotations, requiring English translation to balance accuracy with cultural export. Supported by Lasswell’s 5W communication model and Hall’s high-context and low-context culture theory, this paper classifies the terminology in the book into three categories: artifacts and tools, craft actions, and units of measurement. By comparing the two translations by E-tu Zen Sun and Li Ch’iao-ping, it identifies such problems as excessive domestication, excessive foreignization, imbalanced annotation, and homogenized translation strategies, and further proposes a “three-tier compensation” strategy: preserving cultural markers through foreignization, achieving functional-formal compensation through annotations, and accomplishing systematic knowledge supplementation through glossaries and illustrations, with differentiated treatment for different types of terminology. The study demonstrates that the translation of terminology in scientific and technological classics should transcend the binary opposition between domestication and foreignization, and that translators need to seek a dynamic balance between readability and cultural fidelity.