评魏逎杰先生的《实用英文中医辞典》——论魏氏直译法

本文以魏迫杰编写的《实用英文中医辞典》为依据，对他倡导的一个汉字对一英文词的逐字直译法进行评论，对他认为用此法仿造中医英文名词能忠实呈现中医原貌的观点提出疑问。魏迫杰的直译法是首先规定中医名词中常用单个汉字的英文对应词，然后在翻译时遇到这些汉字用规定的英文对应词置换，从而产生仿造的中医英文名词。通过这种直译法仿造出的中医英文词汇令人十分费解，其中有很多歪曲了中医的原义。这种逐字直译法的错误根源是混淆了中文的字与词的概念，误认为字就是意义的单位，双音词和多音词的意义不过是两个或多个字义的相加。另一个原则性错误是忽略了单音词的多义性，硬性规定中文单字的英文对应词，并据此仿造出中医英文词汇。本文通过《实用英文中医辞典》中的许多实例说明这种译法所造成的种种谬误。

Comments on Nigel Wiseman's A Practical Dictionary of Chinese Medicine--On Wiseman's Literal Translation

Comments were made on the word-for-word literal translation method used by Mr. Nigel Wiseman in A Practical Dictionary of Chinese Medicine. He believes that only literal translation can reflect Chinese medical concepts accurately. The so-called "word-for-word" translation is actually "English-word-for-Chinese-character" translation. First, he made a list of Single Characters with English Equivalents, and then he replaced each character of Chinese medical terms with the assigned English equivalent. Many English terms thus produced are confusing. The defect of the word-for-word literal translation stems from the erroneous idea that the single character constitutes the basic element of meaning corresponding to the notion of "word" in English, and the meaning of a disyllabic or polysyllabic Chinese word is simply the addition of the meanings of the two or more characters. Another big mistake is the negligence of the polysemy of Chinese characters. One or two English equivalents can by no means cover all the various meanings of a polysemous character as a monosyllabic word. Various examples were cited from this dictionary to illustrate the mistakes.