From Canon-in-Translation to Commentary-in-Translation: Advancing Toward a New Vision of Ruism

PFISTER, Lauren F.
Hong Kong Baptist University

One of the dimensions of new trends in publication within sinological circles is the willingness to add to the translations of classical Ruist texts also the translations of Ruist commentarial notes on those same texts.  What a reader sees and can begin to understand, then, is not only a rendering in the target language of the classical passage, but also a selection of later commentarial notes which reveal some of the variety of interpretations which appeared across various ages within Ruist traditions.

The impact of these “commentaries-in-translation” is that they not only shed light sometimes on the diversity of interpretive positions and schools of thought which emerged within the history of Ruist traditions, but also reveal some of the hermeneutic techniques which made those commentaries attractive.  What is tricky in all this, of course, is that both the authorized text and the commentary are no longer in a Chinese language medium, and so whether or not there are accompanying references to key Chinese characters at times (whether in Pinyin, or in Pinyin with accents, and/or with Chinese characters) may add to the quality of the renderings and their presentations.

How this new diversity of Ruist traditions plays out in challenging certain generalized assumptions about the nature of Ruist values and worldviews has as yet not fully been made manifest.  Nevertheless, the affirmation of this diversity within the historical traditions does suggest that any claims made by Ruist advocates in the contemporary setting which do not handle or explain the diversity within these traditions of interpretation can now be questioned on the basis of their lack of comprehensiveness, if not also their lack of representativeness. Some further suggestions about the import of this interpretive fecundity and the possibilities for future developments both inside and outside of China will be explored as a consequence of the impact of this new publishing phenomena.

从经典翻译到注疏翻译：走向儒学的新视野

费乐仁
香港浸会大学

将对注疏的翻译加于对儒家经典文本的翻译之上是汉学界在出版发行上的新潮流。那么，读者所见和所能理解的内容，就不仅仅包括经典篇章本身，还包括后世的注疏，这些注疏显示出不同时代儒家传统内部诠释的多样性。

这些“注疏翻译”的作用，不仅可以时常呈现出儒家传统内部所蕴含的诠释立场和思想流派的多样性，而且还揭示出一些使得这些注疏为人所瞩目的诠释学技巧。当然，问题的复杂性在于权威文本和注疏不再以汉语为媒介，因此即使缺乏关键汉字的附注（不管是拼音还是带声调、并/或附有汉字的拼音），也能提高译文的准确及晓畅度。

在挑战某些体现出儒家价值观和世界观之本质的普遍假定时，人们尚未重视儒家传统中新的多样性。然而，历史传统内部认同这种多样性，这意味着在当下社会中，任何诠释文本只要未涉及或阐发这种多样性，尽管它们也不乏代表性，均会被怀疑不够全面。将注疏翻译加于经典文本翻译之上的这种新的出版潮流，将促使我们进一步思考诠释的丰富性及其未来在中国内外发展的可能性。