A Study Of The New Translated Terms In The Late Qing Dynasty And Their Variation

In the late Qing Dynasty,there emerged a large number of new translated terms depicting new things and new ideas.These terms underwent significant variations after being coined.However,the variations and variation patterns of the new translated terms in the late Qing Dynasty has not been fully explored.In order to bridge the research gap,this dissertation attempted to investigate the new translated terms in the late Qing Dynasty and to summarize their variation patterns,with special references to Chinese Serial and Shanghai Serial.The theoretical framework of this dissertation was built through combing the theory of cultural history of translation,the fusion of horizons,the "third space",and conceptual history.As for the research methods and tools,a number of corpora were employed,including a self-built corpus of the Chinese periodicals in the late Qing Dynasty,BCC corpus,and CCL corpus.A series of English-Chinese and English-Japanese dictionaries published between 19th and early 20th century were used,and several ancient books and records were also applied in the analysis of the new translated terms in the late Qing Dynasty.Moreover,the loanwords from China and Japan were discussed,which could be very significant to the variation of the new translated terms in the late Qing Dynasty as well as the formation of the lexical system of contemporary modern Chinese.The research findings are as follows:Firstly,more than 1000 newly translated terms were identified within the pages of two Chinese periodicals.These terms exhibit a diverse range of variations,falling into three distinct categories:structural variation,meaning variation,and structural-meaning variation.In a general sense,most of the new translated terms commenced their variations during the late Qing Dynasty and continued evolving until the 1920s.This indicates that the variations of these terms in the late Qing Dynasty mark a transitional progression toward contemporary modern Chinese.Secondly,in this dissertation a comprehensive investigation on nine new translated terms of three themes including new artifact,concept,and discipline was conducted,leading to the identification of three distinct variation paths:(1)interpretation of enhanced interpretation,(2)moralization,(3)de-moralization.It is important to note that these paths of moralization and demoralization are not mutually exclusive;rather,they interweave with each other within the framework of translated terms variation.Thirdly,in the context of exploring cultural exchange and the flow of loanwords between China and Japan,a corpus-driven method was employed to investigate the origins of loanwords.It was discovered that approximately 110 new translated terms from the late Qing Dynasty had been mistakenly identified as Japanese loanwords.Japan played a pivotal role in disseminating these new translated terms and contributed significantly to their evolution and popularization.The present dissertation believes that the issue of loanwords between China and Japan should be understood from a cultural perspective,specifically within the context of the Chinese character cultural circle.Over time,the cultural dynamics of different nations evolve,and within such cultural circle,it is common to observe the flow of culture and the exchange of loanwords among various countries.The present dissertation took the newly translated terms in the early Chinese periodicals in the early late Qing dynasty as the entry point,exploring them from the perspective of the history of translation culture.It applied corpus methodology to conduct both quantitative and qualitative analy ses of these newly translated terms from the late Qing era.The study summarized the regular patterns in the evolution of these terms.Overall,this article is enlightening for research in the cultural history of translation,the periodization of vocabulary in the late Qing period,and the transition from modern to contemporary Chinese.