A New Study On Ming Si-yi-guan

Si-yi-guan,setting up in Ming dynasty,was the first specialized institution to occupy itself with teaching minority or foreign languages,training professional translators as well as translating documents of tributary nations.In the early days of the Ming dynasty,the contact between the central government and frontier minorities were quiet frequent,which resulted in a large number of non-Chinese documents.Traditionally,interpreters were busy with oral communication and few of them were good at literal translation.The Ming government urgently needed a group of bilingual people who can do literal translation accurately.Under such background,the Si-yi-guan was created.This institution maintained for more than three centuries until it was amalgamated with Hui-tong-guan during the Qianlong era of the Qing dynasty.Si-yi-guan had a special significance and important status on minority and foreign language teaching in ancient China.The translation activities of important diplomatic documents gave us a chance to acquaint the actual situation between Ming and tributaries,and si-yi-guan has gained intense concern by the academic circle.The current research has gained quite a lot of achievements,these researches can be divided into two kinds:the whole discussion of si-yi-guan,and the focus on its branches.However,we found that there is still a lack of details on some issues.This paper,which is on the basis of previous research,is hoped to make a further and more detailed description from the dynamic changes of si-yi-guan itself.This thesis is composed of an introduction,three chapters and a conclusion,outlined as follows:The first chapter discusses the establishment,location and the enrollment of si-yi-guan.The first section focus on the establishment,mainly pointed out that the set up of first eight branches of si-yi-guan are not the same time,but in order.The second section discussed the location,the capital of the Ming dynasty had moved from Nanjing to Beijing,because si-yi-guan seted up before this move,it had existed both of two cities.I payed attention to its location in Beijing,discussed the change of its position by confirming the relation between si-yi-guan and han-lin-yuan.Moreover,I tried to explore the period of time which Nanjing and Beijing both had students who were learning translation skills.The third section focused on the condition of enrolling students,which included the total number and the source of students.The former showed that in the historical records the total enrollment was 12 times,the latter focused on the changes through the selection process.In addition,we found that the students chosen from guo-zi-jian was part sent to other organizations,we inspected their treatment and followed up on their whereabouts.In the second chapter,we focused on the teachers of si-yi-guan.It is divided into three sections.The first section talked about the first teachers,who were bilingual people and worked as interpreters for the Ming government.It is inseparable from the multicultural and multinational of the former dynasty——the Yuan dynasty.The second section payed attention to the foreign teachers,they worked with the native teachers to strengthen the teaching standard and quality.The third section focused on several teachers who played a negative role,with a view to revealing the lax management of si-yi-guan and the lack of responsibility of many teachers,especially from mid-late Ming dynasty.Chapter three focused on the imbalanced development among branches of si-yi-guan.This imbalance is related to the difference of languages,some of them are more widely used than the others.And this imbalance mainly showed in two aspects:the translation affairs and the different rated numbers of teachers and students.The first and second sections of this chapter discussed the two aspects mentioned above.The third section is a follow-up to the development of si-yi-guan in the Qing dynasty.Ming was replaced by the Qing dynasty,si-yi-guan was inherited and renamed,but the progressive decline of it was irreversible.During the Qianlong era it was amalgamated with hui-tong-guan.In the central institutions of the Ming dynasty,the multi-ethnic and multiculturalfeatures of si-yi-guan were obvious,which helped us to understand the multicultural at that time.The experience and deficiency in the long-term teaching activities of si-yi-guan also has important meaning for the foreign language teaching today.