the general secretary pointed out in the report of the 20th national congress of the communist party of china that in the new era, we should "stick to the position of chinese culture, refine and display the spiritual symbols and cultural essence of chinese civilization, accelerate the construction of chinese discourse and chinese narrative system, tell chinese stories well, spread chinese voices well, and present a credible, lovely and respectable image of china." in fact, chinese ideological and cultural terms are the spiritual symbols that can best reflect the deep essence of chinese excellent traditional culture, because language is the carrier of human meaningful life, and writing is the premise of human civilization.
"chinese ideological and cultural terms" refer to the concepts and cultural core words created or constructed by the chinese nation, condensed and concentrated chinese philosophical thoughts, humanistic spirits, modes of thinking and values, and solidified in the form of words or phrases. these terms frequently appear in our social communication and daily life, such as "the world is for the common good", "the people are the foundation of the state", "govern by virtue", "reform and reform", "appoint people on the basis of merit", "harmony between nature and man", "unremitting self-improvement", "uphold morality", "uphold good faith and build amity", "be friendly to benevolence and good neighbors", "harmony in diversity", "the world is the same" and so on. these terms form the basis and expression of the chinese nation's thought.
as the essence of chinese civilization and culture, how did the ideological and cultural terms come into being? this must be understood in the context of human production and life.
different human civilizations have their own characteristics, which are also reflected in their languages, cultural traditions, ideas and concepts. facing the challenge of different natural conditions, the nations living in different regions naturally have differences in production and living patterns. for example, in the activities and styles of human life, there are certainly differences between the tropics and the temperate zones, between the plains and the hills, between the deserts and the coasts, and between the pastoral and the agricultural regions. the characteristics of these production activities and life styles gradually accumulate and condense and are fixed by the way of words or terms, which will inevitably affect the cultural styles, behavior habits and spiritual characteristics of the nation. these terms express the national cultural style, behavior habits and spiritual characteristics, in turn explain, maintain and strengthen the specific production and life form on which it emerges and develops.
for example, in ancient china, which was dominated by agriculture, water conservancy projects of a certain scale were necessary to ensure the safety and production of the people. therefore, since ancient times, china has emphasized the harmony and order among interpersonal relations, forming the basic characteristics of chinese culture, that is, the emphasis on language expressions in terms of family, community, order, cooperation, harmony, responsibility and so on. in the long history, due to the special concerns of life and language expression, china has formed its own unique cultural tradition and ideological understanding structure, and chinese ideological and cultural terms are the crystallization of this tradition and ideological understanding structure. of course, the social practice and life wisdom of the working people is the ultimate basis of chinese ideological and cultural terms, and many sages refined and sublimated, so that these terms have academic, aesthetic and even "sacred" enduring power.
the numerous chinese ideological and cultural terms are of fundamental significance to the understanding of contemporary chinese ideology, culture, values, knowledge system and china's reality. these terms and the essence of thought contained in them are the fruits of the chinese nation's exploration and rational thinking on nature and society for thousands of years. they contain the historical wisdom of the chinese nation and reflect the deepest spiritual pursuit of the chinese nation as well as the depth and breadth of rational thinking. its humanistic thoughts, ways of thinking and values have been deeply integrated into the blood of chinese descendants as a "life gene", internalized into the common character and belief of the chinese nation, and thus supported the academic tradition, ideological culture and spiritual world of china for thousands of years. they are the key codes for contemporary chinese people to understand the changes in ancient chinese philosophy, humanistic spirit, mode of thinking, values, and the development of literature, art, history and other fields, as well as the key for other countries and nations to understand the spiritual world of contemporary china, the chinese nation and overseas chinese. only by accurately understanding the subtle connotations of these terms can we truly understand chinese society and culture in a deep sense, as well as the way of thinking and behavior of chinese people.
for example, the concept of "middle way" in china is closely related to the reason of the chinese people, which can still effectively eliminate the ideological extreme tendency in the society. "harmony without uniformity" has obvious chinese characteristics in the rational handling of interpersonal relations and relations between different groups and different countries. this "thought" is a powerful critique of the egotistical western culture. therefore, when observing, thinking, understanding and appreciating china's economic and social problems, it is necessary to understand china's own ideological and cultural terms, and make clear the special connotation and stipulation of these concepts and terms. in view of this, it is particularly meaningful to sort out, study and translate the rich and colorful chinese ideological and cultural terms.
it is a very difficult and fundamental task to sort out the ideological and cultural terms systematically and comprehensively from the rich and profound chinese cultural classics and documents. at the same time, translating it into a foreign language appropriately and in line with its original meaning is a very hard ideological creative labor.
what are the characteristics of the translation of ideological and cultural terms? first of all, compared with the translation of the whole book or text, the translation of ideological and cultural terms is relatively divorced from a wider range of context support, so the grasp of the translated text and words must be more accurate. in a larger context, words can be understood with the help of other parts of the text, and it is very difficult to find the core corresponding words in the translation of terms.
secondly, the cultural differences behind the terms can lead to the misinterpretation of the words that appear to correspond to each other. in this respect, we must find a new way. for example, german scholar pederz found himself in a dilemma on how to translate the key word "saint" in china when he was designing his doctoral thesis "the concept of chinese saint in the german context". for peters, the "chinese saints" and the "ideal country" they created were the motivation for him to study in china. after coming to china, peters found that the chinese term of "saint" was far removed from the western understanding of saint based on christian theological background. in china, "saint" was secular rather than religious. based on this insight, he discovered that many of the ideas, words or concepts of chinese civilization did not mean the same things in their german and english translations.
finally, ideological and cultural terms often have meanings beyond the words themselves because of the cultural background of their origin. for example, china's "country" in china also reflects the understanding of "the same structure of home and country", the mention of "country" people can experience the feelings of home or feel a certain warmth of home, but these connotations do not exist in the western language, we use appropriate words in translation to complement and set off.
in short, the collation, translation and dissemination of chinese ideological and cultural terms is the basic project for chinese culture to go out. in the new era, strengthening international communication capacity building, improving international communication efficiency in an all-round way, and forming an international discourse power that matches china's comprehensive national strength and international status, we need to use the original connotation of chinese ideas to spread externally, but cannot blackmail by the content misread by others. our work is to build a set of standard texts for the translation of chinese thoughts and cultural terms to foreign countries, so as to show the real essence of chinese culture to the world, so as to deepen exchanges and mutual learning among different civilizations and promote chinese culture to the world.
source: party construction network