Masazumi Shioyama

This paper deals with the translation of time expressions between the two different cultures of modern Western and China and considered the Chinese version of the Bible translated by modern Western missionaries, while also revealing how the Western missionaries translated the time of the Western scripture of the Bible into Chinese as part of a process of exchange between the language and culture of West and East. In the translation before the early 19th century, a certain degree of confusion emerges when translating expressions of time and the amount of time. However, as the times change, the time expressions in the Chinese literary translation of the Bible all converge to the style of traditional expression. 特別寄稿

J. Edkins's "Progressive Lessons in the Chinese Spoken Language with List of Common Words and Phrases and an Appendix Containing the Laws of Tones in the Peking Dialect" is a textbook on the Mandarin dialect published in 1862, which was subsequently revised four times in the 19th century (1864, 1869, 1881, and 1889). This textbook was written for Western learners, which means that topics and vocabulary are limited to trade between Western and China, and the specific areas where westerners lived in China. This volume therefore does not allow us to conceive of a true image of Chinese linguistic communications in 19th century directly. However, this textbook classified the vocabulary of Mandarin - the common dialect of modern China - by Western concepts, recorded the pronunciation of this language using the alphabet, and described expressions of time influenced by Western concepts in many cases. Through analyzing the content written in this textbook, this paper provides a true picture of linguistic image of the time written by Western people.

40018710130