This course is mainly a lecture one, designed to illustrate, and thus, to familiarize students with, the development of translation and interpretation in China. The course, generally, will go chronologically and therefore it begins with the Zhou Dynasty, when the written records of translation and interpretation began. It will go on with the major historical events of rendition that influenced China or brought into it different foreign elements through religious, political, or diplomatic exchanges. The final stages of the course will cover important translations whose impacts on China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong in the republican era are more than obvious. The course may also help students know more about the nature of translation in its historical perspective, showing how important it is in the shaping of major genres in history.
本課程旨在概論中國歷代的翻譯事活動，期能提供鏡鑒，使學生體認翻譯的本質及其在文學更新中所具有的樞紐地位。對有志於譯學的學生，本課程亦可以提供機會，讓他們在史上中尋找研究課題。