随着中外学术交流的拓展,海外学者关于中国文化现象的异语写作日益增多,其研究成果经由汉译传播至国内,受到国内学界关注。这一文化回译现象逐渐成为当下中国译学界探究以外语为语言载体的异语写作作品汉译特点、规律和价值的重要视角。本文从知识翻译学视角出发,以美籍中国绘画史学者高居翰英文著述中amateur painters的回译为例,通过梳理其在中外语境中的含义及在文化回译中经历的还原与重构,以及可能对本土艺术史知识生产产生的影响,提出并阐述文化回译在知识生产中独有的反哺功能,进而深化对翻译价值的认识。

The number of foreign scholars’ writings on Chinese cultural phenomena has been increasing in recent years with the expansion of international academic exchanges. Some of these writings have been introduced to Chinese academic community through translation. Such phenomenon called “cultural back-translation” has gradually become an important prism for Chinese scholars to explore the features, patterns and values of translations of foreign-language writings on Chinese culture. Against this backdrop, this article takes as its research object the back-translation of a key terminology “amateur painters” in the works of James Cahill, an American scholar in the studies of history of Chinese painting. By sorting out the meanings of this term in both Chinese and western contexts, as well as the restoration and reconstruction in cultural back-translation, this article tries to elaborate on its possible impact on knowledge production in domestic art history studies from the perspective of Transknowletology.It also proposes a unique function of cultural back-translation called “knowledge reciprocity”, which could shed some light on understanding of the epistemic value of translation.