晚清民国时期,中国学术发生翻天覆地的变化,传统知识体系遭遇合法性危机,现代学科知识体系开始建立。现代学科的知识生产大都源自翻译,通过翻译将西方地方性知识世界化,然后对其进行再地方化,以适应我国语境。本文以知识翻译学为指导,梳理晚清时期传教士期刊和《农学报》等期刊所刊载的重要林学译介文献以及民国时期林学书籍,研究发现晚清主要引入日本林学体系,而民国时期很多书籍则编译自多本外籍,中间加入本地的实验调查结果,并改用本国度量单位以适应本国国情,从而完成了世界林学知识的再语境化和再地方化。研究结果还表明,晚清民国时期造林知识在本地化和再生产的过程中经历了概念化、名词化、知识化和行动化(现实化)的发展轨迹。并且,科学知识的世界性传播存在双向互动,并不仅仅是单向传输。这些发现有助于理解翻译与知识再生产、再传播的关系,深刻把握翻译的本质、价值与历史。

Chinese scholarship underwent radical changes and the traditional knowledge system found itself in legitimacy crisis in the late Qing and Republican periods. Hence, modern disciplinary knowledge was initiated through translation through which western local knowledge was cosmopolitanized and then re-localized to fit the Chinese context. From the perspective of Transknowletology, this paper studies in detail the forestry literature translation published in missionary journals and the Journal of Agricultural Sciences in the late Qing Dynasty and forestry books in the Republic of China and finds that it was mainly Japanese forestry system that was introduced into China in the late Qing Dynasty, while many books in the Republic of China were compiled based on multiple foreign books with localized findings of experiment and investigation as well as local metrics and solar terms to suit Chinese context. In this way the cosmopolitan forestry knowledge was re-contextualized and re-localized. It is also found that the development of modern afforestation knowledge in the late Qing and Republican periods followed a special trajectory in re-localization and reproduction, namely, conceptualization, nominalization, knowledge-making, and actualization (realization). What’s more, the worldwide dissemination of scientific knowledge is not just a one-way transmission, but a two-way interaction. These findings not only help understand the relationship between translation and knowledge reproduction and diffusion, but also appreciate the essence, value and history of translation.