親近中國？去中國化？從晚清香港「總督」的翻譯到解殖民「特首」的使用

英國管治香港的156年殖民歷史，隨著1997到來而終結。自1980年起，為順利回歸，香港政治架構作出多樣改變。當中不少的改變，是為了適應新的政治現實情形，譬如，在1997年後以雙語訂立法律條文，讓中文同樣具有法定語言地位；但同時，卻有不少政治架構的變遷，是為了去殖民化的目的。譬如基本法160條規定「總督」、「總督會同行政局」、「布政司」、「律政司」，在97後都必須相應更改。在改變的過程中，不少人認為這等更替純粹在技術層面，只涉及詞彙的修改而已。本文從翻譯研究角度，以英國殖民政治架構中最具代表性，又在殖民管治制度上最具權威的「總督」作考察對象，追溯governor作為總督作為對譯語的由來，指出這等表面上帶有殖民標誌的符號，實來自中國傳統官制。只是西政東漸於香港社會之時，由傳教士利用同化策略移植此等術語。本文最後帶出，若不審歷史，不知翻譯在歷史當中的角色，本來的初衷是為了親近中國，卻落得盲目去殖、自我殖民，產生相反效果。

關鍵字

港督；特首；後殖民；香港；回歸；翻譯

並列摘要

The 156 years of British colonial rule (1842-1997) finally ended when the sovereignty over Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997. Since 1980, many new policies had been introduced in Hong Kong for the purpose of smoothing the process of handover. Some of the policies were introduced out of consideration for new political circumstances. Others were launched with the hidden agenda of erasing colonial history. The implementation of Chinese as an official medium of communication in the judicial system reflects the former, whereas the change of the Chinese titles of government officials reflects the latter. Many translation issues were involved in these so-called localization policies. In this regard, the change of Chinese titles for government officials in Hong Kong is a subject worthy of study. The Chinese titles of major government officials in colonial Hong Kong were actually taken over from those of Imperial China. Therefore, they are marks of Chinese imperial history rather than British colonial history. However, for the apparent propose of erasing colonial history, these proper Chinese titles were changed to newly coined Chinese titles that are not found in Chinese history. The aim of this paper is to use the issue of translation as an example to demonstrate that in the decolonization process of Hong Kong, as in that of many other colonized countries which intended to break with their colonial past, many decolonizing policies were actually self-defeating in purpose.