Abstract:

Li Shanlan is a well-known mathematician, astronomer, physicist, botanist, educator as well as translator in the late Qing Dynasty of China. As an outstanding translator, he had 8 great translation works published in his lifetime, totaling 104 volumes and covering many important fields of modern western sciences—mathematics, astronomy, mechanics and botany. His erudite knowledge, profound research, and far-sighted vista mark the translator somebody in the Chinese history. Having fully understood the western scientific concepts and carefully examined the implications of the traditional Chinese scientific terms,Li Shanlan established a western translation terminology system by “inheriting the old terms so as to promote the Chinese tradition”,“following the existing terms so as to be consistent”,“borrowing the old things so as to broaden their use”,and “adopting new terms so as to introduce new things”,thus making great contributions to the standardization of modern Chinese scientific terminology translation and the modernization of the Chinese science.

Key words: Li Shanlan, scientific terminology, terminology translation