Abstract:

In contemporary American society popular with multiculturalism, “African American”, which can show the heritage and cultural base of Black Americans, has been accepted among the academic community as a more appropriate denomination for the race. But in the academic community in China, this label has three versions in Chinese: “美国非裔” “非裔美国人” “非裔美国黑人”. Such disagreements exist not only between different scholars but in the different works of the same scholar as well, resulting in considerable confusion. In view of the cognitive mechanism of Chinese people and the features of Chinese language as well as the conventional meaning of the Chinese character “裔” , “美国非裔” is, relatively speaking, the most proper Chinese expression. But considering the intent of the English expression and the denotation of the Chinese character “裔” , we think “美国非洲人” might be a better choice for Chinese scholars.

Key words: African American, Chinese translation, disagreement