在新世纪之前,汉语的“再现”“表征”“表现”等术语各安其位,意义分界清晰,使用范围并不重叠。从新世纪开始时在中国兴盛起来的文化与传播研究,用“表征”全面代替“再现”,以显示符号文本“揭示文化权力冲突征象”的立场。使用者强调这样才能推动“后现代主义式”的文化研究。这个动机很正当,这个工作有必要,但是符号文本最根本的再现机制,就被取消了,导致很多问题论述不清。本文建议让“再现”与“表征”各归其位,结束这种不必要的混乱。
Before the new century, the translation and usage of representation, characterization and presentation in Chinese used to be clearly distinguished. After the recent rise of Cultural Studies in China, "characterization" has been used in all occasions instead of "representation", in order to emphasize its function of "revealing symbols of the power struggle in culture" in the text. While this replacement is justified and the effort is necessary, the very mechanism of representation, which is the fundamental feature of a text, is suspended or even canceled as a result. This paper re-emphasizes the distinction between "representation" and "characterization" to put an end to such unnecessary confusions.