To encourage research among junior scholars in the field of Chinese linguistics, the Li Fang Kuei-kuei Society for Chinese Linguistics has established a book award scheme, offering prizes to outstanding publications that have appeared within the last two years. The 2006 LFK Book Award competition attracted a total of four submissions from young scholars in China, Japan, Taiwan and the US. The range of topics covered includes modern Chinese syntax, ancient southwestern dialect, historical grammar and Buddhist translation. Each submission was sent to two experts in the field for assessment. The reports were in general positive and encouraging. On the basis of external evaluations especially with regard to originality and contribution of each title, the Executive Committee of the LFK Society decided to offer the 2006 Award (李方桂語言學論著優等獎) to Professor CHEN Shu-Fen (陳淑芬), author of the following publication:
Rendition Techniques in the Chinese Translation of Three Sanskrit Buddhist Scriptures. Cambridge Buddhist Institute Series 1, Nardinge Simpole Publishing. 2004.
A meticulous study of three Buddhist scriptures, namely the Diamond Sutra (金剛經), the Heart Sutra (般若心經) and the Amida Sutra (阿彌陀經), with a specific focus on comparing the original canon in Sanskrit with different translations in Chinese, Professor Chen’s publication represents an admirable attempt to investigate and categorize the rendition techniques adopted in Buddhist translation. Its analysis of the patterns in which Sanskrit terms were phonologically modified when transliterated into Chinese is of particular interest to scholars working on historical phonology and word borrowing.
Professor Chen received her BA from the National Tsing Hua University and her MA and PhD from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is now an associate professor at Yuan Ze University (元智大學), Taiwan, teaching in the Department of Foreign Languages and Applied Linguistics.