原标题：翻译趣谈：如何翻译“编制”？

翻译中遇到这样一段话：

有关劳动教养审批程序不科学。需要劳动教养的人，由省、自治区、直辖市和大中城市成立的劳动教养管理委员会审查批准。劳动教养管理委员会由民政、公安、劳动部门的负责人组成。由于这个委员会是非常设机构, 没有固定的人员、编制、预算和工作程序, 劳动教养委员会对劳动教养的审批、解除、监督以及对劳教场所的管理工作最后都被公安机关代行。劳动教养是对公民人身自由权利的严厉限制，但劳动教养决定的作出不需经过司法程序, 致使公安机关容易滥用职权。

其中的“编制”，是我们经常遇到，但很难翻译的词。词典上的翻译（authorized size of an organization; establishment）用在这里也不合适。

根据百度百科：

编制指公司或部门为了完成未来或过去的任务而确定的公司或部门的人员数量的配置，其对人员的实际配置工作产生指导和约束作用。

编制：编制的概念有广义和狭义之分。

广义的编制是指各种机构的设置及其人员数量定额、结构和职务配置；狭义的编制即人员编制，是指为完成组织的功能，经过被授权的机关或部门批准的机关或单位内部人员的定额、人员结构比例及对职位（岗位）的分配。

一般包括以下几方面的内容：

（1）编制员额的规定；

（2）各职位（岗位）的名称、设置以及领导职数的规定；

（3）各类人员的比例结构的规定；

（4）人员配备的质量要求。

这里显然是狭义。根据这一解释，似乎可以翻译为post（岗位）：

a position of duty, employment, or trust to which one is assigned or appointed: a diplomatic post.

但这样翻译似乎不能说明这个词的全部含义。“临时工”的工作岗位就不是岗位了吗？根据生活经验，说一个雇员在编不在编（临时工不在编，正式工在编），就学校而言，基本是指这个人的工资是国家发还是学校自己发。据此，就猜测是否可以译为budgted posts.上谷歌检验，发现这样的内容：

While the number of beds and official staffing recommendations remained constant, actual staffing levels did decline in line with numbers of deliveries. As a result, increasing numbers of officially budgeted posts have been left vacant. There were shortfalls in 16 out of 19 facilities, with the greatest discrepancies in the larger free-standing facilities; in Tula oblast maternity home there were 28 obstetricians compared with 71 budgeted posts. Novomoskovski maternity home similarly had 13 filled posts out of 27 budgeted for. Other facilities had, on average, a shortfall of three obstetrician posts.

For midwives, some discrepancies were even larger, with the Tula maternity home filling 54 of its 100 budgeted posts; elsewhere the average shortfall was five posts. For nurses, the average shortfall was three posts, except in the Tula maternity home, which filled 54 of its 127 budgeted posts. As funding is based on the number of budgeted posts, these shortfalls allow facilities to employ individuals in up to two posts, making possible a doubling of salaries (interviews with head physicians). In addition, any surplus in the salary budget could be used to contract additional administrative staff or, less often, more specialized staff (e.g. anaesthetists), who can command higher payment.

(http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/21/3/195)

这两段谈的是某医院的“编制”用不完。从中可以看到，编制确实可以用budgeted posts.还可以用officially budgeted posts.国家建议的编制，可以用official staffing recommendations.

当然，这一译法不一定放之四海而皆准。遇到中文里的“编制”所指不同，需要调整英文译法。这一点，是机器翻译做不到的。

作者：北外高翻学院李长栓

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