Abstract: Due to disparities in national realities and linguistic systems between China and the West, the introduction and application of demographic indicators borrowed from Western scholarship often suffer from problems such as mechanical adoption and inconsistencies between name and substance. These problems are mainly manifested in literal translation, conceptual over-generalization, inconsistent indicator terminology, and discrepancies between indicator names and their computational definitions. A typical example is the term “Infant Mortality Rate”, which has long been rendered in Chinese as “婴儿死亡率”. However, this translation is misleading. By tracing the historical development of “Infant Mortality Rate” and examining the original expressions in English-language demographic literature, we find that terms denoting similar mortality indicators are strictly differentiated in wording when referring to “rates” or “probabilities”, and that all major computational approaches to the “Infant Mortality Rate” adhere to the core principle of probability. However, this essential distinction has been completely obscured in its Chinese rendering. We propose that terms prone to misuse or conceptual confusion should be localized and refined in accordance with China's empirical realities. Such efforts are essential to ensuring the accuracy of classical demographic concepts and indicators in the Chinese context.

Keywords: Population Statistics, Probability of Death, Infant Mortality Rate

摘要： 受中西方国情及语言体系差异影响，部分源自西方的人口统计指标在引入和应用过程中常会出现“生吞活剥”、名实错位等问题，具体表现为机械翻译、概念泛化、指标名称不统一、指标名称与计算方法不一致。“Infant Mortality Rate”是一典型例证，其在引入中国后一直被称为“婴儿死亡率”，但这一译名存在误导性。本文通过对“婴儿死亡率”指标形成过程的历史回溯，以及对相关英文著作中原有表述的梳理，发现相近死亡指标在进行“率”或“概率”计算时，其术语在用词选择上有着严格的区分与界定，而“Infant Mortality Rate”的不同估算方法都遵循“概率”的核心原则，但中文语境下的称谓却彻底抹除了其间差异。建议结合中国实际，对存在误用或混淆的术语进行本土化改造，以确保经典人口统计学概念和指标在中文语境下的准确性。

关键词: 人口统计, 死亡概率, 婴儿死亡率