Translation Seminar Series

David Hawkes' translation of the first eighty chapters of Honglou Meng 《紅樓夢》 (The Story of the Stone) is justly acclaimed as a masterpiece of literary translation from the Chinese. In this presentation, an attempt will be made to characterize the distinctive features of Hawkes' methods as a translator.

In the etymological sense, both metaphor and translation signify an act of transference, of carrying something across, and that basic sense should help us understand the nature of translation. I shall discuss a number of important theoretical and critical discussions of the problem of translation, and of translatability in particular, and I shall argue for translation not just as a technical issue of finding equivalence between languages, but first and foremost the necessary means of understanding and communication across the gaps of cultures, histories, and traditions.

The linguistic and rhetorical norms of the target language and culture have always been a crucial element in the theory and practice of translation. These preferences invariably compete with another set of textual norms already in place as part of the language user's rhetorical competence. Included here are such variables as educational background, orate vs. literate predilections, mother tongue's linguistic/rhetorical preferences, etc.

The use in translation studies of methodologies inspired by corpus linguistics has proved to be one of the most important gate-openers to progress in the discipline since Toury's re-thinking of the concept of equivalence. In this paper, I argue that, the many advantages to be had by this method notwithstanding, there are problems.

The speaker will ask why these two disciplines have stood apart for so long and what can be done to bring about a rapprochement between them. The relative neglect of interlingual topics in lexicography and of lexicographic topics in translation will be demonstrated, and the special case of parallel text analysis will be examined to show how progress in interdisciplinary collaboration can be made.

本文首先回顧20世紀中國（以內地為主，下同）的翻譯家研究及其現狀，分析其特點，並提出筆者的看法。筆者將中國的翻譯家研究大致分為五種類型：刊物上的文章介紹、翻譯家評傳、翻譯家詞典、文學史研究中的翻譯家研究和專題翻譯家研究。各種類型的研究都有自己的特點：刊物上的文章發表及時且針對性強，但受篇幅限制且比較零散；翻譯家評傳能夠闡述充分透徹，但往往因傳主故世而限制了研究的範圍與視野；翻譯家詞典簡明扼要信息量大，但入選標準把握不一，質量參差不齊；文學史研究中的翻譯家研究目前還不夠系統深入，但發展趨勢很好；專題翻譯家研究主題明確材料生動，但往往不易充分展開。

There is a need for a better understanding of what structures the relationship between the (translating) subject and the object (matter) of translation. What are the cultural parameters of this relationship? A culture that creates a demand for translation also supplies a framework of references (ideas, beliefs, and values) which accompany the subsequent interpretation of the text in that culture.

伊塔瑪‧埃文－佐哈爾 (Itamar Even-Zohar)、吉迪恩‧圖裏 (Gideon Toury)、安德烈‧勒菲弗爾 (Andre Lefevere)、西奧‧赫曼斯 (Theo Hermans) 等人的系統理論開創了以譯文為中心、從譯語文化角度研究文學翻譯的新範式。系統理論不僅可以為研究某一時期的文學翻譯現象或翻譯文學史提供一個宏觀的理論構架，而且它的一些關鍵詞（核心概念），如“多元系統” (polysystem)、“意識形態” (ideology)、“重寫” (rewriting)、“操縱” (manipulation)、“形式庫” (repertoire)、“動態經典” (dynamic canons) 等等，也可作為對具體現象分析的理論視點。

本講題將主要談及達爾文進化論中的適應學說與翻譯的關聯以及對翻譯實踐的指導意義。主講者認為，百年來適應學說的理論功力，眾學科廣泛應用的成功實踐，古今中外譯論家的真知灼見，特別是由於該學說在解釋和解決翻譯實踐和譯論爭辯等方面的可操作性和解釋力，表明適應學說與翻譯活動不僅密切相關，而且作為主講者翻譯理論研究的哲學基礎和立論依據也是恰如其分的。