纽马克 翻译教程

Communicative and semantic translation (I)

1. A translation must give the words of the original.

2. A translation must give the idea of the original.

3. A translation should read like an original work.

4. A translation should read like a translation.

5. A translation should reflect the style of the original.

6. A translation should possess the style of the translation.

7. A translation should read as a contemporary of the original.

8. A translation should read as a contemporary of the translation.

9. A translation may add to or omit from the original.

10. A translation may never add to or omit from the original.

11. A translation of verse should be in prose.

12. A translation of verse should be in verse.

(The Art of Translation, T H. Savory, Cape, 1968, p 54.) In the pre-linguistic period of writing on translation, which may be said to date from Cicero through St. Jerome, Luther, Dryden, Tytler, Herder, Goethe, Schleiermacher, Buber, Ortegay Gosset, not to say Savory, opinion swung between literal and free, faithful and beautiful, exact and natural translation, depending on whether the bias was to be in favor of the author or the reader, the source or the target language of the text. Up to the nineteenth century, literal translation represented a philological academic exercise from which the cultural reformers were trying to rescue literature. In the nineteenth century, a more scientific approach was brought to bear on translation, suggesting that certain types of texts must be accurately translated, whilst others should and could not be translated at all! Since the rise of modern linguistics (philology was becoming linguistics here in the late fifties), and anticipated by Tytler in 1790, Larbaud, Belloc, Knox and Rieu, the general emphasis, supported by communication-theorists as well as by non-literary translators, has been placed on the reader -- on informing the reader effectively and appropriately, notably in Nida, Firth, Koller and the Leipzig School. In contrast, the brilliant essays of Benjamin, Valery and Nabokov (anticipated by Croce and Ortegay Gasset) advocating literal translation have appeared as isolated, paradoxical phenomena, relevant only to translating

works of high literary culture. Koller (1972) has stated that the equivalent-effect principle of translation is tending to rule out all others, particularly the predominance of any formal elements such as word or structure.

The apparent triumph of the 'consumer' is, I think, illusory. The conflict of loyalties. the gap between emphasis on source and target language will always remain as the

overriding problem in translation theory and practice.

However, the gap could perhaps be narrowed if the previous terms were replaced as follows:

SOURCE LANGUAGE BIAS TARGET LANGUAGE BIAS

LITERAL FREE

FAITHFUL IDOMATIC

SEMANTIC/COMMUNICATIVE

(Figure 6)

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Communicative translation attempts to produce on its readers an effect as close as possible to that obtained on the readers of the original. Semantic translation attempts to render, as closely as the semantic and syntactic structures of the second language allow, the exact contextual meaning of the original.

In theory, there are wide differences between the two methods. Communicative translation addresses itself solely to the second reader, who does not anticipate difficulties or obscurities, and would expect a generous transfer of foreign elements into his own culture as well as his language where necessary. But even here the translator still has to respect and work on the form of the source language text as the only material basis for his work. Semantic translation remains within the original culture and assists the reader only in its connotations if they constitute the essential human (non-ethnic) message of the text. One basic difference between the two methods is that where there is a conflict, the communicative must emphasize the 'force' rather than the content of the message. Thus for Bissiger Hund or Chien méchant, the communicative translation Beware of the dog! is mandatory; the semantic translations ('dog that bites', 'savage dog') would be more informative but less effective. Generally, a communicative translation is likely to be smoother, simpler, clearer, more direct, more conventional, conforming to a particular register of language, tending to undertranslate, i.e. to use more generic, hold-all terms in difficult passages. A semantic translation tends to be more complex, more awkward, more detailed, more concentrated, and pursues the thought-processes rather than the intention of the transmitter. It tends to overtranslate, to be more specific than the original, to include more meanings in its search for one nuance of meaning. However, in communicative as in semantic translation, provided that equivalent- effect is secured, the literal word-for-word translation is not only the best, it is the only valid method of translation. There is no excuse for unnecessary 'synonyms', let alone paraphrases, in any type of translation.

Conversely, both semantic and communicative translation comply with the usually accepted syntactic equivalents (Vinay and Darbelnet's ‘transpositions') for the two languages in question. Thus, by both methods, a sentence such as 'll traversa la Manche en nageant' would normally be translated as 'He swam across the Channel'. In semantic, but not communicative translation, any deviation from SL stylistic norms would be reflected in an equally wide deviation from the TL norms, but where such norms clash, the deviations are not easy to formulate, and the translator has to show a certain tension between the writer's manner and the compulsions of the target language, Thus when the writer uses long complex sentences in a language where the sentence in a 'literary' (carefully worked) style is usually complex and longer than in the TL, the translator may reduce the sentences somewhat, compromising between the norms of the two languages and the writer. If in doubt, however, he should trust the writer, not the “language', which is a sum of abstractions. A semantic translation is concrete. Thus when faced with:

'Der Gesichtspunkt der Nützlichkeit ist gerade in Bezug auf ein solches hei?es

Herausquellen oberster rang-ordnender, rang-abhebender Werturteile so fremd

und unangemessen wie m?glich；hier ist eben das Gefühl bei einem Gegensatze jenes niedrigen W?rmegrades angelangt, den jede berechnende Klugheit, jeder

Nützlichkeit-Kalkul voraussetzt'

(Zur Genealogie der Moral (2) Nietzsche)

the translator has to cling to words, collocations, structures, emphases:

"The utilitarian point of view is as alien and inappropriate as it possibly could be precisely to such an intense eruption of supreme rank-classifying, rank- discriminating value-judgments: here in fact feeling has reached the antithesis of the low degree of fervour presumed in every type of calculating cleverness, every assessment of utility ' (My version.)

Thus a translation is always closer to the original than any intralingua] rendering or paraphrase misnamed 'translation" by George Steiner (1975), and therefore it is an indispensable tool for a semantician and now a philosopher. Communicative and semantic translation may well coincide -- in particular, where the text conveys a general rather than a culturally (temporally and spatially) bound message and where the matter is as important as the manner -- notably then in the translation of the most important religious, philosophical, artistic and scientific texts, assuming second readers as informed and interested as the first. Further, there are often sections in one text that must be translated communicatively (e.g. non-lieu -- 'nonsuit'), and others semantically (e.g. a quotation from a speech). There is no one communicative nor one semantic method of translating a text -- these are in fact widely overlapping bands of methods. A translation can be more, or less, semantic -- more, or less, communicative

-- even a particular section or sentence can be treated more communicatively or less semantically. Thus in some passages, Q. Hoare and G. Nowell Smith (1971) state that:

'we feel it preferable to choose fidelity over good English, despite its awkwardness, in view of the importance of some concepts in Gramsci's work.' Each method has a common basis in analytical or cognitive translation which is built up both proposition by proposition and word by word, denoting the empirical factual knowledge of the text, bin finally respecting the convention of the target language provided that the thought-content of the text has been reproduced. The translation emerges in such a way that the exact meaning or function of tile words only become apparent as they are used. The translator may have to make interim decisions without being able at the time to visualize the relation of the words with the end product. Communicative and semantic translation bifurcate at a later stage of analytical or cognitive translation, which is a pre-translation procedure which may be performed on the source-language text to convert it into the source or the target language – the resultant versions will be closer to each other than the original text and the final translation.

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In principle, cognitive translation transposes the SL text grammatically to plain 'animate subject + verb + non-animate object' clauses, or, in the extended version, to sequences of: 'an agent (subject) does (active verb) something (direct object) to or for someone (indirect object) with something (instrumental) somewhere (locative) sometime (temporal) to make something {resultant}' -- additionally, an agent/object may be in a variety of relationships with another agent/object (possessive, equative, dependency, source, partitive, genitive, characteristic, etc) -- (relationships often covered or concealed by tile English preposition 'of'), which must be spelt out in a clause. Thus the grammatical meaning of the SL text becomes explicit. Further, cognitive translation splits up the word-class derivatives, i.e. adverbs (= preposition + adjective + noun), adjectival nouns (e.g. 'whiteness'). qualifying prefix-verb-nouns (e.g. 'contribution'), noun-verbs (e.g. 'to ration'), noun-adjective-verb-nouns (e.g. 'rationalization’), etc., into their components and explicates the relations of all multiple noun compounds (e.g. ‘data acquisition control system': system to control the acquiring of data). Further, it replaces figurative and colloquial language, idioms and phrasal verbs with denotative terms; clears up lexical and grammatical ambiguities; interpolates relevant encyclopaedic information for ecological, cultural and institutional terms; replaces pronouns with nouns and identifies referential synonyms; reduces cultural terms to their functional definitions; and analyses the semantic features of any words that are likely to be split into two or three words when translated. Thus as far as is possible (the process is artificial) the text is removed from its natural cultural and linguistic axis to an artificial neutral universal plane of language.

Nida in his admirable analysis of grammatical meaning (1974a. pp. 47-49) approaches cognitive translation somewhat differently, preferring to split surface structures into separate underlying (previously concealed) sentences. Thus he analyses: 'their former

director thought their journey was a deception' into: (a) he directed them formerly, (b) he thought X (the entire following expression), (c) they journeyed, (d) they deceived Y (without specifying who Y is), adding an analysis of the relationship between (c) and (d)--e.g. means-result: by journeying they deceived', means-purpose (they journeyed in order to deceive), additive events (they journeyed and they deceived).

For cognitive translation, I think: 'The man who used to be their director (to direct them) thought they had traveled to deceive (by traveling they had deceived, they had traveled and deceived)' is adequate. Another (more likely?) alternative missed by Nida must be added: 'Tile man who used to be their director thought they had merely pretended to travel, m order to deceive others.' (Most verbal nouns may be active or passive in meaning.)

It is not usually necessary to make a full cognitive translation, a procedure similar to Brislin's (1976) 'decentring'. Where the cultures of two languages have been in contact for centuries, the translator normally resorts to cognitive translation only for obscure, ambiguous or complex passages. A cognitive translation may serve as a tertium comparationis between texts with distant cultures and radically different language structures.

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Where cognitive translation results in a poorly written and/or repetitive text, communicative translation requires a bold attempt to clarify and reorganize it. A text such as the followinng would require considerable rewriting before it is translated:

'If industrialists are so keen for Britain to join why does not the Government

make it possible for those who want to get into Europe without the sacrifice

to British sovereignty … which must be the inevitable result of our

joining if we are to rely on M. Debre's words recently that the Common

Market is unworkable without the Treaty of Rome.'

(The Times, 18 July 1961, quoted in The Use of English, R. Quirk, Longmans, 1964.)

Proposed rewrite:

'As industrialists are so keen, why does not the Government make it possible for Britain to get into Europe without sacrificing her sovereignty? According to M. Debré's recent statement, this would first require amendments to the Treaty of Rome, which is the legal instrument governing the Common Market.'

I am assuming that whilst a semantic translation is always inferior to its original, since it involves loss of meaning, a communicative translation may be better, since it may gain in force and clarity what it loses in semantic content. In communicative translation the translator is trying in his own language to write a little better than the

original, unless he is reproducing the well-established formulae of notices or correspondence. I assume that in communicative translation one has the right to correct or improve the logic; to replace clumsy with elegant, or at least functional, syntactic structures; to remove obscurities; to eliminate repetition and tautology; to exclude the less likely interpretations of an ambiguity; to modify and clarify jargon (i.e. reduce loose generic terms to rather more concrete components), and to normalize bizarreries of idiolect, i.e. wayward uses of language. Further, one has the right to correct mistakes of fact and slips, normally stating what one has done in a footnote. (All such corrections and improvements are usually inadmissible in semantic translation.)

In theory a communicative translation is ipso facto a subjective procedure, since it is intended primarily to achieve a certain effect on its readers' minds, which effect could only be verified by a survey of their mental and/or physical reactions. In fact, it is initially as constrained by the form, the structures and words of the original as a semantic translation (the pre-translation process) until the version is gradually skewed to the reader's point of view. Then the translator starts to ask himself whether his version is 'happy', i.e. a successful 'act', rather than whether it is true, i.e. an exact statement (cf. Austin, 1962). He begins to extend the unit of translation, having secured the referential basis, i.e. the truth of the information; he views words and phrases in expanding waves in their linguistic context, restructuring or rearranging clauses, reinforcing emphases. Nevertheless, each lexical and grammatical unit bas to remain accounted for -- that is his Antaean link with the text.

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In one sense, communicative translation, by adapting and making the thought and cultural content of the original more accessible to the reader, gives semantic translation another dimension. The Leipzig School, notably Neubert and Kade, have referred to this as the 'pragmatic' elenient, but I think this is a little misleading. To begin with, Peirce and notably Morris defined 'pragmatics' as the branch of semiotics that deals with the relation between signs or linguistic expressions and their users (transmitters and receptors). Communicative translation, however, is concerned mainly with the receptors, usually in the context of a language and cultural variety, whilst semantic translation is concerned with the transmitter usually as an individual and often in contradistinction both to his culture and to the norms of his language. Moreover 'pragmatic' is a confusing term, since even in the context of translation (let alone its abundant senses in philosophy) it is also used in the sense of 'nonliterary', 'technical' and 'practical'. Neubert and Kade have maintained that the pragmatic (in the semiotic sense) is the variant, difficult and often ‘'untranslatable’ element in translation, whilst the cognitive (the material basis and environment) is invariant, relatively easy and always translatable. Whilst this view obviously has some truth {the objective, physical and concrete being on the whole easier to translate than the subjective, mental and figurative}, it ignores the indisputable proportion of truth in

the Humboldt thesis {the weak thesis} that each language has its own distinctive structure, reflecting and conditioning the ways of thought and expression of the people using it, but for which translation would be an easy business. Further, this view hardly comes Io terms with the fact that most material objects derive their names from the result of mental analogies and comparisons, that is, from metaphor, not from any scientific made-to-measure neologisms, and that all languages are wilful and different in their naming of some of the commonest physical objects. Lyons (1976) and Weightman (1967) have independently shown how inadequate or overloaded would be any translation into French of the apparently simple, observational, objective. non-'pragmatic' sentence 'The cat sat on the mat'. Both the French version (possibly, 'Le chat était accroupi sur le paillasson') and the rather better German version ('Die Katze hockte auf der Fuβdecke') are overtranslations, illustrating French and German's lack of words of sufficient generality and consequently of equivalent frequency. On the other hand, there are many cases where the 'pragmatic' element can be translated without difficulty, provided the viewpoint represented in the SL culture is well understood by the reader of the translation: thus words like 'revisionist', 'terrorist', 'patriotic', 'proletarian', 'formalistic', etc., can be 'agreed' according to the national culture in the educated writing of many world-languages. A GDR term such as Abgrenzen (refusal to compromise with non-socialist policies), though it is a pragmatic 'hot potato', can usually be safely translated without any of the three points of view (the transmitter's, the receptor's, the translator's) obtruding on the message. For J?ger (1975), the 'pragmatic element' is what transforms a 'semantic' (i.e. cognitive) into a ‘functional’ (i.e. communicative) translation -- like most of the linguistic theorists, he only accepts the validity of communicative (his 'functional') translation and implicitly downgrades semantic translation.

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I would prefer to avoid the use of the term 'pragmatic' and to regard both communicative and semantic as divergent refinements or revisions of cognitive translation. In both cases, the cognitive element may soon have to be abandoned, since the TL view of the same referent (object or message) may differ from the SL (cf. chateau d’eau – ‘water tower’; pas de danger – ‘not likely!’). The transition to semantic translation normally reduces the unit of translation, and brings the text closer to the figurative and formal elements of the original, including where possible its sound effects. Therefore the text becomes more idiosyncratic and ‘sensitive’. Length of sentences, however long or short, position and integrity of clauses, word-position for emphasis, are preserved, unless the divergence between the relevant norms of the source and target languages (which also have to be considered, although the individual writer’s ‘style’ finally prevails) is extensive. The transition to communicative translation normally makes the text smoother, lighter, more idiomatic and easier to read. Syntax is remodeled, commoner collocations and more usual words are found. Semantic translation is basically addressed to one ‘reader’ only, namely, the

writer of the SL text, with the assumption that he can read the TL and will be the best arbiter of the translation’s quality.

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Since the overriding factor in deciding how to translate is the intrinsic importance of every semantic unit in the text, it follows that the vast majority of texts require communicative rather than semantic translation. Most non-literary writing, journalism, informative articles and books, textbooks, reports, scientific and technological writing, non-personal correspondence, propaganda, publicity, public notices, standardized writing, popular fiction – the run-of-the-mill texts which have to be translated today but were not translated and in most cases did not exist a hundred years ago – comprise typical material suitable for communicative translation. On the other hand, original expression, where it is philosophical, religious, political, scientific, technical or literary, needs to be translated semantically. Any important statement requires a version as close to the original lexical and grammatical structures as is obtainable. Thus Spears’ (1966) translation of the following passages of De Gaulle’s 18 June 1940 broadcast is unacceptable:

‘Infiniment plus que leur nombre, ce sont les chars, les avions, la tactique

des Allemands qui nous font reculer. Ce sont les chars, les avions, la tactique

des Allemands qui ont surpris nos chefs au point de oes amener là ou ils en

sont aujourd’hui … ’

‘It was the tanks, the planes and the tactics of the Germans, far more than

the fact that we were outnumbered, that forced our armies to retreat. It

was the German tanks, planes and tactics that provided the element of

surprise which brought our leaders to their present plight.’

(Suggested version:

‘Far, far more than their numbers, it was the tanks, the planes and the tactics

of the Germans that caused us to retreat. It was the tanks, the planes and

the tactics of the Germans that took our leaders by surprise and thus

brought them to the state they are in today.’)

‘Car la France n’est pas seule! Elle n’est pas seule! Elle n’est pas seule!’

‘For remember this, France does not stand alone. She is not isolated.’ (Suggested version:

‘For France is not alone! She is not alone! She is not alone!’)

In these and other passages, Spears has attempted to modify the starkness, simplicity and rawness of De Gaulle's speech. (As a communicative translation of a narrative, Spears's first paragraph is valid, but the translation of quotations, however unimportant, is normally semantic rather than communicative, since the translator is not responsible for their effect on the second reader.)

Autobiography, private correspondence, any personal effusion requires semantic treatment, since the 'intimate' flavor of the original is more important than its effect on the reader.

One would normally expect to translate serious literature (high art) semantically, but one has to bear in mind that all art is to a greater or lesser extent allegorical, figurative, metaphorical and a parable, and therefore has a communicative purpose. Figurative language only becomes meaningful, if it is recreated in the metaphors of the target language and its culture, or, if this is not possible, reduced to its sense. In the case of minor literature that is closely bound to its period and its culture (short stories in particular), semantic translation will attempt to preserve its local flavor -- dialect, slang and cultural terms (mots-témoins) will present their own problems. In the case of works with universal themes (e.g. love lyrics) and a background that is similar for SL and TL (say, in ecology and living conditions), there is no reason why a basically semantic translation should not also be strongly communicative. Bible translation should be both semantic and communicative, although the 'modern' preference (Schwarz, 1970) for ‘philological’ as opposed to ‘inspirational’ translation has for long moved away from studies which regarded the text as inspired and untouchable. Nida has shown in his many books that the TL reader can only accept the geographical and historical remoteness of the cultural background being presented to him, if that behavior itself and all imagery connected with it is recast in his own (modern) culture. In fact, as the myths recede and less knowledge can he expected from modern man, each new translation of the Bible becomes more communicative, with the omission of technical terms, dialect and slang, and directed at increasing numbers of less-well-read people. Again, the immediate communicative importance of drama is usually greater than that of poetry or of serious fiction, and for this reason adaptations (where characters and milieu are transferred) are sometimes made, whilst they are almost unknown in the novel. However, in the most concentrated drama (Shakespeare, Chekhov) the essence of which is that words are packed or charged with meaning, semantic takes precedence over communicative equivalence, since the translator assumes that the dramatist has made use of his inventive resources to give his language communicative potential; it is now the translator’s task to extract the utmost semantic equivalence from the original. Again, where the medium (i.e. the form) is as important as the message, and the peoples of the two language cultures can normally say the same things using different words, the two elements fuse.

It is not always possible to state which is the better method to use for a particular text. In a mainly informative text, the section containing recommendations, instructions,

value-judgments, etc. may be translated more communicatively than the descriptive passages. Where language is used to accompany action or as its symbol (speech-acts),

it is treated communicatively, whilst definitions, explanations, etc. are semantic. ‘Standardized language’ must always be translated communicatively, whether a standardized equivalent exists or not, even if it appears in a novel or a quotation, unless the term is used descriptively rather than operatively in the original text. Normally in communicative translation it is assumed that the readers of the translation identify with those of the original. However, this is unlikely when elements of the source language culture or of the source language itself are discussed in the text. Nevertheless, ‘communication’ is as important here as in a text where the subject-matter is of general interest. Where, say, an institution of the SL community is being described, a special meaning of a SL word is used or the double meaning of a homophone or homonym is being exploited, the translator, if he thinks the point sufficiently important, has to render the author’s message communicatively and also address himself independently to the TL reader; in short, he has to ‘make’ the pun as well as explain it. He has to assess (a) the extent of his reader’s knowledge of and interest in the relevant aspect of the source language or culture, (b) the text’s level of specialism. If he is writing for the general reader, he may be able to achieve his purpose by transcribing the appropriate new SL terms unlikely to be familiar to his reader and adding their approximate cultural equivalents (e.g. Fachhochschule or ‘polytechnic’). If the terms are not likely to recur, he may decide not to transcribe them. If the text is specialized, the translator may wish to give his reader all possible information, including the transcription, the cultural equivalent, the encyclopedic definition within the source culture and the literal translation of any new term on the first occasion of its use. He may even propose a ‘translation label’, i.e. a word used in

a new sense, provided he states that he is doing so, and he believes the object or concept is likely to recur in the TL usage. (Thus Volksrat, second chamber, regional assembly in GDR, cf. Bundesrat in FRG, People’s Council, National Council.) Or again, if ‘Flying planes can be dangerous’ is to be translated, the double meaning has

to be explained in the TL with SL illustrations. All that is lost is vividness. Finally, whilst ambiguity, polysemy, word-play, etc. in literary works have to be reproduced as best they can in the TL only (in poetry and plays it is a ‘hit or miss’ procedure – in prose fiction there s room for brief expansion), such facts of language when discussed

in non-literary works (e.g. on language, criticism, psychology) must be fully reproduced in the SL and explained in the TL. This has been superbly done by James Strachey in his translation of Freud’s Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious (1975) (his introduction contains valuable comments). The book had been previously translated by A. A. Brill as Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious and many examples of word-play replaced by analogous English ‘equivalents’, a spurious procedure, since the translator gave no evidence of any patient ever having made such word-slips or puns in English.

In the following passage on therapeutic methods in rheumatology, ‘La mobilisation

active est une des bases fondamentales du traitement des maladies ostéo-articulaires. On parle aussi de kinesitherapie active ou de cinésthérapie, ou de gymnastique therapeutique; ce sont des synonymes’, the translator may give the two or more English equivalents, possibly ‘active kinésithérapy’ and ‘remedial exercises’, adding, if he wishes, that ‘in French the following three terms are used’. In all the above cases the normal flow of communicative translation is interrupted for his own readers by the translator’s glosses, which are a combination of transcription and semantic translation. Legal documents also require a special type of translation, basically because the translator is more restricted than in any other form. Every word has to be rendered, differences in terminology and function noted, and as much attention paid to the content as to the intention and all possible interpretations and misinterpretations of the text – all legal texts are definitions, Adorno noted – thus the semantic aspect; nevertheless, the standard format, syntax, archaisms, as well as the formal register of the TL, must be respected in dealing with documents that are to be concurrently valid in the TL community (EEC law, contracts, international agreements, patents) – hence the communicative aspect. Legal documents translated for information purposes only (foreign laws, wills, conveyancing) have to be semantically translated.

A semantic translation attempts to recreate the precise flavor and tone of the original: the words are ‘sacred’, not because they are more important than the content, but because form and content are one. The thought-processes in the words are as significant as the intention behind the words in a communicative translation. Thus a semantic translation is out of time and local space (but has to be done again every generation, if still ‘valid’), where a communicative translation is ephemeral and rooted in its context. A semantic translation attempts to preserve its author’s idiolect, his peculiar form of expression, in preference to the ‘spirit’ of the source or the target language. It relates to Bühler’s ‘expressive’ function of language, where communicative translation responds to the representational (Darstellung) and vocative (Appell) functions. In semantic translation, every word translated represents some loss of meaning (e.g. the loss of sound and rhythm in the word-for-word translation of the De Gaulle speech previously quoted), where in communicative translation the same words similarly translated lose no meaning at all. The syntax in semantic translation which gives the text its stresses and rhythm – the ‘foregrounding’ as the Prague School calls it – is as sacred as the words, being basically subject only to the standard transpositions (Vinay and Darbelnet) or shifts (Catford) from one language to another. There is a constant temptation, which should be resisted, to transcribe the terms for key=concepts or theme words.

The closer the cultural overlap between the two languages – this overlap being more important than the structural affinity or the geographical propinquity of the two languages, but the translator’s empathy being the most important factor of all – the closer, therefore better, the translation is likely to be. This applies particularly to legal and administrative texts, where the names of institutions peculiar to one national

community are frequently not translated, unless they are also important in the TL’s culture or are transparently translatable, whilst the names of institutions with easily identifiable TL cultural equivalents form part of each language’s readily ‘convertible’ ‘translation stock’ (Rabin, 1966). In communicative translation, however, the ‘message’ is all important, and the essential thing is to make the reader think, feel and/or act. There should be no loss of meaning, and the aim, which is often realized, is to make the translation more effective as well as more elegant than the original. A communicative translation works on a narrow basis. It is ‘tailor-made’ for one category of readership, does one job, fulfils a particular function. A semantic translation is wide and universal. In attempting to respond to the author, living or dead, it addresses itself to all readers, all who have ears to ear, or just to Stendhal’s ‘happy few’.

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My last comparison will take metaphor as its touchstone.

I here propose to abandon the conventional clumsy I. A. Richards's terminology of vehicle/tenor and to use my own, viz. metaphor/object/image/sense. Thus in a 'sunny smile' the metaphor is 'sunny', the object is 'smile', the image (vehicle) is the 'sun', the sense (tenor) is perhaps 'cheerful', 'happy', 'bright', 'warm' ('warm' is also a metaphor, but more fossilized). Note this is a stock metaphor which normally has a narrow band of 'object' (e.g. look-mood-disposition).

Metaphor, as Dagut {1976} has pointed out in a brilliant article, bas been much neglected in the literature. I propose to discuss three types of metaphor: dead (fossilized), standard (stock) and original (creative). (The types ale clearly distinguishable at their centers, but they merge with each other at the periphery.) All languages consist of a stock of more or less fossilized metaphors. Many new words are metaphors. One has only to compare the collocations for the main parts of the body (say Fuβ, pied, foot) to see that even in their commonest uses they are not all cases the translator has to convert from a dead metaphor (F: front) to a transparent choice, there is not usually a distinction here between communicative and semantic translation, although one could for instance maintain that figure is a more semantic translation of ‘face’ than visage or face. Normally dead metaphors, being furthest removed from their source, are the easiest metaphors to translate, and their figurative aspect is ignored in SL and TL (e.g. erw?gen = ponder) unless it is revived by an extended image (e.g. ‘weigh up in my personal scale’).

There are five possible procedures in translating standard, i.e. more or less common, metaphors, which may be simple (one word) or extended (idioms). In making a decision, the translator has to weigh each option against the relative frequency (and, therefore, naturalness) and currency of the TL equivalent within the appropriate language variety. The first solution is to translate by a metaphor using the same or a

similar image (vehicle) (‘a ray of hope’; ein Hoffnungsstrahl); the second is to translate with a different image that has the same sense (avoir d’autres chats à fouetter: ‘to have other fish to fry’); the third is to convert the metaphor into a simile; the fourth is to qualify the simile with the sense (c’est un lion = ‘he is as brave as a lion’), which in communicative translation may be advisable, if the metaphor is obscure; the fifth is to translate as much as possible of the sense behind the image, the sense being the common area between the metaphor’s object and the image, as seen by the writer and interpreted by the translator. The question of whether to use semantic or communicative translation will arise only when the translator is in doubt about which solution to adopt. Thus (pace Reiss) a ‘storm in a tea-cup’ will normally be translated as une tempête dans un verre d’eau or ein Sturm im Wasserglas, whatever the context, as long as the three idioms remain equally current within that context. Communicative translation may prefer ‘a lot of fuss about nothing’ etc., a semantic translation ‘a mountain out of a molehill’ when the ‘storm in a tea-cup’ becomes too well-worn. There is also a case for eliminating a few clichés masquerading as metaphor or idioms in a poorly written text requiring communicative treatment. Further, the decision whether to translate ‘as cool as a cucumber’ by tranquille comme Baptiste (pejorative) or avec un sang-froid parfait (imperturbable, superbe, etc.) may depend on whether a semantic or communicative translation respectively is more appropriate.

Creative metaphor, as Dagut, quoting Richards (1965), points out, is ‘the constitutive form of language’. Further, it is a much commoner phenomenon than those who think of it as the preserve of poets might imagine, and it is often the most accurate and concise descriptive instrument in language, as opposed to mathematics. Notoriously, translators know that it is found most commonly in the financial columns of newspapers: ‘Milton Keynes’s commercial beacon … The ticket on which the town sells itself … the start of the slow clamber back, or a brief holiday window between two years? … no check in the push to sell long gilts … the new long tap less attractive … Mercifully (cf. hopefully, thankfully, gratefully)’ (Guardian, 30 Dec. 1976). Dagut also quotes form a recent issue of Time magazine: ‘Mrs. Thatcher shacks off her gloves and barrels into battle.’ Whether one translates the images or the sense of these phrases will depend first on whether this figurative language is equally appropriate in the TL, and, secondly, on how important and expressive, in the translator’s opinion, the image is semantically (if it is not important, he will translate it communicatively).

Assuming that a creative metaphor is worth translating, there is no question that the more original and surprising it is (and therefore the more remote from the national culture), the easier it will be to translate, since in its essence it will be remote from common semantic as well as cultural associations. For this reason, Kloepfer’s (1967) dictum so disapprovingly quoted by Dagut, ‘Je kuhner und freier erfunden, je einmaliger eine Metapher ist, desto leichter labt sie sich in andern Sprachen wiederholen’, is perfectly valid. The difficulties arise when the metaphors are not so inventive (Dagut quotes ‘she killed off the free milk programme’, which is not a

metaphor in his exclusively creative sense at all, and which could perhaps be translated by a polysemous word such as achever or tuer), and here Dagut rightly states that ‘the translatability of a metaphor is determined by the extent to which the cultural (i.e. referential) experience and semantic (linguistic) associations on which it draws are shared by speakers of the particular TL’. The examples he gives (literal and semantic translation from Hebrew into English) are telling. However, he strangely fails to mentions the third factor of universal or extracultural experience, which makes translation of metaphor relatively easy, provided the semantic range of the relevant words are fairly congruent. Thus, in the following lines from E. E. Cummings (1963) (from ‘if I have made, my lady intricate’), ‘the sweet small clumsy feet of April came into the ragged meadow of my soul’, ‘feet’ is virtually extracultural, in contrast with ‘April’ whose connotations (freshness, sweetness, showers, unfolding of buds and blossoms, etc.) are restricted to the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, and ‘meadow’ whose existence (and therefore connotations) is also (differently) geographically circumscribed. Of these three metaphors, ‘feet’ could be translated into any language, but ‘April’ and ‘meadow’ would be subject to cultural (i.e. ecological) constraints. (I believe that certain physical and natural objects – and certain mathematical, physical and moral laws – are a priori and therefore extracultural, and they are at least less acculturated than other objects and laws. The meanings of objects and concepts are apprehended partly in as far as they are universal or common to all cultures, partly in as far as they form part of a particular culture, and partly through individual perception.) Note that a creative metaphor is normally difficult enough to translate without the translator being able to account for sound-effect (as in the above-mentioned Time quotation) unless the sound-effect ‘is more important than’ (i.e. is) the sense. If the metaphor includes a neologism (but ‘shack’ and ‘barrel’ are American English), the translator must create his own neologism in semantic, but not normally in communicative translation.

Neubert has suggested that 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?' (sonnet no. XVIII, W Shakespeare) could not be semantically translated into language spoken in a country where summers are unpleasant. This is not so, since the reader should get a vivid impression from the content of the sonnet of the beauty of summer in England, and reading the poem should exercise his imagination as well as introduce him to English culture. A communicative translation into a Middle East language would certainly require a different imagery and a new poem. However, one could assume that all serious poems should be semantically translated and that the more original the metaphor, the more disconnected it is from its culture and therefore the more its originality can be preserved by a literal translation.

The translation of a metaphor may be a four-fold process: the source language term (e.

g. fermé) collocated with visage leads to the image 'closed' which leads to 'wood' which leads to 'wooden face'. The four elements (SL term; SL image: TL image; TL term) depict the sense and quality of lifelessness and hardness. These are the conventional processes of communicative translation.

Language has verbs, adjectives and adverbs that refer naturally to persons, but may be transferred in some cases to objects (e.g. ‘it’s killing’; ‘the price is famously high’; ‘stunned surprise’). Similarly, most languages have ambiguous words such as ‘fruit, stock, harvest’ which in some contexts may be either concrete or figurative or even both. At times a sentence may even be on three levels, viz. specific, generic and figurative, e.g.

'Le devenir du medicament conditionne l'action pharmacologique, '

‘The rate of absorption of drugs determines their action.'

'The development of drugs determines their action.'

'The future of drugs will determine the scope and importance of pharmacology.’

In all these cases, a communicative translation will tend to be the easiest version that is consonant with the function of the utterance, whilst a semantic translation will attempt to embrace the total meaning. To sum up, metaphors are not affected by the semantic-communicative argument when they have standardized TL equivalents: in other cases they are translated semantically, but with some allowance for different cultures, if they are original and important; communicatively, emphasizing or explicating their sense, in most other cases.

*** ***

It may be objected that communicative translation should always be semantic and that semantic translation should always be communicative, i do not thing this is possible, There is a contradiction, an opposition, at best an overlapping between meaning and message -- when both are equally pursued. If, like Darbelnet, one believes that 'la traduction est l'opération qui consiste à faire passer d'une langue dans une autre tous les éléments de sens d'un passage et rien que ses éléments, en s'assurant qu'ils conservent dans la langue d'arrivée leur importance relative, ainsi que leur tonalité, et en tenant compte des diffférences que présentent entre elles les cultures auxquelles correspondent respectivement la langue de départ et la langue d'arrivée' -- communication appears to have no place. On the other hand, following Nida's 'Translating is communicating' with its emphasis on a readable (instantly?), understandable text (although Nida also insists on accuracy and fidelity), one notices inevitably a great loss of meaning in the dropping of so many Biblical metaphors which, Nida insists, the reader cannot understand.

The translation theorist has m raise the question, in considering Nida's dynamic equivalence, not only of the nature (education. class, occupation, age, etc.) of the readers, but of what is to be expected of them. Are they to be handed everything on a plate? Are they to make any effort7 Are they ever expected to look a word up in a dictionary or an encyclopedia? I have no wish to question the appropriateness of the Good News Bible translation, and obviously the translation of any performatives

(public notices, etc.) must also be instantly intelligible. However, I am writing against the increasing assumption that all translating is (nothing but) communicating, where the less effort expected of the reader, the better.

The fact is, as any translator knows, meaning is complicated, many-levelled, a ‘network of relations' as devious as the channels of thought in the brain. The more communication, the more generalization, the more simplification -- the less meaning. One is most aware of meaning when one is thinking, or, to be more precise, when one is silently talking to oneself, that process of internalized or interiorized language one engages in when one thinks, but for which no language appears to have a word. (It is supplemented by the formation of images.) But as soon as one writes or speaks, one starts losing meaning -- the images disappear, the words are constructed into clauses -- and when one channels and points one’s communication, in order to make it effective, towards one or a group of receptors, one confines one’ meaning even more. When the third stage is reached -- translating, the communication into another language -- there is even further loss of meaning. The clash between communication and meaning can be illustrated by the difference between say affectant les fonctions amnésiques and ‘affecting the functions of memory’, trains réguliers et facultatifs, ‘normal and special trains’, ?a le regarde and ‘that’s his lookout’ – in all cases, the message is the same (perhaps?) but here is a difference in meaning such as Darbelnet would perhaps refuse to recognize. Again, it has been pointed out too often that the terms Bro t, pain, bread may have different meanings in the three languages if one is thinking of the savour, the shape, the composition, the importance of this food, but if one asks a supplier to send a hundred loaves of bread, the message is an effective act of communication, and connotations are likely to be neglected. The contrast can be made most strongly and paradoxically, if I say that the more I savour the meaning of a word in all its richness, relating it to its object and its connotations, the less I am inclined to communicate, being absorbed – whilst if I want to communicate, I deal with meaning at its narrowest, sharpest, most concise – in fact, ideally, meaning is just a reflex or an automatism to me.

A message, therefore, is only a part of a complete meaning, just as a word, say, 'table', only covers a small part, is a mere label (a 'flat slab or board', a metaphor for a tavern?) for the whole object. Communication has a similar relation to language as functions has to structure. Language, like structure, like 'global' meaning, is rich, diverse, many-layered: once one thinks of a message, a communication, a function, the utterance becomes sharp, thin, direct. Chomsky (1976) denies that language is primarily communicative, and emphasizes that in 'contemplation, inquiry, normal social interchange, planning and guiding one's own actions, creative writing, honest self-expression, and numerous other activities with language, expressions are used with their strict linguistic meaning irrespective of the intentions of the "utterer" with regard to an audience' (p.69). Transferring this distinction, I suggest that for most of the linguistic activities mentioned above (I except "normal social interchange” which has to be converted to "standardized language" equivalents) a semantic

translation is indicated. Semantic translation is subtler, more comprehensive, more penetrating than communicative translation, and does not require cultural adoptation. House (1977b) in a paper, confusingly distinguishes 'overt' (i.e. semantic) from 'covet (i.e. communicative) translation -- shades of 'co-text' and 'context' (Catford, 1965) -- but usefully points out that a 'covert' translation 'enjoys or enjoyed [sic] the status of an original source text in the target culture', i.e. one of its main characteristics is that no one should suspect that it is a translation. Unfortunately she does not distinguish stylistically between the two types of translation, and in her ' "textual" profile', she omits such important dimensions as degree of generality and of emotiveness.

The distinction between semantic and communicative translation, which a behaviorist might well deny, shows how closely translation theory relates not only to the philosophy of language, but even to philosophy iii an older sense of the term, when it meant perhaps 'interpretation of the meaning of life'. Thus an affirmative attitude to translation would perhaps stem from a belief in rationalism, in the communicability and renewal of common experience, in 'innate' human nature and even in natural law.

Normally, one assumes that a semantic translation is briefer and 'more literal' than a communicative translation. This is usually, but not always, so. If the original is rich in metaphor, has simultaneously abstract as well as physical meanings and is concerned with say religion, ritual magic, witchcraft or other domains of discourse which have covert categories, a prose translation with explanatory power (the interpretation must be within the translation, not follow it) is likely to be longer than the original. It has to reproduce the full meaning of the original, not simply one of its functions.

Semantic translation is sometimes both linguistic and encyclopedic, whilst communicative translation is strictly functional. 'Adam's rib', as Crick (1976) has pointed out, has always been an inadequate translation.

If, as I believe, we are to use, in principle, semantic translation for works of philosophy, religion, anthropology, even politics, in texts where the manner and the matter are fused, which are therefore well written, then the translation must be more explicit and usually fuller than for works of literature, particularly poetry. In poetry symbol is restrained or transferred; in anthropology, it is retained and explained within the text. As Evans-Pritchard has said 'The translation is the interpretation', and therefore, the full meaning must be in the text, not in a string of notes.

A sentence such as 'Mary was a virgin mother' must be explicated in accordance with precisely what the translator believes the writer to have intended, normally retaining both the literal and the symbolic / figurative interpretation.

Crick has stated that in anthropology, Evans-Pritchard led the general shift from function to meaning: in meaning, the significance of symbols and rites in the culture,

as well as their effect on spectators and participants, are uncovered. In a period where bare communication (functionalism) is overvalued, I think there has to be a corresponding shift to semantic translation of all texts that merit it (they are not that many).

*** ***

All translation remains a craft requiring a trained skill, continually renewed linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge and a deal of flair and imagination, as well as intelligence and above all common sense. Semantic translation, basically the work of one translator, is an art. Communicative translation, sometimes the product of a translator's team, is a craft. (Those who can, translate. Those who cannot, teach translation theory, learning hopefully from their mistakes.)

The above is an attempt to narrow the range and definition of valid translation, and to suggest that Savory's clever and notorious definitions, which form the superscript of this paper, since they rest on incorrect assumptions, can be reconciled. However, not for a moment am I trying to minimize the difficulties of many aspects (too long overlooked) as well as instances of the translator's task, whether it be 'communicative', 'semantic' or a combination of both. Moreover, I believe that there are also many texts that present few or no difficulties to a translator, and that an effective, if approximate, translation of any text into any language is always possible.

Note: The best twentieth-century comment I know on this type of remark is in Thomas Mann’s Introduction to Der Zauberberg (Princeton University, 1939): ‘An outstanding Swedish critic declared openly and decisively that no one would ever dare to translate this book into a foreign language, as it was absolutely unsuitable for translation. This was a false prophecy. The Magic Mountain has been translated into almost all European languages, and, as far as I can judge, none of my books has aroused such interest in the world.’ Cf. various remarks about Racine’s untranslatablity into English. (He has recently been successfully translated.) A successful translation is probably more dependent on the translator’s empathy with the writer’s thought than on affinity of language and culture.

Communicative and semantic translation (II)

The concepts of communicative and semantic translation represent my main contribution to general translation theory, and I return to. them as I have to modify and clarify both concepts.

The two concepts were formulated in opposition to the monistic theory that translation is basically a means of communication or a manner of addressing one or more persons in the speaker's presence; that translation, like language, is purely a social phenomenon.

In view of the fact that translation rests on at least three dichotomies -- the foreign and native cultures, the two languages, the writer and the translator respectively, with the translation readership looming over the whole process -- it seems unlikely that it can be incorporated in one theory. Further, all the writers of the past have defined two or three methods of translation, sometimes only recommending one and disparaging the remainder (e.g. Nida and Nabokov), at other times, as in Schleiermacher's classical definition, leaving the translator free to lean either on the writer's or the reader's shoulder. Lastly, behind this translation argument there is a philosophical conflict. This is said to be the age of reproduction, of the media, of mass communication and I am suggesting that the social factor is only a part of the truth, continuously overemphasized by technology and the present political advance to democracy. Thus the 'expressive' text represents an individual, not wholly socialized nor conditioned, voice.

Admittedly, all translation must be in some degree both communicative and semantic, social and individual. It is a matter of difference of emphasis. In communicative translation, however, the only part of the meaning of the original which is rendered is the part (which may even be the 'opposite' of tile original, as in objets trouvés, ‘lost property’) which corresponds to the TL reader's understanding of the identical message. If the translator is dealing in standardized terms for both languages, there may be no problems. Otherwise, the translator has to bear in mind a composite identikit reader, following appropriate TL usage, modifying, correcting and improving the latest versions of the fair copy of his translation often without any reference to the original. Clearly, there is a danger here of capturing too small a part of the original message, as for instance in the following example taken from Seleskovitch (1979): ‘Il n'y a pas de mal à prendre de temps en temps un verre de trop quand on sort' rendered as 'It's all right to get a bit drunk at a party.’ One of the many problems of communicative translation is to decide to what extent one should simplify and therefore emphasize the basic message. A second is to strike a mean, to decide on the highest common factor of intelligence, knowledge and sensitivity possessed by the

total readership – inevitably one thinks of communicative translation as mass communication. A third is precisely not to insult the intelligence of the readership, as the media often do. But the most important problem is the intuitive nature of communicative translation – the fact that its success can be measured only by investigating the reaction of the readers to whom it is addressed.

*** ***

In reconsidering semantic translation, I begin by distinguishing it from literal translation.

In previous articles I have adapted Nahokov in defining semantic translation as an attempt to render, as closely as the semantic and syntactic structures of the target language allow, the exact contextual meaning of the original ('only this is true translation', Nabokov wrote); I contrasted this method of translation with communicative translation, which is also true translation, and much more in demand.

I now propose two further definitions:

(1) Interlinear translation (Nabokov's lexical or constructional translation): the primary senses of all words in the original are translated as though out of context, and the word-order of the original is retained The main purpose is either to understand the mechanics of die source language or to constitute a pre-translation procedure for a complicated SL text.

(2) Literal translation: the primary senses of the lexical words of the original are translated as though out of context, but the syntactic structures of the target language are respected.

The basic difference between semantic and literal translation is that the former respects context, the latter does not, Semantic translation sometimes has to interpret, even explain a metaphor, if it is meaningless in the target language (nevertheless, only as a last resource, only if the translator is convinced that the relevant background knowledge is inaccessible to his reader). In semantic translation, the translator's first loyalty is to his author; in literal translation, his loyalty is. on the whole, to the norms of the source language.

It is ironical that Nabokov (1964) himself often translated literally, not semantically: 'She, to look back not daring, accelerates her hasty step' (Eugene Onegin, 5. p. 1311.

1.1-2), many times relying on the reader referring to the copious notes as well as having access to the original. Further, in stating ‘To my ideal of literalism I sacrificed everything (elegance, euphony, clarity, good taste, modern usage, and even grammar) that the dainty mimic prizes higher than the truth', he is violating his own principles

纽马克翻译理论的应用和翻译技巧(2)

英语知识 （3）类比 类比是比较中国与英语国家类似的历史人物，事件，故事等，并用后者取代前者，以帮助外国游客有更好地了解中华文化的特定内容。 例3 人们把四川境内的贡嘎山和四姑娘山分别称为蜀山之王和蜀山之后。许多人来到四姑娘山一睹芳容后, 惊叹不已: 太美了, 太美了! 简直像仙境一样! Chinese people named Mount Gongga as the “king of Sichuan Mountains”while Siguniang Mountain as the “queen of Sichuan Mountains”. After enjoying the beauty of Siguniang (four girls) Mountain, plenty of foreign friends marveled at its beauty: “It is Alps of Orient! (杨天庆，2002：691) 在本译文中，译者把“四姑娘山”类比为西方人比较熟悉的阿尔卑斯山的。译文使读者感受到四姑娘山的美丽，将吸引他们亲自参观此景点。 （4）删减 删减是指省略原文中不必要的或多余的或不重要的信息。 例4在中国最早的典籍中，即有关于这条河的记载。尚书禹贡“漆沮即从，沣水攸同，诗经人雅：“沣水东注，维禹之绩”，说明沣水在缘故就是一条著名的河流。 Records about this river can be found ever in the earliest Chinese classics, which prove that the Feng River has ever been well-known since ancient times. (司显柱，曾剑平，2006：358）删减了对于外国人甚至中国人来说都是不易理解的古诗，仅仅简要介绍一下，更易于外国读者理解和接受。 （5）改译

纽马克的翻译理论

Chapter 2 Peter Newmark Semantic and Communicative Translation Guided Reading Peter Newmark (1916) is an accomplished translation scholar as well as an experienced translator. He has translated a number of books and articles and published extaensively on translation. His publications on translation include Approaches to Translation (1981), About Translation(1983), Paragraphs on Translation段落翻译(1985), A Textbook of Translation翻译教程(1988), and More Paragraphs on Translation(1993). In his work Approaches to Translation, Newmark proposes two types of translation: semantic translation语义翻译and communicative translation交际翻译. Semantic translation focuses primarily upon the semantic content of the source text whereas communicative translation focuses essentially upon the comprehension and response of receptors. This distinction results from his disapproval of Nida's assumption假定，假设，设想；假装；承担，担任that all translating is communicating, and the overriding最主要的，最优先的principle of any translation is to achieve "equivalent effect". For Newmark, the success of equivalent effect is "illusory", and that "the conflict

纽马克 翻译教程

Communicative and semantic translation (I) 1. A translation must give the words of the original. 2. A translation must give the idea of the original. 3. A translation should read like an original work. 4. A translation should read like a translation. 5. A translation should reflect the style of the original. 6. A translation should possess the style of the translation. 7. A translation should read as a contemporary of the original. 8. A translation should read as a contemporary of the translation. 9. A translation may add to or omit from the original. 10. A translation may never add to or omit from the original. 11. A translation of verse should be in prose. 12. A translation of verse should be in verse. (The Art of Translation, T H. Savory, Cape, 1968, p 54.) In the pre-linguistic period of writing on translation, which may be said to date from Cicero through St. Jerome, Luther, Dryden, Tytler, Herder, Goethe, Schleiermacher, Buber, Ortegay Gosset, not to say Savory, opinion swung between literal and free, faithful and beautiful, exact and natural translation, depending on whether the bias was to be in favor of the author or the reader, the source or the target language of the text. Up to the nineteenth century, literal translation represented a philological academic exercise from which the cultural reformers were trying to rescue literature. In the nineteenth century, a more scientific approach was brought to bear on translation, suggesting that certain types of texts must be accurately translated, whilst others should and could not be translated at all! Since the rise of modern linguistics (philology was becoming linguistics here in the late fifties), and anticipated by Tytler in 1790, Larbaud, Belloc, Knox and Rieu, the general emphasis, supported by communication-theorists as well as by non-literary translators, has been placed on the reader -- on informing the reader effectively and appropriately, notably in Nida, Firth, Koller and the Leipzig School. In contrast, the brilliant essays of Benjamin, Valery and Nabokov (anticipated by Croce and Ortegay Gasset) advocating literal translation have appeared as isolated, paradoxical phenomena, relevant only to translating works of high literary culture. Koller (1972) has stated that the equivalent-effect principle of translation is tending to rule out all others, particularly the predominance of any formal elements such as word or structure. The apparent triumph of the 'consumer' is, I think, illusory. The conflict of loyalties. the gap between emphasis on source and target language will always remain as the

彼得.纽马克的翻译理论初探

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Chapter 2纽马克的翻译理论

Chapter 2纽马克的翻译理论 Chapter 2纽马克的翻译理论一、纽马克翻译理论的类型 纽马克把翻译分为四类 1、交际翻译 翻译交际中，目标文本所产生的效果应力求接近源文本; 2、语义翻译 语义翻译中目标文本应在目标语的语义和句法结构允许的情况下尽可能准确地再现原文的语境含义; 3、直译 在直译中原文本的基本意义被译过来目标文本虽合乎目标语的句法结构，但意思是孤立的，没有考虑源语用词的语境因素; 4、死译 在死译中，源文本所有词语的基本意思得到了翻译，但目标文本既不考虑源语用词的语境因素，句法也不合乎目标语要求就连词序也是按照源语文本排列的。 二、纽马克根据语言的三大功能 表达功能(expressive function) 传信功能(informative function) 召唤功能(vocative function) 分析了各种不同类型的作品。他认为各类作品的功能的侧重点不同, 应采取不同的翻译方法。有一些作品, 重点放在原文的语义内容上, 应采取“ 语义翻译”(semantic translation)的方法, 译文要尽可能接近 于原文的语言形式, 以保持其语义内容, 有一些作品, 重点放在读者 的理解和反应上, 应采取“交流翻译”的方法, 译文更倾向于译入语 的语言形式, 使读者更容易接受和理解。纽马克对“ 交流翻译”的 定义是:

“交流翻译试图用这样一种方式正 确地传达原作的文中意义, 使其内容与语言都可以很容易地为读者 所接受和理解。”(communicative translation attempts to render the original in such a way that both content and language are readily acceptable and comprehensible to the readership) 这种翻译可以摆脱原文语言形式的束缚, 更好地发挥译文语言的优 势, 使译文流畅、自然、简洁、明了, 更容易为读者所接受和理解, 这样的译文必然会受到广大读者的欢迎, 用严复的话说, 就可以“ 言 之有文,行之弥远” , 合乎“ 雅”的要求了。 纽马克谈理论, 最重视与实践的结合。他说“ 任何理论如果不是产 生于翻译实践中的间题, 那就毫无意义, 毫无生命力。” 所以, 我们 有必要通过翻译实践中的实例来 证实这三家理论的一致性。试举例如下: eg.1 If she did, she need not coin her smiles so lavishly; flash her glances so unremittingly; manufacturing airs so elaborate graces so multitudinous. 译1,如果她真做了, 她就不需要这样浪费地铸造她的微笑, 这样不懈 地闪耀她的眼光, 制造这样精致的气派, 这样众多的文雅。 译2,如果她当真爱他的话, 她就用不着这样过分地装出笑容, 不断地送她的媚眼,费尽心计装腔作势, 摆出许多文雅的姿态。 译3,如果她当真爱他的话, 她就根本用不着这样满面堆笑, 滥送秋波, 煞费苦心地故作姿态, 装出许多斯文模样。 从以上例子, 我们可以看出

Chapter 2纽马克的翻译理论

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2008 年6 月 第10 卷/ 第6 期/ 河北师范大学学报/ 教育科学版/ JOURNAL OF HEBEI NORMAL UNIVERSITY/ Educational Science Edition/ J un. 2008 Vol. 10 No. 6 收稿日期:2008 - 02 - 16 作者简介:陈凯(1978 - ) , 女, 河北保定人, 助教, 研究方向为翻译理论与实践; 张建辉(1980 - ) , 男, 河北保定人,助教, 研究方向为翻译理论与实践。 彼得·纽马克翻译理论浅析 陈凯, 张建辉 (保定学院, 河北保定071000) 摘要:彼得·纽马克撰写了多部翻译理论著作,将翻译文本类型进行分类,提出了语义翻译、交际翻译 的概念,同时他对自己的理论进行了进一步扩充———提出了关联翻译法,为国内外译界提供了很好的指导, 为繁荣译论做出了重大贡献。 关键词:彼得·纽马克;翻译理论 中图分类号: H 059 文献标识码:A 文章编号:1009 - 413X(2008) 06 - 0142 - 03 彼得·纽马克,英国当代翻译家、翻译理论家, 其翻译理论简明扼要,短小精悍,与奈达的卷帙浩繁 相得益彰。和奈达一样,纽马克运用现代语言学来 分析和解决具体的翻译问题。他认为译论“源于比 较语言学,在语言学的范畴内,主要涉及语义学;所 有语义学的问题都与翻译理论有关”,同时,他承认 语言的平等性和可译性,认为翻译既是科学,也是艺 术和技巧,针对不同种类的文本,译者要采用不同的 翻译方法,力图使译作对译文读者产生的效果应尽 量等同于原作对原文读者产生的效果[1 ] 。下面本文 将就其主要的译论观点进行简析,以求对纽马克的 翻译理论有个更深层次的了解。 一、文本类型分类 在纽马克看来,翻译就是文本的翻译,研究翻译 不能离开文本。因此,纽马克根据Buhler 的语言功 能理论将所有的文本划分为三大范畴:表达型文本、 信息型文本和号召型文本。 (一) 表达型文本 在表达型文本中,如文学作品、私人信件、自传 和散文等,其核心思想是表情达意,作者独特的语言 形式和内容应同等重要。因此,这样的文本强调原 作者的权威,不会去考虑读者的反应。典型的表达 型文本包括:1. 严肃的文学作品,包括抒情诗、长篇

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纽马克的翻译理论主要是什么 彼得?纽马克是英国著名的翻译理论家和翻译教育家。纽马克在分析和总结各家各派的翻译思想的基础上，将文体论、话语分析、符号学、格语法的理论、功能语法和跨文化交际理论应用于翻译理论和研究，对于翻译理论、翻译教学、翻译语言学以及翻译技巧都进行了精辟的论述。纽马克翻译理论的核心是语义翻译和交际翻译，这也是其翻译理论中最主要、最有特色的组成部分。他的代表作包括《翻译问题探索》(Approaches to Translation, 1981) 、《翻译教程》(A Text book of Translation, 1988)、《翻译论》(About Translation, 1991)和《翻译短评》(Paragraphs on Translation, 1993)。在《翻译问题探索》一书中，纽马克提出，针对不同的文本类型应当采用不同的翻译方法——语义翻译(semantic tr anslation) 或交际翻译(communicative translation)。根据不同的内容和文体，他将文本分为抒发功能(expressive function)、信息功能(informative function)、呼唤功能(vocative function)、审美功能(aesthetic function)、应酬功能(phatic f unction)和元语言功能(metalingual function)。20世纪90年代他又提出“关联翻译法”，这标志着他的翻译理论渐趋系统。下面本文将就纽马克的主要译论观点进行初步解读,以求对纽马克的翻译理论做更深层次的理解,并将相关翻译标准应用到英汉、汉英翻译中去。一．语言功能与文本类型纽马克认为,翻译活动即是对文本的翻译,研究翻译不能离开文本。在修正布勒(Buhler)、雅各布森(Jakob son)功能模式的语言理论基础上,根据不同的内容和文体,纽马克提出了一套自己的文本功能及其分类。他将文本分为以下六种：(一)表达功能(expressive func tion) 表达功能的核心是讲话人、作者。语言表达功能的核心在于讲话人或作者运用这些话语表情达意,不去考虑读者的反应。纽马克认为,从翻译的目的看,典型的表达型文本有:1、严肃的文学作品,包括抒情诗、短篇小说、长篇小说、戏剧等;2、权威性言论,主要有政治人物的政治演说及文件等,法律法规文献,公认的权威人物撰写的科学、哲学和学术著作。这些文本的权威性来自其作者的地位或可靠性以及他们的语言能力。虽然这样的文本大多不具有言外之意,但往往带有其作者个人特征的"印记";3、自传、散文及个人信函。当这些文本是作者个人情感的一种宣泄,当读者背景模糊时,便属于表达型文本。在翻译表达型文本时,要遵循"作者第一"的原则。以原作者为核心,既要忠实原作者表达的思想内容,又要忠实原作者的语言风格。在这类文本的翻译中,译者不仅不容许对原文进行修饰和

纽马克翻译理论简介

Peter Newmark?(1916–2011) was an?English?professor?of?translation?at the?University of Surrey.[1] [edit]Biography He was one of the main figures in the founding of?Translation Studies?in the English-speaking world from the 1980s. Life Nida was born in?Oklahoma City,?Oklahoma?on November 11, 1914. He became a Christian at a young age, when he responded to the altar call at his church “to accept Christ as my Saviour.”[2] He graduated summa cum laude from the?University of California?in 1936. After graduating he attended Camp Wycliffe, where Bible translation theory was taught. He ministered for a short time among the Tarahumara Indians in Chihuahua, Mexico, until health problems due to an inadequate diet and the high altitude forced him to leave. Sometime in this period, Nida became a founding charter member of?Wycliffe Bible Translators, a sister organization of the?Summer Institute of Linguistics. In 1937, Nida undertook studies at the?University of Southern California, where he obtained a Master’s Degree in New Testament Greek in 1939. In that same year, Eugene Nida became interim pastor of Calvary Church of?Santa Ana, California, after the founding pastor resigned in 1939.[3]?In spite of his conservative background, in later years Nida became increasingly ecumenical and New Evangelical in his approach.[4] In 1943, Nida received his Ph.D. in Linguistics from the?University of Michigan, he was ordained as a Baptist minister, and he married Althea Lucille Sprague. The couple remained married until Althea Sprague Nida's death in 1993. In 1997, Nida married Dr. María Elena Fernandez-Miranda, a lawyer and diplomatic attache. Nida retired in the early 1980s, although he kept on giving lectures in universities all around the world, and lived in Madrid, Spain and?Brussels,?Belgium. He died in Madrid on August 25, 2011 aged 96.[5] [edit]Career In 1943, Nida began his career as a?linguist?with the?American Bible Society?(ABS). He was quickly promoted to Associate Secretary for Versions, then worked as Executive Secretary for Translations until his retirement. Nida was instrumental in engineering the joint effort between the?Vatican?and the?United Bible Societies?(UBS) to produce cross-denominational Bibles in translations across the globe. This work began in 1968 and was carried on in accordance with Nida's translation principle of Functional Equivalence. [edit]Theories Nida has been a pioneer in the fields of?translation theory?and?linguistics. His Ph.D. dissertation,?A Synopsis of English Syntax, was the first full-scale analysis of a major language according to the "immediate-constituent" theory. His most notable contribution to translation theory is Dynamic Equivalence, also known as Functional Equivalence. For more information, see "Dynamic and formal equivalence." Nida also developed the "componential-analysis" technique, which split words into their components to help determine equivalence in translation (e.g.

彼得_纽马克翻译理论浅析

2008年6月第10卷/第6期/河北师范大学学报/教育科学版/J OU RNAL OF HE BE I N ORMA L UNI VERS ITY /Edu cational Scie nce Edition / Jun .2008 Vol .10No .6 收稿日期:2008-02-16 作者简介:陈　凯(1978-),女,河北保定人,助教,研究方向为翻译理论与实践; 张建辉(1980-),男,河北保定人,助教,研究方向为翻译理论与实践。 彼得·纽马克翻译理论浅析 陈　凯,张建辉 (保定学院,河北保定　071000) 摘　要:彼得·纽马克撰写了多部翻译理论著作,将翻译文本类型进行分类,提出了语义翻译、交际翻译的概念,同时他对自己的理论进行了进一步扩充———提出了关联翻译法,为国内外译界提供了很好的指导,为繁荣译论做出了重大贡献。 关键词:彼得·纽马克;翻译理论 中图分类号:H 059 文献标识码:A 文章编号:1009-413X (2008)06-0142-03 彼得·纽马克,英国当代翻译家、翻译理论家, 其翻译理论简明扼要,短小精悍,与奈达的卷帙浩繁相得益彰。和奈达一样,纽马克运用现代语言学来分析和解决具体的翻译问题。他认为译论“源于比较语言学,在语言学的范畴内,主要涉及语义学;所有语义学的问题都与翻译理论有关”,同时,他承认语言的平等性和可译性,认为翻译既是科学,也是艺术和技巧,针对不同种类的文本,译者要采用不同的翻译方法,力图使译作对译文读者产生的效果应尽量等同于原作对原文读者产生的效果[1]。下面本文将就其主要的译论观点进行简析,以求对纽马克的翻译理论有个更深层次的了解。 一、文本类型分类 在纽马克看来,翻译就是文本的翻译,研究翻译不能离开文本。因此,纽马克根据Buhler 的语言功能理论将所有的文本划分为三大范畴:表达型文本、信息型文本和号召型文本。 (一)表达型文本 在表达型文本中,如文学作品、私人信件、自传和散文等,其核心思想是表情达意,作者独特的语言形式和内容应同等重要。因此,这样的文本强调原作者的权威,不会去考虑读者的反应。典型的表达型文本包括:1.严肃的文学作品,包括抒情诗、长篇小说、短篇小说、戏剧等;2.权威性言论,包括国家政治人物的政治演说或文件,各种法规和法律文献以 及由公认权威撰写的科学、哲学和学术著作;3.自 传、散文和私人信函。 在翻译表达型文本时,要遵循“作者第一”的原则。以原作者为核心,既要忠实原作者表达的思想内容,又要忠实原作者的语言风格。如翻译庞德的诗:The appa rition of the surfaces in the crow d ;Pe tals on a w et ,black bo ug h .(Ezrapound :In a station of the Me tro )裘小龙将它译为:人群中这些脸庞的隐现;湿漉漉、黑黝黝的树枝上的花瓣。在这里,译者主要采用语义翻译为主的方法,即以原文的词汇和句法结构为中心,使译文尽可能去贴近原文。翻译时译者最大限度地保留了俳句的结构形式,反映出诗人“意象本身即是语言”的诗学观点,并且因意象叠加获得凝重而又空灵的效果 [2] 。 (二)信息型文本 信息功能文本包括非文学作品、教科书、学术论文和报刊杂志文章等,此种文本强调“真实性”和语言外部的现实。典型的信息型文本可以涵盖任何知识领域,包括科学、技术、商业、工业、经济等,其表达形式包括教材、技术报告、报刊杂志文章、会议记录等。 信息型文本的核心是内容的“真实性”,作者的语言则是次要的。因此,在翻译信息型文本时,应遵循“真实性第一”的原则。译者在语言应用上,可以不以原作为标准,而以读者的语言层次为标准,力求通顺易懂,必要时还可以对原文进行修正。与表达 DOI :10.13763/j .cn ki .jheb nu .ese .2008.06.009

奈达和纽马克翻译理论对比初探

[摘要] 尤金·奈达和彼得·纽马克的翻译理论在我国产生很大的影响。他们在对翻译的认识及处理内容与形式关系方面有共识亦有差异。他们孜孜不倦发展自身理论的精神值得中国翻译理论界学习。 [关键词] 翻译; 动态对等; 语义翻译和交际翻译; 关联翻译法 Abstract :Both Nida and Newmark are outstanding western theorist in the field of translation. They have many differences as well as similarities in terms of the nature of translation and the relationship between the form and content. Their constant effort to develop their theories deserve our respect. Key words :translation ; dynamic equivalence ; semantic translation ; communicative translation ; a correlative approach to translation 尤金·奈达( Eugene A1Nida) 和彼得·纽马克是西方译界颇具影响的两位翻译理论家, 他们在翻译理论方面有诸多共通之处, 同时又各具特色。 一、对翻译的认识 对翻译性质的认识, 理论界的讨论由来已久。奈达和纽马克都对翻译是科学还是艺术的问题的认识经历了一个变化的过程。 奈达对翻译的认识经历了一个从倾向于把翻译看作科学到把翻译看作艺术的转化过程。在奈达翻译理论发展的第二个阶段即交际理论阶段, 他认为, 翻译是科学, 是对翻译过程的科学的描写。同时他也承认, 对翻译的描写可在三个功能层次上进行: 科学、技巧和艺术。在奈达逐渐向第三个阶段, 即社会符号学和社会语言学阶段过渡的过程中, 他越来越倾向于把翻译看作是艺术。他认为翻译归根到底是艺术, 翻译家是天生的。同时, 他把原来提出的“翻译是科学”改为“翻译研究是科学”。到了上世纪90 年代, 奈达又提出, 翻译基本上是一种技艺。他认为: 翻译既是艺术, 也是科学, 也是技艺。 纽马克对翻译的认识也经历了一定的变化。最初, 他认为, 翻译既是科学又是艺术, 也是技巧。后来他又认为翻译部分是科学, 部分是技巧, 部分是艺术, 部分是个人品位。他对翻译性质的阐释是基于对语言的二元划分。他把语言分为标准语言和非标准语言。说翻译是科学, 因为标准语言通常只有一种正确译法, 有规律可循, 体现了翻译是科学的一面。如科技术语。非标准语言往往有许多正确译法, 怎么挑选合适的译法要靠译者自身的眼光和能力, 体现了翻译是艺术和品位的性质。但译文也必须得到科学的检验, 以避免明显的内容和用词错误, 同时要行文自然, 符合语言环境要求。纽马克虽然认为翻译是科学, 但他不承认翻译作为一门科学的存在。因为他认为目前的翻译理论缺乏统一全面的体系, 根本不存在翻译的科学, 现在没有, 将来也不会有。 二、理论核心 奈达和纽马克都是在各自翻译实践的基础上, 为了解决自己实践中的实际问题, 提出了相应的翻译理论。实践中要解决的问题不同, 翻译理论也就各成一派。但毕竟每种实践都要有一定的规律存在, 因此两位的理论又有着不可忽视的相似。 奈达提出了著名的“动态对等”。他对翻译所下的定义: 所谓翻译, 是在译语中用最切近而又最自然的对等语再现源语的信息, 首先是意义, 其次是文体。这一定义明确指出翻译的本质和任务是用译语再现源语信息, 翻译的方法用最切近而又最自然的对等语。同时这一定义也提出了翻译的四个标准: 1 (1) 传达信息; 2 (2) 传达原作的精神风貌;