有关张炜《刺猬歌》小说语言特点的翻译初探

On the Translation of A Hedgebog’s Song by Zhang Wei Given His Language Characteristics

张炜先生的小说《刺猬歌》是一部寓言性的杰作,宛如一幅宏伟的画卷,展示出中国在过去一个世纪中,尤其是过去几十年中,发生的历史变迁。该书作者通过对形形色色的人物、动物,以及动物的精灵等生动而又细腻的描写,激发起读者的阅读兴趣,肯于与作者一起反思人类所从事的活动,诸如战争,革命,政治动荡和经济发展等,对自然环境和人类本身的深刻影响。对人的影响,涉及了人类与自然、人类与人类、人类与自己内心等的各种错综复杂的关系。张炜先生的文学杰作,是他30年思考的结晶。本文仅论及《刺猬歌》的语言特点及其翻译。《刺猬歌》的特点是,“奔放雄奇,却不乏精致细腻;既充满山摇地撼之力,又饱含着柳丝花朵的柔情”2。而且语言精确,可说是诗情画意。此外,善于利用方言,色彩浓郁,别具一格,为作者创造的每一个人类和动物角色,都注入了鲜活的生命。如何在翻译这部杰作时,忠实地将其文学美感传达给不太熟悉中国语言和文化的英语读者群,是一个巨大的挑战。本文试图用翻译的动态功能和解释学等翻译理论初步探讨一下自己在翻译张炜先生的《刺猬歌》一书过程中发现和解决或未解决的问题,以促进对张炜作品的翻译和海外传播的研究。

Zhang Wei’s novel A Hedgehog’s Song is an allegorical masterpiece.Like a magnificent scroll painting,it captures the historical changes of China happening in the past century,particularly in the past few decades.Through an assortment of characters,human and nonhuman,Zhang Wei prods his readers to reflect on the impact of human activities such as wars,revolutions,political upheavals,and economic development on both the natural environment and the human beings in terms of their relationships with nature,with others,and with themselves.Zhang’s literary masterpiece has resulted from his three-decade herculean effort.In terms of its language,A Hedgehog’s Song is characterized by unrestraint,majesty,and singularity as well as delicacy and exquisiteness.It’s full of mountain-swaying power and heart-wrenching tenderness at once.It’s also characteristic of precision and accuracy.Full of unique imagination and creativity,it’s poetic at the core.Besides,making good use of vernacular,the language is vivid and down-to-earth,breathing life to each of the human and animal characters that the author has created.How to translate such a masterpiece and convey its literary beauty to English-speaking readers not necessarily familiar with the Chinese language and culture is a huge challenge.This paper is an attempt to share the translator’s experience in transcribing Zhang Wei’s A Hedgehog’s Song using both the dynamic function and hermeneutic theories of translation.