“居间”之石或“第三空间”?——翻译矛盾话语隐喻问题论

“In-between”a Rock and a“Third Space”?:On the Trouble with Ambivalent Metaphors of Translation

霍米·巴巴的《文化的定位》(1994)一书在翻译研究界激起了千层波澜,其中的杂合、第三空间与居间理论自提出以后在研究文献中频频出现。对于关注翻译伦理及文化他者的学者而言,巴巴的隐喻体现了对新殖民霸权的"反击"概念。虽然这些理论充满诱惑,但如何借助译者作为译文作者的作用并在何种程度上成功实施这些理论,至今仍无人探究。既然为写作赋能的不是他者,而是代表他者的译者,通过他者实现霸权抵抗就只能是一种空想,仅能口头说说而已。本文采用翻译实践框架,深入考察巴巴的杂合隐喻,剖析将其思想不加批判地融入抵抗式翻译话语及这一做法所蕴含的方法论流弊。

Homi Bhabha’s The Location of Culture(1994)makes waves in translation studies.His theories of hybridity,third space and the in-between have been consistently present in the literature ever since.For scholars concerned with the ethics of translation vis-à-vis the cultural other,Bhabha’s metaphors give expression to the notion of“writing back”to neoclassical hegemonies.Despite their allure,what has not been addressed is the extent to which their success is threatened by the agency of the translator as a writer.Where the power to write is exercised not by the other but by the translator on their behalf,resistance to hegemony is an ideal that can only be ventriloquized.Through the framework of translation practice,this article examines Bhabha’s metaphor of hybridity and signals the methodological risks of imbricating his ideas uncritically within resistant translation discourse.