翻译“间性文化”论

Inter-ness as the Cultural Ideal of Translation

翻译的文化实践证明,翻译是多种文化之间的对话活动。在翻译过程中,译者通过多种“间性”即“多元对话性”的建立,来表达自己对于多元文化共存的世界的美好向往。在本文中,作者以著名翻译家林语堂的跨文化翻译实践为个案,从理论间性、话语间性、性别间性、主体间性和文化间性等层面分析了翻译“间性”凸现的轨迹,并从哲学的视角出发,深入追问了翻译“间性”与文化信仰和文化哲学之间的关系,从而说明,翻译文化实际上是一种“间性文化”。通过多种“间性”的建立,翻译使不同语言、不同性别、不同种族和不同文化之间达到相互对话、相互依存的目的。在这个层面上,翻译赋有更高层次的文化哲学意义:翻译是对人类生存方式的阐释与追求,它为差异共存、和谐共在的世界文化新秩序的重构提供了巨大的潜能。

This article proposes that the cultural ethos of translation be defined in terms of inter-ness and harmony, and that the construction in the target text of an inter-ness with the source discourse be seen as the only means by which the translator's cultural imagination could be opened up. Using Lin Yutang's practice of translation as a representative case, the article directs attention to a whole range of 'inter-' concepts, from intertextuality, intertheoreticality, interdiscursivity, intersexuality, intersubjectivity, to interculturality, as the philosophical underpinnings for the inter-ness that informs translation. And it also identifies the translator's propensity for promoting co-existence and cooperation among different cultures, communities and peoples as its teleological concomitant. By pursuing inter-hess as its cultural ideal, translation is able to project a vision of a heterogeneous yet harmonious world and to push for a new global order predicated on mutual understanding.