重新定位,抑或三位一体?——论比较文学、翻译学和文化研究的关系

Reorientation or Trinity?——On the Correlation between Translation Studies,Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies

以往人们一般都将翻译和翻译学视为小道,认为它只是比较文学的工具。接受美学和解构主义文化思潮打破了关于原文与译文的尊卑等级观念,认为翻译并非只是不同语言之间的转换,实际上是一个再创造的过程;翻译学并非只是研究语言转换的技巧,而是要研究翻译过程中包含的复杂的文化问题,从而大大提高了翻译和翻译学的地位。20世纪中后期,文化研究思潮兴盛,研究者着力探讨主流文化与非主流文化、精英文化与大众文化、西方文化与非西方文化之间的不平等关系,并对这种现象进行了深刻批判,比较文学和翻译学研究受其强烈影响,并因此实现了“文化转向”,开始注重探讨不同文本、不同语言系统背后的文化内涵及其相互之间的关系。经过蜕变的翻译学研究领域得以加广加深,观察剖析翻译过程和翻译目的被视为探讨各种文化之间复杂关系的重要阵地和最佳途经,它在一定程度上挤占和取代了比较文学的地位和功能,比较文学和翻译学因此呈现出此消彼长的态势。迈入新世纪后,文化研究、比较文学、翻译学各自的特征和相互关系又有新的发展,形成了一种你中有我、我中有你、分工合作的局面。有学者认为比较文学已经过时,翻译学将居主要地位,是否如此,尚难断言。

Translation and translation studies used to be regarded as a trifling skill and as nothing but a tool for comparative literature. It is the reception aesthetics and deconstruction theory that have helped to break the conventional hierarchies in relation to the source language and target language. Thus translation is reckoned not just as a linguistic transfer but as a creative rewriting, and translation research is likewise no longer considered just a study of the transformation techniques between different languages elements involved in the process of translation. Therefore, the academic translation studies has been greatly enhanced. , but the interchange of cultural standing of both translation and The cultural studies in the late 20th century represented a marked shift towards the study and criticism of the unequal relations between mainstream and marginal cultures, between elite and popular cultures, and between occidental and oriental cultures, and promoted a cultural turn in comparative literature and translation studies, both of which, being heavily influenced by cultural studies, focused more on the cultural connotations and interrelations between different texts and language systems. As the research scope of the fundamentally changed translation studies is tremendously broadened and deepened, to scrutinize and dissect the translation process and purpose is deemed an important field in and the best approach to exploring the complicated relations between different cultures, and so the place and the function of comparative literature have been, to a certain degree, superseded by translation studies. They have both taken turns to be the centrality or the marginality in the academic field. The 21st century has witnessed the new development of cultural studies, comparative literature, and translation studies in terms of their features and correlation. They are developing in a structure of being independently overlapping, intricately intertwined, and unavoidably cooperative. The preponderance of translation studies over comparative literature, presumed by some scholars, is a question still up in the air and awaiting a further debate.