对联的语用翻译

Pragmatic Approach to the Translation of Antithetic Couplets

本文阐述了英汉两种语言的差异性、对联语言的独特性和对联翻译的策略性,最后以语用学理论为视角,研究了对联翻译中如何保留隐含意义,处理好文化意象以求译联的动态语用等效。笔者认为,对联,作为一种跨文化的交际活动,不仅涉及两种语言,同时也涉及两种文化。翻译中最富挑战性和难度最大的莫过于对联的翻译,其难度在于内容和形式的辩证统一。为了使原文忠实于译文,译者必须通过两种语言与文化的对比,灵活处理文化意象,有的应尽量保持源语中的文化意象,有的可以忽视,从而获得动态语用等效。

Taking into full consideration the differences between English and Chinese and the uniqueness of the Chinese language,this paper discusses pragmatic strategies for rendering antithetic couplets into English,paying special attention to how the covert meanings and the cultural images in the original could be kept in order to obtain a dynamic pragmatic equivalence in the translation.Specifically,it argues that 1) translating antithetic couplets,as an act of cross-cultural communication,necessarily involves two cultures as well as two languages;2) since it is exceedingly difficult to keep a dialectical unity in both content and form between the original and the translation,couplet translation constitutes one of the most challenging and the most difficult kinds of C-E translation;3) a flexible approach should be adopted in order to retain the cultural image conveyed in the original as much as possible and to achieve a dynamic pragmatic equivalence.