文化移植中的翻译策略(3):新教传教士译者与《南京条约》

Translation Strategies in Cultural Transplantation(3) and Protestant Missionary Interpreters in the Preparation of The Treaty of Nanking

文化焦虑是译者的共同体验,涉及潜在战争风险的翻译活动,使这种焦虑达到最严重程度。新教传教士马儒翰和郭实腊直接参与《南京条约》前后的军事行动和谈判及条约中英文的起草与翻译,并蓄意造成条约原本和译本的多处不符,这一方面体现了新教传教士协助强权敲开中国国门的愿望,同时也暴露出译者文化焦虑的特殊构成要素与克服文化焦虑的语境困局。从《南京条约》译本的解析可看出:维多利亚女王和道光皇帝皆在不同程度上受到译者操纵,而译者的文化焦虑又源自其犯有时代错误的宣教策略和客观存在的中西文化冲突。《南京条约》具有特殊示范作用,呼唤读者一边针对作为文化焦虑后果的翻译活动建立审慎的阅读伦理和对文化冲突的理解与宽容。

As a common experience confronting most translators/interpreters, cultural anxiety can be aggravated to its utmost when the translating process incurs the underlying risk of war. Robert Morrison and Karl Gtitzlaff, two Protestant missionaries directly involved in the military and negotiating operations in the Anglo-Chinese War as well as in the preparation and transla- tion of The Treaty of Nanking thereof, are held responsible for the several deliberate discrepancies in the terms of the said treaty in two languages. This deliberation is now interpreted as their burning desire to crack open the door of China to Christianity by assisting the British expeditionary force, as a result of the framing factors of the cultural anxiety they experienced as missionaries and also of the difficulty in the overcoming of contextual barriers they had as translators. Both Queen Victoria and Emperor Tao Kwang were manipulated by the missionary translators and the translators＇ anxiety originated from an anachronism in their missiology and evangelism as well as the cultural conflict existing between China and the West. The preparation and translation of The Treaty of Nanking is illustrative of such an anxiety in its extreme that calls for a healthy and cautious ethics of reading on the part of readers and a sense of understanding and tolerance concerning cultural conflicts.