《新青年》中所见外国作品题名翻译——“直译”策略的理想与现实

The Translation of Foreign Works' Titles in the Journal New Youth: Ideality and reality of literal translation

五四新文化运动期间,外国著作翻译成为学术界和文化界的时尚,各种翻译理论也异常活跃。激进者倡导"直译"和"忠实",要实现与传统文化的决裂。这种观点被后世的学术界认为是当时翻译理论和实践中新文化发展潮流的代表。这就给人一种印象,好像五四新文化运动中,直译成为所有外国作品翻译者遵循的原则。其实,情况并非如此。考察新文化运动中最有代表性的期刊《新青年》,就会发现,当时刊发的外国作品以及中国作品中提及的外国作品的题名翻译是既有直译的,也有非直译的,而非直译的情况显然更复杂,可谓多姿多彩。这就给我们一个重要启示:在新文化运动期间,多种翻译方法的存在仍是客观事实;"忠实"标准仍可作多元的理解;译语文化对翻译的影响无处不在;倡导直译的观点虽然成为时尚潮流,但在现实中并未也不可能一统天下。

The New Cultural Movement in the May Fourth Period was featured with translating foreign works into Chinese and proposing abundant translation theories by academic and cultural circles.Advocators of new culture preferred'literal translation'and'faithfulness'as a declaration to break up with traditional culture.Thus,it has easily been taken for granted that all translators followed the literal translation principle in that period.Based on the statistics of the representative journal New Youth in the May Fourth Period,the author concludes that literal and non-literal methods were both adopted and non-literal translation was more diversified than expected.This research reveals that the understanding on faithfulness criterion varied among translators;the influence on translation from the target culture is ubiquitous;and literal translation,though preferred theoretically,did not dominate all translation practice in that period.