从语言学视角看莎剧汉译中的“亦步亦趋”

"Dance-to-tune" in Chinese translations of Shakespeare's plays:A linguistic perspective

对待莎剧原文的语序,译者存在两种对立的做法。朱生豪说他会不惜全部改变原文的结构,以使译文清晰流畅;卞之琳则主张对原文亦步亦趋,尽可能行对行翻译。关于莎剧中语序变异及其汉译的研究尚不多见。本文从语言学视角研究莎剧中句元的三种非常规顺序及其汉译,发现在莎剧译者中,朱生豪确实践行了其翻译原则,卞之琳对莎剧原文实际上并没有亦步亦趋,严格遵循这一原则的只有彭镜禧。本文提出,在原文和译文语言里句元的常规和非常规顺序两可的情况下,剧作家如果为了取得某种修辞或戏剧效果采用了非常规顺序,译者应该尽量亦步亦趋,才能在译文中取得近似的效果。

Concerning word order in Shakespeare's plays,there are two diametrically opposite principles.Zhu Shenghao declares that he is ready to completely alter the structure of the source text in order to achieve clarity and fluency in the target text,while Bian Zhilin argues for the principle of'dance-to-tune'and line-for-line translation.There is little research,however,about how to deal with word order variations in translating Shakespeare's plays.Adopting a linguistic perspective in studying three types of unconventional order of clause elements in Shakespeare's dramatic text and their Chinese translations,the authors of this article have found that Zhu did apply his principle in his translation while Bian actually failed to dance to the tune of Shakespeare's original texts.The only translator that has strictly adhered to the principle of danceto-tune is Peng Jingxi.The article proposes that when both conventional and unconventional orders of clause elements are available in both source and target languages,if the playwright has adopted the latter for a particular rhetorical or dramatic effect,the translator should try his or her best to dance to tune in order to achieve a similar effect in the target language.