以源语为中心的《中国短篇小说》英译策略及其命运

Source-oriented Translation and the Forgotten Short Stories from China

二十世纪三十年代中期,由乔治·肯尼迪英译、艾格尼丝·史沫特莱作序的《中国短篇小说》在英、美、苏出版,成为"第一部中国革命小说译文集"。然而,该集却并未如稍后出版的一些英译中国短篇小说选集或单行本一样引起英美主流媒体的关注和欢迎。中外后世文学及翻译研究者也均未提及。钩沉该集译介始末,对比该集与同期其他中国现代小说选集或单行本的译介策略,发现无论是序言作者还是译者均以源语文化价值观为旨归,公然挑战或无视目的语国家主流价值观。这种以源语为中心的译介策略,最终导致译本被忽略、被遗忘的命运。

Short Stories from China,translated by George Kennedy,with an introduction written by Agnes Smedley,was published in the mid-1930 s. Being the first collection of translated Chinese revolutionary stories,it was not as well acclaimed as other translated Chinese novels or anthologies in the English-speaking world,and this pioneering translation activity has won little attention from literary scholars and translation scholars. This paper intends to shed light on the history of this forgotten translation activity and the reason for its poor reception. It turns out that the strategy adopted by the writer of the introduction and the translator was source-oriented. Running counter to the dominant values in the target system,it resulted in the poor reception of the anthology.