“纪录片”概念:一种源自认知语言学的阐释

The Concept of“Documentary”:An Interpretation from Cognitive Linguistics

“纪录片”的概念源自格里尔逊的创造,但这个概念在西文中总是与“文献”如影随形,后来人们倾向于使用“非虚构电影”来称呼纪录片。但这一概念中的“虚构”一词,在西方文化中跨越了想象与现实的领域,难以处置。当下的西方纪录片理论往往用“真实性”来描述纪录片的本质,但这一说法涵盖面太宽,无法彰显纪录片的特性。从西方人对于不同概念的使用可以发现,中文翻译的概念并没有西方文化带来的某些“麻烦”,因此使用这些翻译的概念可以较为清晰地描述和定义纪录片。国内近年引进的西方纪录片理论,之所以定义含混,引起争论,既与西方的社会文化思潮有关,也与翻译者的选择有关。

The concept of“documentary”originated from Grierson’s creation,but this concept was closely associated with the word“literature”in Western languages.Later,documentary was often referred to as“non-fiction film”,but the term“fic⁃tion”in this concept crossed the realm of imagination and reality in Western culture and was therefore hard to deal with.The con⁃temporary western documentary theories often use“authenticity”to describe the essence of documentary,but this statement is too broad to highlight the characteristics of documentary.In contrast to different concepts adopted by western people,Chinese trans⁃lation of these concepts does not have some“troubles”brought about by Western culture.Therefore,the use of these translation concepts can describe and define the documentary more clearly.The definitions of western documentary theories introduced to China in recent years tend to be ambiguous and controversial,which is not only related to Western social and cultural trends,but also related to the choice of translators.