数字化背景下中华文化外译的多模态语用策略

Multimodal Pragmatic Strategies for Translating Chinese Culture in the Digital Era

数字化时代文化外译的文本意义由多模态符号和语言符号共同构建。顺应新时代的发展,由"语言-语境-交互者"转换成"交际者-模态-语境"的语用翻译三元互动模式,出现了"语言"符号与其他模态之间的"主体之争"、语言转换者与多模态转换者的"身份之惑"、数字化认知倾向与数字虚拟空间等的"语境之变"。文化外译因而具有了迥异于话语翻译的多模态语用策略。本研究基于对《韩熙载夜宴图》数字交互文本语料的分析发现:对多模态翻译文本模态间性的处理策略(如"扩展-详述""扩展-延伸""扩展-增强"等图文关系及其复合体)影响了源语文本解读和目的语文本重构。这些策略帮助实施了话语翻译过程中的视角转换、语用充实、信息主位化等语用功能,可被视为文化外译领域中有效的语用新策略。此类研究对数字化时代中华文化外译及其接受研究有一定的借鉴意义。

In this digital era,it is acknowledged that textual meaning is no longer constructed by verbal signs only,but by semiotic signs(verbal and non-verbal)and their interplay.How would this impact the long-assumed triadic pragmatic model of“language-context-interactant”?Will this impact yield new translation principles and strategies specific to translation research and practice in this digital era?To answer these questions,this paper touches on multimodal digital discourses which have long been under-researched in translation studies,by analyzing an IOS APP the Night Revels of Han Xizai.Within the framework of multimodal pragmatics of translation,it attempts to clarify some new variables of the triadic pragmatic model and their enlightenment on the pragmatic translation of Chinese Culture“Going Global”,aiming to enrich the cross-disciplinary study of pragmatics,translatology,and multimodal discourse analysis.The Night Revels of Han Xizai is originally a classic collection of paintings in the Palace Museum.Before digitalization,the silk-made source text contains two semiotic signs(text and image)therein the image is drawn by Gu Hongzhong,a famous painter in the Southern Tang Dynasty,and the text includes inscriptions and postscripts written on the scroll painting.The reconstructed target text is an IOS APP launched by the National Palace Museum in 2015.This paper first takes a descriptive approach to explicate the target text and suggests that the triadic model“language-context-interactant”in pragmatic translation evolves into“communicator-mode-context”,yielding new variables.One of the variables is the“subject dispute”therein the verbal and non-verbal symbols compete with one another to be the code-switching subject.Another one is the“identity confusion”wherein the boundaries between communicators are blurred.The third one is“context change”in which there is a digitalization tendency of the cognitive context.The paper then adopts the system of text-image relations from Martinec and Salway to scrutinize the possibilities of whether inter-semiotic relations can serve as pragmatic strategies in multimodal translation.Confined to the limited space,this study only focuses on the expansion from the logic-semantic relations of this system,which consists of 3 types—elaboration,extension,and enhancement.According to our statistics,100 places in the target text involve the above three types,highlighting pictorial,cultural,and character information.It is inspiring to find that(1)both the inter-semiotic relations and their compound relations in multimodal texts affect the interpretation of the source texts and reconstruction of the target texts,undertaking such pragmatic functions as staging,enrichment,and thematization;(2)the textimage relation is not single and isolated.When more than two types co-occur in the same interface,these relations can be employed flexibly and comprehensively to perform complex pragmatic strategies;(3)the place and quantity of these relations help shape the genre of the target text and deliver the translator’s intention.It can therefore be concluded that inter-semiotic relations arising from the new triadic pragmatic model“communicator-mode-context”can shed light upon the translation of Chinese culture in general,and provide in particular new pragmatic strategies for translating Chinese culture“Going Global”.