历史与机构场所中话语建构的译本面目与译者身份——吴经熊《道德经》英译个案研究

Knowledge and Identities Constructed by Discourses at Historical and Institutional Sites——A Case Study of the English Translation of Dao De Jing by John. C. H. Wu

先秦思想典籍翻译的描述性和解释性个案研究一般会涉及两个问题:一是译者以何种方法翻译出了怎样的译本;二是翻译活动背后存在怎样的译者个人、社会历史条件和原因。以民国学者吴经熊的《道德经》英译本(发表于《天下》月刊)为例,译者以副文本为中心,在其中使用了民国时期“人文比较学科”“训诂考据学”和“天主教”话语及其涉及的命题、工具(材料)、方法、规则等,建构和重塑了一个错综复杂的译本面目和道家知识,而这并非学界所认为的“基于学术阐释来批判西方思想危机”的道家知识。同时,译者为了在《天下》这一历史和机构场所获得身份认同,接受、放弃或融合了在不同时期、不同场所中习得的话语,进而建构了一个断裂、错位、变化的多重临时译者身份,而不是一个纯粹的“东方文化救世论者”。这一结论及其涉及的分析方法对其他先秦思想典籍翻译研究也有一定的参考意义。

Descriptive studies and explanatory studies on the translation of pre-Qin classics generally address two questions. First, how do translators interpret the classics, and what do their translations look like?Second, why do the translators do so with personal, social and historical background and conditions? For example, John C. H. Wu, in his English translation of Dao De Jing(published in T’ien Hsia Monthly), employs a paratext-centered approach, with discourses of comparative humanities, Chinese traditional exegesis and Catholicism of the Republic of China period, specifically their propositions, instruments(materials), methods, and rules, etc., reshaping a complicated translation and Daoist knowledge, instead of a scholarship-based one for criticizing western thoughts in crisis as the academia holds. Instead of being a “theorist of oriental culture salvation”, the translator constructed fractured, dislocated, unfixed, and temporal identities by accepting, rejecting and/or merging different discourse acquired from various sites in order to identify himself with different circles in the historical and institutional site of T’ien Hsia Monthly. This conclusion and approach of analysis behind can be employed to address relevant issues of translation studies of other pre-Qin philosophical classics.