译者声音与译本形变——《死水微澜》2014年英译本研究

Translators' Voice and the Deformation of the Translation:A Study on the English Translation of Sishui Weilan (2014)

李劼人历史小说《死水微澜》2014年英译本长期以来遭到国内外译学界忽视,而该译本因译者强势显声呈现出别样面貌,这在中国现代小说英译史上并不多见。本研究以译者声音理论为指导,以2014年英译本为研究对象,从文本内和副文本两个层面入手,考察译者的强势显声及其造成的译本形变。研究发现:在文本内层面,译者通过对小说叙事结构的改写和译文语言的视觉化与异质化强势显声,使得译本偏离了原文的叙事及语言风格;在副文本层面,译者通过对译本进行去虚构化和历史文化赋值强势显声,从而将小说打造为时代预言和成都历史文化读本。译者强势显声的表层动因在于译者的“另类”忠实观,深层动因在于“契约邀约机制”在翻译文学中的普遍运作。

The English translation of LI Jieren's historical novel Sishui Weilan published in 2014 is largely ignored by scholars of translation studies both at home and abroad.However,due to the forceful presence of the translators' voice,the translation takes on characteristics not commonly seen in the history of the English translation of modern Chinese stories.The present research,guided by the theory of translator's voice,traces the translators' forceful audible presence in this translation on both textual and paratextual levels.The research finds that on the textual level,the translators' voice manifests itself via the rewriting of the novel's narrative structure as well as the visualization and foreignization of the target text,thus deviating from the narrative and linguistic styles of the source text,and that on the paratextual level,the translators make their voice audible via defictionalization and historical and cultural value assignment,thus recasting the novel as a prophecy of the time and a historical and cultural reader of Chengdu.The translators' forceful audible presence is ostensibly dictated by the translators' “unorthodox” view of faithfulness,but fundamentally by “the pact-inviting mechanism” prevalent in translated literature.