勒菲弗尔“重写”理论视域下的张维为自译研究——以The China Wave:Rise of a Civilizational State为例

Zhang Weiwei’s Self-translation of The China Wave from the Perspective of Lefevere’s Rewriting Theory

著名政治学者张维为所著《中国震撼:一个“文明型国家”的崛起》是对中国发展理念、发展道路、发展实践的精辟理论总结。该书英译本The China Wave:Rise of a Civilizational State推出后,受到全球政要、国际主流媒体及英语读者的广泛关注和好评,成为构建中国特色话语体系、讲好中国故事的成功范例。通过以勒菲弗尔的“翻译即重写”理论为分析框架,从意识形态、诗学以及赞助人系统三个角度,分析三者对译者翻译过程的操纵。研究发现:译者对英文版的内容进行调整的方法,即70%是汉语文本的翻译,30%为改写、重写或调整,明显受到了意识形态这只“看不见的手”的操纵;由于英汉民族不同的诗学传统,诗学因素无形中在字词、句法和修辞等层面操纵着译者的翻译抉择;为了更好地促进英译本在英语世界中的流通和接受,作为英译本主要赞助人的上海世纪出版集团,就像一只“看得见的手”,左右着翻译活动的全过程。

Authored by Zhang Weiwei,a renowned Chinese political scientist,The China Wave:Rise of a Civilizational State,is an incisive narrative of China’s development concept,model and practice.Published by Singapore’s World Century Publishing Co.Ltd.,the English version of the book has attracted global attention from politicians,mainstream media and English readers.It became a successful example of constructing China’s political discourse and telling China’s story to the world.Upon discussing the translation features of the English version with corresponding examples,this paper,with AndréLefevere’s“rewriting”theory as the framework,analyzes the impacts of the three inter-related components,i.e.,ideology,poetics and patronage,on the manipulation of the translator’s rendition process.The results show that:the so-called“70/30 approach”,by which roughly 70%is to translate the original text,and the remaining 30%is to rewrite or revise the source text,spontaneously results from the“invisible hand”of ideology.The manipulation of poetics,or literary traditional differences between Chinese and English,is reflected in the translator’s lexical,syntactic and rhetoric choices.For the wider global impact of the English version,Shanghai Century Publishing Cooperation,as the patron of the translation project,also exerted a profound influence on the translation process.