中英文摘要一定要一致吗?——谈摘要变译

Shall English Abstracts be always Consistent with Chinese Abstracts:On Abstract Translation Variation

统计表明,大学学报25%的中文有缺陷、错误;需要变译却没有变译的英文占79%。因此,必须唤起译者"中文英译需要变译"的意识。中英文不一定要一致。理据在于:一、中文写作的模式与英文写作的模式不一样,翻译中文时要采取形式归化的策略。二、中文英译有其特殊性:由于中文未必能在内容上客观、完整、恰如其分地反映文章原文,译者在内容上可以不忠实于中文,而直接忠实于文章原文。三、中文的缺陷、错误难以避免。四、作者和译者往往不是同一个人。译者必须对存在问题的中文变译,但是没有义务和权利去改变中文。五、中英文的读者不同。即便不修改有缺陷的中文,国内读者也能够依靠文章正文来弥补的不足;而英文必须纠正这些缺陷、错误。文章讨论了变译的方法:摘/删译、增/补译和改译(写);对统计中涉及到的三个变译例子进行简单的评论。

The statistics indicate that 25% of Chinese abstracts in domestic college journals have defects,79% of such defective abstracts fail to go through translation variation.Therefore,translators should be variation-conscious when translating Chinese abstracts into English.English abstracts may not be consistent with Chinese ones.The reasons are:first,the writing patterns of the two kinds of abstracts are different,form domestication strategy is to be applied in the translating.Second,abstract translation is unique.The translator can be faithful to the paper instead of the source abstract,because the latter may not objectively,completely and properly represent the former in content.Third,the defects in Chinese abstracts are almost unavoidable.Four,generally speaking,the translators are not the writers of the source abstracts.The translators have to apply translation variation to defective abstracts,but have no obligation and right to change the source abstracts.Five,the readers of the two kinds of abstracts are different.The domestic readers can rely on the papers to make up for the defects in the source abstracts,but the defects can not be retained in English abstracts.This paper discusses translation variation methods,i.e.deletion,addition and rewriting,and gives brief comments on three surveyed cases applying such methods.