2024年4月11日发(作者：影子系统)

Language, Culture, and Translating

《

Eugene A. Nida

Since translating is a skill, which requires considerable practice, most people assume that it can

be taught, and to an extent this is true.

But it is also true that really exceptional translators are born, not made.

Potential translators must have a high level of aptitude for the creative use of language, or they

are not likely to be outstanding in their profession.

Perhaps the greatest benefit from instruction in translating is to become aware of one's own

limitations, something which a translator of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men into Chinese should

have learned.

Then he would not have translated English mule-skinner into a Chinese phrase meaning "a person

who skins the hide off of mules".

mule-skinner"

（

For many people the need for human translators seems paradoxical in this age of computers.

Since modern computers can be loaded with dictionaries and grammars, why not let computers do

the work?

Computers can perform certain very simple interlingual tasks, providing there is sufficient

pre-editing and post-editing.

But neither advertising brochures nor lyric poetry can ever be reduced to the kind of logic

required of computer programs.

Computer printouts of translation can often be understood, if the persons involved already know

what the text is supposed to say.

But the results of machine translating are usually in an unnatural form of language and sometimes

just plain weird.

Furthermore, real improvements will not come from merely doctoring the program or adding

rules.

The human brain is not only digital and analogic, but it also has a built-in system of values, which

gives it a componentially incalculable advantage over machines.

Human translators will always be necessary for any text, which is stylistically appealing and

semantically complex -- which includes most of what is worth communicating in another

language.

The most difficult texts to translate are not, however, highly literary productions, but rather those

texts which say nothing, the type of language often used by politicians and delegates to

international forums.

In fact, a group of professional translators at the United Nations headquarters in New York City

have insisted that the most difficult text to translate is one in which the speaker or writer has

attempted to say nothing.

The next most difficult type of text is one filled with irony and sarcasm, since in a written text the

paralinguistic clues to the meaning are usually much more difficult to detect than when someone is

speaking.

And perhaps the third most difficult type of text is a book or article on translating in which the

illustrative examples rarely match…

Some people imagine that the greatest problem in translating is to find the right words and

constructions in the receptor or target language.

On the contrary, the most difficult task for the translator is to understand thoroughly the

designative and associative meanings of the text to be translated.

This involves not only knowing the meanings of the words and the syntactic relations, but also

being sensitive to all the nuances of the stylistic devices.

As one struggling translator summed up his problems, "If I really understood what the text means,

I could easily translate it."

语言文化与翻译》

尤金

A·

奈达

由于翻译是一门需要大量实践的技能，大多数人以为翻译是可以传授的，这种想法在一定程

度上是对的。

但是，认为卓然超群的翻译家是天生的而不是造就的也没错。

有潜力成为翻译家的人必须在创造性使用语言方面有很高的天赋，否则他们就不可能在翻译

这一行中出类拔萃。

也许从讲授翻译中得到的最大收获是明白了自己的不足。

于是

,

他就不会把

"

赶骡人）译成中文

"

剥骡皮的人

"

。

对于许多人来说，在当今计算机时代还需要由人工翻译似乎有悖情理。

既然现代计算机能存储词典和语法，为什么不让计算机来作翻译呢？

计算机是可以做一些非常简单的语际转换工作，条件是要进行足够量的译前和译后编辑加工

但是无论广告宣传册还是抒情诗都决不可能简化为计算机程序所要求的那种逻辑。

如果有关人员事先知道文本的大概，那么计算机打印输出的译文通常是可以看懂的。

但是机器翻译出来的东西，其语言形式通常是不自然的，其内容有时简直不可思议。

再者，仅仅靠修改程序或增加规则也不会使译文有真正的改进。

人脑不仅具有数字功能和推理功能，而且还有内存价值系统，它使人脑在语义成分分析上比

计算机有着不可估量的优势。

任何风格引人入胜、语义复杂的文本

--

包括大多数值得在另一种语言中表达出来的东西

--

非

得由人来翻译不可。

然而，最难翻译的文本并不是文学性很强的作品，而是空洞无物的文本，即政客和出席国际

讨论会的代表经常使用的那一类语言。

事实上，纽约联合国总部的那些专业译员认为：最难翻译的是演讲人或撰稿人什么也不打算

说的文本。

其次最难翻译的是充斥反语和讽刺的文本，因为在书面文本里，有助于了解原意的副语言线

索通常远比演讲人讲话时更难察觉。

或许再次最难翻译的文本是关于翻译的专著或论文，因为其中所用的示例在两种语言里鲜有

对等。

有些人认为，翻译的最大难题是在

"

（接）受语

"

或

"

译入语

"

中找到合适的词和结构。

恰恰相反，译员的最大困难是透彻理解待译文本的所指意义和联想意义。

这不仅要求知道词义和句法关系，而且还要对各种文体手段的一切微妙差别感觉敏锐。

正如一位孜孜以求的译者在总结他的难处时所说：

"

要是我真正懂得了原文的意思，翻译起

来也就容易多了。

"