的伤心Literary translation

2021年1月19日发(作者：mist)
Literary translation
文学翻译

practices
实践

Literary translation is the work of literary translators. That is a truism which has to
serve as a starting point for a description of literary translation, an original subjective
activity
at
the
centre
of
a
complex
network
of
social
and
cultural
practices.
The
imaginative,intellectual and intuitive writing of the translator must not be lost to the
disembodied
abstraction which is often described as ‘translation’.

文学翻译是文学翻译者的工作。
这一点作为描述文学翻译的起点，
作为在社会和
文化实践这一复杂网络中占据中心地位 具有独创性和主观性活动，是不言而喻
的。译者的想象力、心智及直觉一定不能脱离现实，这就是我们说 的“翻译”。

Literary translators have to connive or contend with the well-established hierarchies
in the definitions of what constitutes literature: poetry, drama and prose
—
usually in
that
order,
of
‘high’
culture
as
opposed
to
‘lower’
categories
such
as
science
fiction,children’s fiction and ‘pulp’ fiction. These hierarchies are reflected in general

assumptions about both the relative worth and difficulty of translating the constituent
sections
of
literary
production.
Such
categorizations
have
been
attacked
by
cultural
theorists,
post-modernists
and
some
translation
scholars
who
have
pointed
out
how
the
construction
of
canons
has
been
informed
historically
by
value-judgements
refracted through prejudices of class, gender, nation and race. These attacks have also
undermined
confidence
in
the
author’s
interpretation
of
what
s/he
has
written
in
favour
of
the
multiplicity
of
readings
by
readers:
the
kingly
or
queenly
author
has
been
dethroned
and
replaced
by
a
fragmented
realm
of
individual
readers
(Venuti
1992). The work of literary translators implicitly and sometimes explicitly challenges
the authority of the canon, the
nationalism of culture and the ‘death’ of the author.

文化是由诗歌，戏剧及散文构成，及通常来 说，高雅文化是和如科幻小说，儿童
小说和低俗小说这类低级文化相对的，
对于这两种层面的认 识已经约定俗成，
文
学翻译者要么默认要么打破这些层面的认识。
普遍观点认为，这些认识层面又反
映在对文学翻译作品的价值与困难都是相对的。
这种分类受到了文化理论 者、
后
现代主义者及一些翻译学者的抨击，
他们指出，
从历史角度看，
经典作品的构建
是任何受到阶级、
性别、
民族及种族歧视等价值判断的影响。
作者写作是赞同阅
读多样性的：
作者权威不在重要，
取而代之的是个体读者碎片化理 解，
而这些抨
击又同时打击了作者在这方面的信心。
文学翻译者的工作含蓄或者明确地 挑战了
经典作品的权威，挑战了文化民族主义及作者死亡论。

A literary translator is bilingual and bicultural and thus inhabits a landscape which is
not mapped by conventional geographies; s/he is at home in the flux that is the reality
of
contemporary
culture,
where
migration
is
constant
across
artificial
political

self-styled
monolingual
dominant
cultures,
as
in
the
Anglo-Saxon
varieties,
that
flux
is
often
portrayed
as
a
threatening,
if
not
a
pathological
state
of
being.
Literary
translators
are
involved
at
a
keen
point
of
cultural
convergence
because
they
translate
those
works
which,
for
whatever
reason,
are
selected
for
translation and which now exist where otherwise there would be silence. They often
play
a
key
role
by
suggesting
works
for
translation
or
regularly
writing
readers’
reports for publishers on books sent by foreign authors or their agents. The eventual
selection
implies
the
work
is
representative
—
even
if
it
is
anticanonical
—
of
a
particular
quintessential
use
of
language
and
feeling
in
the
source
culture.
It
also
implies
that the publishers believe there is
a market
for that literary
translation.
By
definition, nevertheless, any literary translation breaks the nationalist canon because,
however assimilated by the translation and publishing process, it introduces into the
reading
space
of
non-readers
of
the
source
language
a
work
that
would
otherwise
remain an array of meaningless letters or symbols. As the creator of the new work in
the
target
culture,
the
literary
translator
operates
at
the
frontiers
of
language
and
culture, where iden
tity is flux, irreducible to everyday nationalist tags of ‘Arab’,

‘English’ or ‘French’, or to foreign talk seen as irritating jabber.

文学 翻译者必须具备双语及双文化能力，
因此脑中要有一幅不受传统地理限制而
绘制出的格局。文学翻译者处于当代文化的现实流动中，
现实中，
人们在认为划
定的政治边界不断 移民。


Literary
translators
also
belong
to
a
cash
nexus
of
relationships
and
a
tradition
of
social
practices within the publishing industry. A contract has to be signed, payment agreed,
and
decisions about copyright and deadlines for delivery of the manuscript have to be
reached, usually in the cours
e of the translator’s lone negotiations with a publisher.

Payment
may
be
in
the
form
of
an
advance
on
royalties.
Usually,
the
originating
author
accepts a royalty of 8 per cent that in principle leaves 2 per cent for the translator. For
a
publisher who sees the translator as an added expense, a small payment may be made
as
an advance on royalties or a flat fee worked out on the basis of a rate per thousand
words.
Many
literary
translators
argue
for
an
advance
based
on
the
actual
amount
of
time
they
estimate the translation may take rather than such piece-work rates. Grants from
sponsoring Ministries of Culture or bodies such as the Arts Council in Britain or the
National Endowment for the Humanities in the United States are sometimes awarded
to
publishers
to
defray
the
cost
of
translation
(see
PUBLISHING
STRATEGIES).
Contracts
usually include some line about ‘providing a language that is faithful to the original’
and
commit the translator to the correction of proofs.
These arrangements may differ from country to country. In countries with a buoyant
demand
for
translations,
a
publisher
may
have
an
in-house
team
of
translators.
Actes-Sud,
for example, in France, have a company where readers’ reports, the commissioning of

translations and translators, and the whole chain of production is run by literary
translators
who
are
part
of
the
professional
administrative
framework
of
the
publishers
(Mattern 1994). In Britain and the United States, it is more likely that publishers will


work
with
freelance
translators
they
know
or
will
contract
them
on
the
basis
of
word-
ofmouth recommendation (the ‘friend of a friend’), proof of previous work or
by reference
to directories of literary translators.
Literary translators often do not have an agent, because agents are not interested in the
slender earnings to be gleaned from representing literary translators. There are
translators’ associations which will advise on contracts and legal help in disputes, but

characteristically
they
do
not
become
involved
in
the
actual
negotiations
over
individual
contracts.
Literary
translators,
like
all
writers,
are
a
heterogeneous
social
grouping.
Some
can live on their inheritances or the windfall of a royalty from a best-seller, some may
combine literary translation with full- or part-time academic posts or other work, but
freelance literary translators throughout the world depend on the amounts they receive
for
their translations to pay for the electricity that powers the word-processor.
What then of literary translation and the ‘rebirth’ of t
he author? The process of
translation
differs
slightly
from
translator
to
translator
and
is
influenced
by
the
particular
work translated. However, whether there is to be collaboration with a living author, or
study of previous translations in the case of a
‘classic’ work, there are common stages

and problems in the work of literary translators. It used to be the case that translators
did
not
write
about
these
issues
(George
Steiner
1975),
but
there
are
now
a
number
of
casestudies written by translators about their mode of operation (for example Felstiner
1980;