Jihl译: 花了两天的时间把这篇据说是最难理解的东西翻译了一遍,后边肯定还需要校对、纠错等等系列工作。 本雅明的文章原以德文写就,取名“DieAufgabe des
Ubersetzers”。我翻译的这篇来自于百度文库中的英译本,也不知道是不是全,但是我对照了一下其他有些人翻译的,应该说有删节。我其实没有看懂就开始翻译,指望了翻完了也就懂了! 目前中文世界通行的三个译本——1张旭东译《译作者的任务》(见《启迪》,牛津大学
出版社1998年版);2乔向东译《翻译者的任务》(见《中国比较文学》1999年第1期);3陈永国译《翻译者的任务》(见《本雅明文选》,中国社会科学出版社1999版)——都是由佐恩的英译派生而来。由于资源有限,我在豆瓣上找到了张旭东的译本,据说是最好的翻译,我还没有看,等我吧自己的弄好在去看。附在后面,做参考吧。 Walter Benjamin. The
Translation Studies Reader. Lawrence Venuti (Ed.). London:
Routledge. 2000: 15-24
In the appreciation of a work of art or an art form, consideration
of the receiver never proves fruitful. Art, in the same way, posits
man’s physical and spiritual existence, but in none of its works is
it concerned with his response. No poem is intended for the reader,
no picture for the beholder, no symphony for listener. 在欣赏艺术品或者艺术形式的时候,接受者的思考一般都是没有结果的。同理,艺术就是人生理和心理的存在,任何艺术作品都不会理会人的反应。任何诗歌都不是为了读者而作、任何美术都不是为了观赏者而作,任何交响乐也不是为了听者而作。 Is a translation meant for
readers who do not understand the original? For what does a
literary work “say”? What does it communicate? It “tells” very
little to those who understand it. Its essential quality is not
statement or the imparting of information. Yet any translation
which intends to perform a transmitting function cannot transmit
anything but information---hence, something inessential. This is
the hall mark of bad translations. But do we not generally regard
as the essential substance of a literary work what it contains in
addition to information---as even a poor translator will
admit---the unfathomable, the mysterious, the “poetic,” something
that a translator can reproduce only if he is also a poet? This,
actually, is the cause of another characteristic of inferior
translation, which consequently we may define as the (p. 15)
inaccurate transmission of an inessential content. This will be
true whenever a translation undertakes to serve the reader.
However, if it were intended for the reader, the same would have to
apply to the original. If the original does not exist for the
reader’s sake, how could the translation he understood on the basis
of this premise? 那么翻译是为了那些不懂原文的读者所为么?一个文学作品又是为谁而作呢?对于那些理解他的人而言,他“讲”的很少。他的基本功能不是陈述、也不是传达信息。但是,任何试图履行传递功能的翻译除了信息以外,不能传达任何其他的东西——而信息却是无关紧要的。这就是糟糕的翻译的一种标志。但是对于那种蕴含除了信息以外更多东西的文学作品,即便是一个蹩脚的译者也会承认,那种讳莫如深、那种深不可测、那种诗情画意,只有译者本人也是一位诗人,才可能予以复制,而这不才是文学作品最基本的东西么?实际上,这就是那些次等译作的又一特征,我们因此可以进将其定性为对非本质内容的错误表达。如果一个译者为了取悦读者而作的时候,这种情况尤其为甚。然而,如果翻译是为了读者,那么这一观点同样可以适用于原文本。假若原文本不是为读者而作,那么他所理解的翻译却为何要为读者而作呢? Translation is a mode. To
comprehend it as mode one must go back to the original, for that
contains the law governing the translation: its translatability.
The question of whether a work is translatable has a dual meaning.
Either: Will an adequate translator ever be found among the
totality of its readers? Or, more pertinently: Does its nature lend
itself to translation and, therefore, in view of the significance
of the mode, call for it? Analogously, the translatability of
linguistic creations ought to be considered even if men should
prove unable to translate them. Given a strict concept of
translation, would they not really be translatable to some degree?
The question as to whether the translation of certain linguistic
creations is called for ought to be posed in this sense. For this
thought is valid here: If translation is a mode, translatability
must be an essential feature of certain works. 翻译是一种方式。要理解这种方式,就要回到原文考察。因为原文有约束翻译的规则:可译性。一篇作品是否可译有双重含义。一者:在所有的读者当中,是否有完全合格的译者?另者:这个作品本身是否需要翻译,也即,从这种方式内涵看,是否需要?或者可以这么说,即便是有人证实了不能翻译这些作品,但是这些言语产物的可译性仍需要斟酌。因为翻译有一个严谨的概念,所以他们是不是在某种程度上不可译?因此,一种言语产物是否需要翻译,必须提出这个问题。因为这种思路在此是合理的:如果翻译是一种方式,那么可译性就是某些作品的基本特征。 Translatability is an essential
quality of certain works, which is not to say that it is essential
that they be translated; it means rather that a specific
significance inherent in the original manifests itself in its
translatability. It is plausible that no translation, however good
it may, can have any significance as regards the original. Yet, by
virtue of its translatability the original is closely connected
with the translation; in fact, this connection is all the closer
since it is no longer of importance to the original.Just as the manifestations of
life are intimately connected with the phenomenon of life without
being of importance to it, a translation issues from the
original---not so much from its life as from its
afterlife. 可译性是某些作品的基本内在。这不是说这些作品应该被翻译,而是说在原文内核中天生了一种特别的意义,并表现为可译性。这样说起来比较绕口了,其实任何翻译不管它有多完美,都不可能和原文相媲美。但是,由于具有可译性,原文就和翻译密切相关;实际上,这种相关性非常密切,其重要性甚至胜于原文。生命表征对于生命现象没有那么重要,但二者却内在相关,翻译来源于原文——就如生命表征来源于生命,而不是来源于后世。 For a translation comes later
than the original, and since the important works of world
literature never find their chosen translators at the time of their
origin, their translation marks their stage of continued life. The
idea of life and afterlife in works of art should be regarded with
an entirely unmetaphorical objectivity. Even in times of narrowly
prejudiced thought there was an inkling that life was not limited
to organic corporeality. 因为译作晚于原作,因此从没有哪个世界文学在他们原创时期就已经选好了译者,译作标志着原作生命的延续。这种艺术作品中的生命与后世思想应该完全是一种非隐喻的客观存在。即便受那种极端狭隘的思维禁锢,也会有人会认为生命绝不仅是肉体的机理存在。 The concept of life is given
its due only if everything that has a history of its own, and is
not merely the setting for history, is credited with life. In the
final analysis, the range of life must (p. 16) be determined by
history rather than by nature, least of all by such tenuous factors
as sensation and soul. The philosopher’s task consists in
comprehending all of natural life through the moreencompassing life of
history. And indeed, is
not the continued life of works of art far easier to recognize than
the continual life of animal species? Translations that are more
than transmissions of subject matter come into being when in the
course of its survival a work has reached the age of its fame.
Contrary, therefore, to the claims of bad translators, such
translations do not so much serve the work as owe their existence
to it. The life of the originals attains in them to its
ever-renewed latest and most abundant flowering. 只有事物具备自身的历史,而不是作为历史的环境存在时,事物才具备了生命,真正具备了生命的概念。最后,生命的范围不是因为其生命的特征,更不是那些站不住脚的感知和心灵,生命是由历史决定的。哲学家有责任通过更具包容性的历史生命来理解自然生命。实际上,艺术品生命的延续不是比动物种群的生命延续更清晰么?当一部作品在大浪淘沙中存留下来,并具备一定声名之后,这些不单单是传递主观信息的翻译就该出现了。因此,对于那些水平低下的译者而言,这种翻译不是为了作品而作。原作在译作中获得新的声名,并得以发展。 Being a special and high form
of life, this flowering is governed by a special, high
purposiveness. All purposeful manifestations of life, including
their very purposivenesss, in the final analysis have their end not
in life, but in the expression of its nature, in the representation
of its significance. Translation thus ultimately serves the purpose
of expressing the central reciprocal relationship between
languages. It cannot possibly reveal or establish this hidden
relationship itself; but it can represent it by realizing it in
embryonic or intensive form. As for the posited central kinship of
languages, it is marked by a distinctive convergence. Languages are
not strangers to one another, but are, a priori and apart from all
historical relationships, relationships, interrelated in what they
want to express. 正因为这是一种特殊的高级生命形式,其发展壮大自然必然具有特殊、高级的目的性。生命中所有有目的的表征,包括他们的目的性,都有目标,这些目标不是在生命中,而是表现在自然中,表现在他们意义的表达过程中。因此,翻译最终就要服务于语言之间的中心相互关系。翻译本身可能不会表露或者建立这种隐性关系;但是可以通那种初期的或者简约的形式来表达这种关系。语言间的那种明显的融合性质就可以看出那种核心的亲缘关系。不同的语言之间绝不是像陌生人之间的那种关系,而是在他们的表达中相互关联的的关系,这些关系具有历史性,但是又区分于历史中的其他关系。 (back to traditional
translation theory)If the kinship of languages is to be
demonstrated by translations, how else can this be done but by
conveying the form and meaning of the original as accurately as
possible? To be sure, that theory would be hard put to define the
nature of this accuracy and therefore could shed no light on what
is important in a translation. Actually, however, this kinship of
languages is brought out by a translation far more profoundly and
clearly than in the superficial and indefinable similarity of two
works of literature. (回到传统的翻译理论)如果语言之间的这种亲缘关系要通过翻译来表现,那么如果不能把原作的形式和意义精确的进行传递,又怎么能够表达这种亲缘关系呢?进一步而言,这种理论对于精确性的定义就很困难,因此对于翻译重要性的界定也就缺乏了依据。实际上,通过翻译而呈现的这种语言之间的亲缘关系意义深远而明确,绝对不是两种语言下的文学作品之间的那种表面的、无法定义的类同。 To grasp the genuine
relationship between an original and a translation requires an
investigation analogous to the argumentation by which a critique of
cognition would have to prove the impossibility of an image theory.
There it is a matter o