(完整版)Unit4CulturalEncounters課文翻譯綜合教程二

1、Unit 4 Cultural EncountersSusan BassnettWeliveinanage ofeasy access tothe rest of the world.Cheapflightsmeanthatmillions of people are able to visit places their parents could only dream about, while theInternet enables us to communicate with the remotest places and the traditional postalservicesare

2、nowreferredtoalmostmockinglyas "snailmail."Whenstudentsgooffback-packing, they can email their parents from Internet cafes in the Himalayas or from adesert oasis. And as for mobile phones the clicking of text messaging at any hour of theday or night has become familiar to us all. Everyone,

3、 it seems, provided, of course, theycan afford to do so, need never be out of touch.Significantly also, this great global communications revolution is also linked to theexpansionofEnglish,whichhasnowbecometheleadinginternationallanguage.Conferences and business meetings around theglobe areheldinEngl

4、ish,regardlessofwhetheranyonepresentis a nativeEnglishspeaker.Englishhassimplybecomethelanguagethatfacilitatescommunication,andformanypeoplelearningEnglishisanessential stepping stone on the road to success.So why, you may wonder, would anyone have misgivings about all these wonderfuldevelopments,an

5、d whydoesthe riseofEnglishas a globallanguagecause feelingsofuneasinessforsomeofus? For there are indeed problemswiththecommunicationsrevolution,problemsthatarenotonlyeconomic.Mostfundamentalisthe profoundrelationship between language and culture that lies at the heart of society and one that weover

6、look at our peril.Differentculturesarenotsimplygroupsofpeoplewholabel theworlddifferently;languages give us the means to shape our views of the world and languages are differentfrom oneanother.Weexpresswhatwesee andfeelthroughlanguage,andbecauselanguagesaresoclearlyculture-related,oftenwefindthatwha

7、twecansayinonelanguagecannotbeexpressedatall inanother.TheEnglishword"homesickness"translatesintoItalianas "nostalgia,"butEnglish hashad toborrowthatsamewordtodescribe a different state of mind, something that is not quite homesickness and involvesa kind of longing. Homesickness

8、and nostalgia put together are almost, but not quite, thePortuguese "saudade," an untranslatable word that describes a state of mind that is notdespair,angst(EnglishborrowedthatfromGerman),sadnessorregret,buthoverssomewhere in and around all those words.The early Bible translators hit the

9、problem of untranslatability head-on. How do you translate the image of the Lamb of God for a culture in which sheep do not exist? Whatexactly was the fruit that Eve picked in the Garden of Eden? What was the creature thatswallowed Jonah, given that whales are not given to swimming in warm, southern

10、 seas?Facedwithunsurmountablelinguisticproblems,translatorsnegotiatedtheboundariesbetween languages and came up with a compromise.Compromisingis somethingthatspeakersofmore than one language understand.Whentherearenowordsin anotherlanguagefor what you want to say, you makeadjustmentsandtrytoapproxim

11、ate.EnglishandWelshspeakersmakeadjustmentsregarding the colour spectrum in the grey / green / blue / brown range, since English hasfour words and Welsh has three. And even where words do exist, compromises still needto bemade.The word"democracy"meanscompletelydifferentthingsindifferentcont

12、exts, and even a word like "bread" which refers to a staple food item made of flourmeanstotallydifferentthingstodifferentpeople.TheflatbreadsofCentralAsiaarealong way awayfromMother'sPridewhiteslicedtoasties,yettheword"bread"hastoserve for both.Inevitably, the spread of Engli

13、sh means that millions of people are adding anotherlanguagetotheirownandarelearninghowtonegotiateculturalandlinguisticdifferences. This is an essential skill in today's hybrid world, particularly now when theneed for internationalunderstandinghas rarelybeenso important.Butevenas morepeoplebecome

14、multilingual,sonativeEnglishspeakersarelosingout,fortheyarebecomingevermoremonolingual,andhenceincreasinglyunawareofthedifferencesbetween cultures that languages reveal. Communicating in another language involves notonly linguisticskills,buttheabilitytothinkdifferently,toenterintoanotherculture'

15、smentalityandshapelanguageaccordingly.Millionsof peoplearediscoveringhowtobridgecultures,whiletheEnglish-speakingworldbecomesever morecomplacentandcuts downonforeignlanguagelearning programmesinthe mistakenbeliefthatitisenough to know English.World peace in the future depends on intercultural unders

16、tanding. Those best placedto help that process may not be the ones with the latesttechnology and state of the artmobile phones, but those with the skills to understand what lies in, under and beyond the words spoken in many different languages.文化沖突我們生活在一個(gè)交流非常便捷的時(shí)代。便宜的機(jī)票使得我們可以到那些我們的家長(zhǎng)只能幻想的地方去 , 而網(wǎng)絡(luò)使得

17、我們可以跟最遙遠(yuǎn)地方的人們進(jìn)行交流。在這種情況下, 傳統(tǒng)的郵政現(xiàn)在被戲稱為"蝸牛郵件 " 。當(dāng)學(xué)生們?cè)诒嘲h(yuǎn)足的時(shí)候, 他們可以用電子郵件從喜馬拉雅的網(wǎng)吧或者從沙漠里的綠洲給他們的家長(zhǎng)發(fā)郵件。不管是白天還是晚上, 我們也能通過手機(jī)來發(fā)短信。所有可以付的起這種方式的人都可以隨時(shí)隨地的獲取最新信息。同樣重要的是, 全球交流的革命跟英語的普及是不可分割的。英語現(xiàn)在變成領(lǐng)先的國(guó)際語言。不管與會(huì)者是否是把英語作為母語, 全球不管哪個(gè)角落的會(huì)議和商業(yè)會(huì)談都是使用的英語。英語已經(jīng)變成一種促進(jìn)交流的語言。同時(shí), 對(duì)很多人來說 , 學(xué)習(xí)英語是他們通往成功道路上的奠基石。所以你可能會(huì)好奇為什么

18、有些人對(duì)于這些美好的發(fā)展有所顧忌, 為什么英語作為一個(gè)國(guó)際通用語言會(huì)使得有些人對(duì)英語的不適應(yīng)? 交流上的革命確實(shí)存在問題, 并且這些問題并不僅僅是經(jīng)濟(jì)上的。 最根本的東西是 , 語言和文化之間的不可分割的關(guān)系是一個(gè)社會(huì)的核心, 而我們忽視了一些最關(guān)鍵的事情。不同的文化不僅僅是給不同組別的人貼上標(biāo)簽, 語言是幫助我們理解世界的工具, 每個(gè)語言之間都是有區(qū)別的。因?yàn)槲覀兺ㄟ^語言來表達(dá)我們的所見所想, 而語言是跟文化密切相關(guān)的 , 所以有時(shí)候就可能產(chǎn)生我們能用一種語言表達(dá)出來的東西, 是不能用另外一種語言來表達(dá)出來的。英語的 "想家 " 翻譯成意大利語就變成了" 懷鄉(xiāng)病

19、 ",但是英語有時(shí)候必須要用同樣的詞來表示另外一種意思, 這種意思不是單純的想家,而是包含了一層渴望的意思在里面。盡管不是同一種意思, 英語的想家和懷鄉(xiāng)病放在一起的意思還有所接近的。但是葡萄牙語的 "saudade" 所表達(dá)的意思卻是不能用其它語言來翻譯的。這個(gè)詞表達(dá)的意思不是絕望、憤怒、悲傷或后悔 , 兒是在以上這些意思之間。早期的圣經(jīng)翻譯者就碰到了有些意思是不可翻譯的這么個(gè)問題。比如你要如何把上帝的羔羊的形象翻譯給一個(gè)連羊都不存在的人類文明? 夏娃從伊甸園拿走的水果具體是什么?如果鯨魚在溫暖的南部海域是不存在的, 那么吞掉約拿的生物又是什么? 面對(duì)這些不能克服的語言問題 , 翻譯家在各語言之間反復(fù)琢磨, 然后想出了一個(gè)折中的方案。這個(gè)折中的方案是用不同種語言交流的人們都能理解的說法。當(dāng)你想表達(dá)的單詞在另外一種語言里不存在的時(shí)候 , 你要想辦法來調(diào)整