第19章 英汉翻译笔译（1）
Chapter 19 English-Chinese Translation (1)
—— 翻译的标准、过程和基本方法
一、翻译的标准
翻译标准是指导翻译活动的基本原则，是翻译实践的准绳和尺度。古今中外的翻译理论家和实践家都提出了自己的观点。在我国翻译界，比较全面的翻译标准是清代翻译家严复提出的，认为译文要“信”、“达”、“雅”，即忠实于原文，译文流畅，文字典雅。英国翻译理论家泰特勒认为：译文应完全复述出原作的思想；译文的风格和笔调应与原作的性质相同；译文应与原作同样流畅。
张培基认为翻译的标准也是“忠实和通顺”。他认为：
所谓忠实，首先指忠实于原作的内容。译者必须把原作的内容完整而准确地表达出来，…… 内容通常指作品中所叙述的事实，说明的事理，描写的景物以及作者在叙述、说明和描写过程中所反映的思想、观点、立场和所流露的感情等。
忠实还指保持原作的风格——即原作的民族风格、时代风格、语体风格、作者个人的语言风格等。正如鲁迅所说的，翻译必须“保存着原作的丰姿”。
所谓通顺，即指译文语言必须通顺易懂，符合规范。译文必须是明白晓畅的现代语言，…… 译文的通顺程度只能与原文的通顺程度相应或一致。
忠实是翻译标准中的首要问题，它对原作的内容、风格、语言应有全面的照顾。
要做到忠实、通顺，译者首先必须对原作有透彻的理解，然后把所理解的东西用另一种语言加以确切的表达。透彻的理解和确切的表达都不是十分容易的事，但忠实、通顺的翻译标准应当是我们的理想和努力方向。
对于非英语专业的学生来说，了解翻译的标准、过程和基本方法很有必要。《大学英语课程教学要求》中对翻译能力方面的要求指出，较高要求是能借助词典翻译一般英美报刊上题材熟悉的文章，能摘译所学专业的英语科普文章，并能撰写所学专业的英语小论文。英汉译速为每小时350英语单词，汉英译速为300个汉字。译文基本通顺、达意，无重大语言错误；更高要求是能借助词典翻译英美报刊上有一定难度的科普、文化、评论等文章，能翻译反映中国国情或文化介绍性的文章。英汉译速为每小时400英语单词，汉英译速为每小时350个汉字，译文内容准确，基本无误译现象，文字通顺、达意，语言错误较少。因此在大学英语课程提高阶段对学生进行英汉翻译方面的训练是不可缺少的。
二、翻译的过程和基本方法
翻译是个过程，翻译过程就是正确、完整地理解原文的过程，是用另一种语言再现原作的过程。翻译过程重点在理解和表达，理解是表达的前提和基础，表达是理解的再现，也就是用通顺、流畅的语言准确表达原文的内容，理解和表达是相辅相成的，是一个统一、互动的过程。
理解主要通过原作的上下文关系进行，要全面、细致和深入，不仅要理解语言词汇、句法结构及其习惯用法等各种语言现象，还要理解原作的逻辑关系以及原作的背景知识。
表达就是译者将所理解的内容“忠实、通顺”地传达出来，表达的好坏主要取决于对原文理解的程度、译文语言的修养程度以及译者的翻译经验。翻译是一项实践活动，翻译方法涉及到各种转换、增词、省略、分译、合译、引申、扩展等，这些具体方法将在下两章进行较详细的讲解。这里只探讨直译和意译两种最基本的方法。所谓直译就是在译文中保持原文
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的内容和形式，并非逐字翻译，并非死译或硬译。意译是原文的思想内容与译文的表达方式产生矛盾时所采用的，并非“望文生义”，只是进行了语言形式和意义的综合处理，意译要求译文正确表达原文的思想内容，而不拘泥于原文的形式，也就是兼顾了内容和形式。当能够确切表达原文思想内容而又不违背译文语言规范时最好采用直译，但是语言都有自己的特点和表现形式，翻译时为了忠实地表达原文的内容和文体风格，可以采用直译和意译相结合的方法，直译和意译是相辅相成的，两者并用相得益彰。
此外，翻译时译者需要考虑一下几点：1. 英语句子结构多重形合，也就是英语句子要多使用关联词，汉语句子结构多重意合；2. 英语是介词的语言，多用介词，而汉语多用动词；3. 英语句子多用复合长句，而汉语多用简单短句；4. 英语的修饰语位置可前可后，而汉语的修饰语一般位于被修饰的成分之前。5. 英语句子多用代词，而汉语句子代词用的少。
下面通过具体例子进行解释和说明。例如：
Don’t cross the bridge till you get to it. 不必担心太早。/ 不必自寻烦恼。 Do you see any green in my eye? 你以为我是好欺骗的吗？
Ruth was upsetting the other children, so I showed her the door. 露丝一直在扰乱别的孩子，我就把她撵了出去。
John can be relied on. He eats no fish and plays the game. 约翰为人可靠，他既忠诚又正直。（意译）（eat no fish是一个典故，指英国伊丽莎白女王时代，耶稣教徒为了表示对政府的忠诚，拒绝遵守反政府的罗马天主教徒在星期五只吃鱼的习俗。而play the game是一个习语，与play fair 同义，意思是规规矩矩地比赛，由此转义为“公平对待或为人正直或举止正大光明”等。）
约翰为人可靠，他一向不吃鱼而且经常玩游戏。（死译） He has a good head for mathematics. 他的数学能力很强。
Present at the meeting were the heads of government of the four countries. 出席会议的有四国政府的首脑。
Poor Joe’s panic lasted for two or three days; during which he didn’t visit the house. 乔的恐慌继续了两三天；这可怜虫不肯回家。
It is a long lane that has no turning. 路必有弯；事情必有转机。（意译）（常用于安慰灰心丧气的人等场合） 没有转弯的小巷的确是一条很长的小巷。（死译） It is an ill bird that fouls its own nest. 家丑不可外扬。（意译）
弄脏自己巢的鸟的确是一只坏鸟。（死译）
三、英汉翻译练习题
1. Unemployment is widespread in some countries. 2. The employers there used violence. 3. Mary spoke with restraint in her face.
4. After Aunt Lena had heard about the family trouble, she agreed to look for a job. 5. There is some truth in what he says.
6. Don’t let your imagination run away with you. 7. I can’t even remember clearly what he looked like.
8. He also asked what had happened to me since we separated.
9. Our hearty desire is the establishment of a lasting peace in the world. 10. The workers turned hopefully to that organization.
11. All night long the beating and questioning goes on, the search goes on.
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12. I have been sent here by the Norwegian Shipping Company to talk with you about transportation.
13. Everything he advertised was guaranteed to last ―forever‖. 14. My first thirty years were spent in Western America.
15. An individual is judged by how he serves the collective, but the collective is expected to cherish the lives and talents of its individuals.
16. Jim was no end upset because he couldn’t go swimming.
17. He broke all connections with his past, and with the old society in every way.
18. Then he spoke of the rise of charity and popular education, and particularly of the spread of wealth and work.
19. Grammar deals with the structure of language, English grammar with the structure of English, French grammar with the structure of French, etc.
20. They talked of things they longed for – of meat and of hot soup and of the richness of butter. 21. When her eyes looked up, they were very large, odd, and attractive. 22. Big families had their own difficulties. 23. Whoever works hard will be respected.
24. It is impossible to live in society and be independent of society.
25. This town is a small town, looking much like other towns of its size, but few towns enjoy so many natural advantages.
26. Year after year and century after century the moon goes through its cycles. 27. Easy come, easy go. 28. No pains, no gains.
29. He showed himself calm in an emergency situation. 30. The trial, in his opinion, was absolutely fair. 31. She is an awful fool of a woman.
32. Like his friend he had many wonderful ideas, but he only put a few into practice.
33. We can measure the amount of water in a pot, but we can’t measure its heat. We haven’t an instrument for that.
34. It is only shallow people who judge by appearances.
35. His telescope and his experiments were always bringing him new surprises, and he made notes of his work every day.
36. Smoking is not allowed in the store-house.
37. Many new factories have been set up since liberation in their home town. 38. Milk is sold by the pound.
39. They are not content with their present achievements.
40. Society is made up of people with widely differing abilities.
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附：翻译经典研究（1）
1. 读书的乐趣
The Pleasures of Reading
Bennett Cerf
All the wisdom of the ages, all the stories that have delighted mankind for centuries, are easily and cheaply available to all of us within the covers of books—but we must know how to avail ourselves of this treasure and how to get the most of it.
I am most interested in people, in meeting them and finding out about them. Some of the most remarkable people I’ve met existed only in a writer’s imagination, then on the pages of his book, and then, again, in my imagination. I’ve found in books new friends, new societies, new worlds.
If I am interested in people, others are interested not so much in who as in how. Who in the books includes everybody from science-fiction superman two hundred centuries in the future all the way back to the first figures in history how covers everything from the ingenious explanations of Sherlock Holmes1 to the discoveries of science and ways of teaching manners to children.
Reading is a pleasure of the mind, which means that it is a little like a sport: your eagerness and knowledge and quickness make you a good reader. Reading is fun, not because the writer is telling you something, but because it makes your mind work. Your own imagination works along with the author’s or even goes beyond his. Your experience, compared with his, brings you to the same or different conclusions, and your ideas develop as you understand his.
Every book stands by itself, like a one-family louse, but books in a library are like houses in a city. Although they are separate, together they all add up to something; they are connected with each other and with other cities. The same ideas, or related ones, turn up in different places; the human problems that repeat themselves in life repeat themselves in literature, but with different solutions according to different writings at different times.
Reading can only be fun if you expect it to be. If you concentrate on books somebody tells you you ―ought‖ to read, you probably won’t have fun .But if you put down a book you don’t like and try another till you find one that means something to you, and then relax with it, you will almost certainly have a good time—and if you become as a result of reading, better, wiser, or more gentle, you won’t have suffered during the process.
本文作者贝特·瑟夫（1898—1971），美国著名出版人和作家，于20世纪20年代创建了现代书屋公司和蓝登书屋，出版了大量英美文学作品。他本人喜欢幽默、字谜、双关语、打油诗，发表了诸多此类作品。《读书的乐趣》是他一篇著名的杂文。
1. Sherlock Holmes: 福尔摩斯（英国作家柯南道尔所著侦探小说中的虚构主人公）。
译文：
读书的乐趣
贝内特·瑟夫
人类历来的聪明才智，世世代代所喜欢的故事，人人皆可从书本里获得，既方便又经济——但我们必须懂得如何利用这些宝藏，懂得如何才能从中获益最多。
我对人特感兴趣，喜欢与人交往，了解人。我所认识的最了不起的人中，有些起先只存
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在于作者的想像之中，继而出现在他的书中，最后又活跃在我的想像之中。我从书中找到了新的朋友，新的社交圈子，新的世界。
如果说我感兴趣的是人，别人感兴趣的与其说是人不如说是事。书中的人，从史书上记载的第一批伟人，到街头科幻小说中描写的两万年后的超人，形形色色无所不包。书中的事，从福尔摩斯的神妙剖析，到科学的种种发现，到如何教育儿童懂得礼貌，五花八门无所不有。
阅读是心智的乐事，颇有点像运动：心情热切、知识丰富、思维敏捷才能造就一个好的读者。读书之所以有趣，不是由于作者告诉了你什么，而是由于读书促使你思考。你的想像与作者的想像一道展开，甚至超过作者的想像。你的经验与作者的经验相比较，使你得出与作者相同的或不同的结论，而你在了解作者思想的同时便形成了自己的思想。
单独一本书犹如一个独家小院，但汇集到图书馆则好似城市中的千家万户。虽然仍是各自独立，结合起来可就非同寻常了。家家户户彼此相依，还与其他城市相连。相同的思想或相关的思想在不同的地方出现；人生中反复出现的问题在文学中也反复出现，但不同的时代、不同的作品会提出不同的解决办法。
读书之所以能成为乐趣，只在于你有这样的期待。你若是只读别人说的是你“应该”读的书，那可能就不会有什么乐趣可言。但你若是把自己不喜欢的书放下另换别的，直至找到一本你觉得有意思的书，然后轻松地读下去，那你几乎肯定会乐在其中——假如你能因此而变得更高尚、更聪明、更温雅，那阅读本身就不是一种苦差事了。
（译文参考古今明编著《英汉翻译基础》中的译文） 2. 葛底斯堡演说词
The Gettysburg Address By |Abraham Lincoln
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But in a large sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us; that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
(267 words)
注：葛底斯堡在美国宾夕法尼亚洲。1863年7月1日至3日，北军在此重创南军，扭转了战争局势。战后在此修了一座战争牺牲者的公墓。本篇是1863年11月19日公墓落成典礼上的演说词。 译文一：姚媛译
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