《当代翻译理论》埃德温 根次勒

Contemporary translation theories

By Edwin Gentzler

1 The North American Translation Workshop

In many academic circles in North America, literary translation is still considered secondary activity, mechanical rather than creative, neither worthy of serious critical attention nor of general interest to the public. Translators, too, frequently lament the fact that there is no market foe their work and that what does get published is immediately relegated to the margins of academic investigation. Yet, a closer analysis of the developments over the last four decades reveals that in some circles literary translation has been drawing increasing public and academic interest.

In the early sixties, there were no translation workshops at institutions of higher learning in the United States. Translation was a marginal activity at best, not considered by academia as a proper field of study in the university system. In his essay \Keeley, director of translation workshops first at Iowa and later at Princeton, wrote,\In 1963 there was no established and continuing public forum for the purpose: no translation centres, no associations of literary translator as far as know, no publications devoted primarily to translations, translators, and their continuing problems\1981:11). In this environment, Paul Engle, Director of the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, gave the first heave; arguing that creative writing knows no national boundaries, he expanded the Creative Writing Program to include international writers. In 1964 Engle hires a full-time director for what was the first translation workshop in the United Stated and began offering academic credit for literary translations. The following year the Ford Foundation conferred a $150,000 grant on the University of Texas at Austin toward the establishment of the National Translation Center. Also in 1965, the first issue of Modern Poetry in Translation, edited by Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort, was published, providing literary translators a place for their creative work. In 1968, the National Translation Center published the first issue of Delos, a journal devoted to the history as well as the aesthetics of translation had established a place, albeit a small one, in the production of American culture.

The process of growth and acceptance continued in the seventies. Soon translation courses

and workshops were being offered at several universities-Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Iowa, Texas, and State University of New York, Binghamton among them. Advanced degrees were conferred upon students for creative, historical, and theoretical work in the field of literary translation. This, in turn, led to the establishment of the professional organization American Literary Translators Association(ALTA) in the late seventies as well as the founding of the journal Translation for that organization. By 1977, the United States government lent its authority to this process with the establishment of the National Endowment of the Humanities grants specifically for literary translation. For a while in the late seventies and early eighties, it looked as if the translation workshop would follow the path of creative writing, also considered at one time a non-academic field, and soon be offered at as many schools as had writing workshops.

But despite the increase in translation activity and its gaining of limited institutional support in the sixties and seventies, the process of growth plateaued. Many assumptions about the secondary status of the field remained. Today, while many universities offer advanced degrees in creative writing, comparatively few offer academic credit for literary translation. One reason is surely the monolinguistic nature of the culture. Howerer, such typecasting is also due to socio-economic motives: labeling translations as derivative serves to reinforce an existing status quo, one that places primary emphasis not on the process but on the pursuit and consumption of \meaning. The activity of translation represents a process antithetical to certain reigning literary beliefs, hence its relegation to marginal status within educational and economic institutions and its position in this society as part of a counter-cultural movement.

Indeed, during the sixties and early seventies, the practice of literary translation became heavily in representations of alternate value systems and views of reality. While not taken seriously by academics, sales of translated literary texts enjoyed unprecedented highs on the open market. Perhaps no one articulated the political urgency and popular attraction of literary translations during this period better than Ted Huges:

That boom in the popular sales of translated modern poetry was without precedent. Though it reflected only one aspect of the wave of mingled energies that galvanized those years with such extremes, it was fed by almost all of them-Buddhism, the mass craze of Hippie ideology, the revolt of the young, the Pop music of the Beatles and their generation... That historical moment might well be seen as...an unfolding from inwards, a millennial change in the Industrial

West's view of reality. (Hughes. 1983:9)

For Hughes, the translation boom of the sixties was simply one aspect of a generational movement that articulated itself in a variety of media. While his view of translation as anti-establish may not have been true of all translation during this period, it did hold true for a large and influential group of contemporary American poets actively translating at the time:

Zdynas's notes seem characteristic of prevailing assumptions regarding the teaching of translation in the United States. He shares the assumption that creative writing cannot be taught, that creative talent is something one is born with. Such a belief plagued creative writing for years before it was accepted as an university discipline. Secondly, Zdanys reveals a prejudice for teaching students how to enjoy the original poem, one that is in keeping with New Critical tenets. His conclusion is not altogether surprising-although he argues against conventional wisdom that translation can be taught at the university, he does it not for reasons Ted Hughes suggested-that it may lead to a change in the West views reality-but because it reinforces a fairly conservative humanistic ideology. This is nowhere better revealed than in a contradiction within the essay regarding the theoretical basis of the course. On the one hand, Zdynas hopes the course will attract students interested in theoretical question; on the other hand, he argues that he himself opposes the restraints of \Zdanys says that \the field. Although, ironically, Yale itself houses numerous such critics who are in fact part of the same department (a special interdepartmental program) in which the course was offered.

Zdanys clearly finds translation a subjective activity, subsuming translation under the larger goal of interpreting literature. His argument that the study of translation can lead to a qualitative %understanding reveals the humanistic agenda. His goal is more clearly disclosed in a section of the same essay in which he talks about the presence of a female linguistics students who, despite Zdany's \misgivings\about what she might contribute to the seminar, actually brought a \Zdanyd contradicts his stated premise-a rejection of predetermined aesthetic theories-when he concludes that although her approach was a \addition to the course, he \hopes\that he \her during the course. The lingering question is \her to what?\

Zdynas's notes seem characteristic of prevailing assumptions regarding the teaching of translation in the United States. He shares the assumption that creative writing cannot be taught, that creative talent is something one is born with. Such a belief plagued creative writing for years before it was accepted as an university discipline. Secondly, Zdanys reveals a prejudice for teaching students how to enjoy the original poem, one that is in keeping with New Critical tenets. His conclusion is not altogether surprising-although he argues against conventional wisdom that translation can be taught at the university, he does it not for reason Ted Hughes suggested- that it may lead to a change in the way the West views reality- but because it reinforces a fairy conservative humanistic ideology. This is nowhere better revealed than in a contradiction within the essay regarding the theoretical basis of the course. On the one hand, Zdynas hopes the course will attract students interested in theoretical; on the hand, he argue that he himself opposes the restraints of \that \essay unfortunately cannot consider\the contrition of deconstruction to the field, although, ironically, Yale itself houses numerous such critics who are in fact part of the same department (a special interdepartmental program) in which the course was offered.

Zdanys clearly finds translation a subjective activity, subsuming translation under the larger goal of interpreting literature. His argument that the study of translation can lead to a qualitative %understanding reveals the humanistic agenda. His goal is more clearly disclosed in a section of the same essay in which he talks about the presence of a female linguistics student who, despite Zdanys's \misgivings\about what she might contribute to the seminar, actually brought a \Zdanys contradicts his stated premise-a rejection of predetermined aesthetic theories-when he concludes that although her approach was a \addition to the course, he \hopes\that he \her during the course. The lingering question is \her to what?\

That unarticulated \with the North American translation workshop premise tend to claim that their approach is not theoretically preconditioned; this chapter attempts to formulate the non-dit present in their works, to analyze those underlying assumptions, and to show how they either reinforce the existing literary edifices or offer a counterclaim that deserves further consideration. Through this

approach, I hope to show that the translation workshop approach actually does both, i.e., simultaneously reinforces and subverts, and that this dual activity, necessarily operative because of the methodology, is in itself a contribution to the ongoing investigation of not only translation phenomena, but of language in general.

2 Frederic Will: The paradox of translation

While Richards's work in translation might be charactererized as an extension of his literary criticism, Frederic Will's literary theory- initially not unlike Richards's- has changed much because of his involvement in translation. Will's work in translation theory is symptomatic of that of many adherents of the American workshop approach. Will first taught Classics at the University of Texas, where he founded the journal Arion with William Arrowsmith. He then moved to the forefront in translation by accepting the directorship of the translation workshop at the University of Iowa in 1964. In 1965, he founded Micromegas, a journal devoted to literary translation, each issue focused on the poetry of a different country. His first theoretical text Litersture Inside Out, published in 1966, raised questions about naming and meaning and indirectly suggests that translation can be viewed as a form of naming, fiction-making, and knowing(Will,1966:15). His next book, The Knife in the Stone, published in 1973, dealt directly with the practice of translation; and parts of it rearticulated his workshop experience at Iowa.

Although Will's early text did not specifically address translation problems, certain relevant theoretical assumptions are visible. Will's project picks up where Richards's left off: he uses New Critical beliefs to try to reconcile recent critical theories. Will's first essay \Naming to Fiction Making\Literature Inside Out appears to agree with a theory of cultural relativism. Holding that different languages construct separate realities and that what any particular word refers to cannot be determined precisely,Will calls into question translation theories based on reference to a universal objective reality. Reality can only be learned, he argues, through the names we give it, and so , to a certain degree, language is the creator of reality. Will also distances himself from theories that posit a notion of univeral themes or motifs, theories which do not view symbol-making as part of a human activity. At the same time, however, Will argues that knowledge of essence is possible:\core of the self, the theme of its efforts, is love,\which is a power unto itself and can bring the outer reality\the focus of consciousness\

power to name we would have remained savages. Language, thus, he argues, takes on our character, out rhythm, our desires, and reveals our true inner selves. Will continues to say that

The self's effort, in naming, is not mere verbal play but is part of its overall effort to translate the outer into the human. This situation follows from the unity of the self. In such unity the expression of a core-movement, the self, all bear the character of that movement. Each expression bears the core's character.(Will,1966:13 )

As opposed to an objective outer reality that can be translated across cultures, Will posits a central common core of human experience and emotions that can overcome the indeterminate nature of language and bring that \naming does not necessarily give us any insight regarding outside reality(that to which language refers), but it does help us to better know our inner selves.

The power of this inner understanding and knowledge is further elaborated in the second essay, \Literature, according to Will, also \tenet of the unity of the original text is also adopted; Will argues that a work of literature \deeply unified verbal event occurring in a self.\important to Pound, are merged with the whole for Will, and \in the literary work, \contextual, symbolic, interpretative, and inner aural and visual overtones- \1966:18). Will's agenda, like Richards' s, is fundamentally didactic, not just in terms of developing competent literary critics, but also in terms of a larger, humanistic goal. Literature, according to Will not only %us the power to understand,\but also serves as a means to understand a higher metaphysical power. Will clearly believes that \power to understand something is 'knowledge' of something.\to know objective reality. He concludes with the rhetorical question, \even about the natural world or about God, except the power to understand them?\4 ). Literary works present us with models by which we can \that we experience as a \deepens and enriches our lives as well as gives us a better understanding of our own true selves.

Will then reexamines his own theory after his experience in the translation workshop at the

University of Iowa and after have after having read Pound. Although his next theoretical text, The Knife in the Stone, retain metaphysical concepts, many of his romantic notion of love and humanistic believes in the power of the heart dissipate. His concept of text becomes less of a unified and coherent whole; instead it is seen as being interwoven with reality, subject to use, change, and variable interpretations. In The Knife in the Stone, Will uses translation as the \brings to the project: The inter-translatibility of languages is the firmest testing ground, and demonstration ground, for the existence of a single ideal body of literature. If there is any meaning, to the ideal of such a body, it will show itself through as effort to equate literature in one language with literature in another,(Will,1973;42)

Again, the opposition includes those who are skeptical about the possibility of translation, those who question concepts of literariness, and those who find the concept of referentiality problematic. Will names Sartre and Mead, whose theories posit inner \of the universal core of human experience, but are, in Will's terminology, \and \constructed\respectively. Though the test of translation, Will intends disprove the \literature-does, in fact, enjoy \argument, when put to the test, dose not confirm his initial presuppositions, but causes him to alter his conception of translation in a manner that may be of interest to contemporary theory.

The change in the logic of Will's argument is most apparent in the final essay of The Knife in the stone, called paradoxically \Traitor\a play on the Italian aphorism tradutore, traditore. Briefly, the article reviews his experience teaching at Iowa. In the course of the activity of actual translation, it became clear to Will that what he was translating had less to do with the meaning of the text and more with the energy of the expression, how meaning was expressed in language. He found himself using a kind of Poundian theory. The cultural relativity thesis that once was so problematical is adapted by turning it back in on itself, not to oppose his practice, but to contribute as an equally always present part. Since language is indeterminate, since we never have access to be the meaning behind specific language, all the more reason to be free and trust not what language says but what the language does. The traditional notion of translation to fall into categories of \equivalences\and of \of the original. What Will

advocates instead is an approach that translates not what a work meaning, but the energy or \

翻译研究

20世纪70年代末，一条新的学术原则诞生，那就是翻译研究。有人认为，没有问自己是否语言学和文化现象真的属于翻译性，并且探索一定程度上的\相等\概念，我们就无法在翻译上读懂文学。

当苏珊.巴斯奈特的《翻译研究》在《新口音系列》上发表，就很快的成为一本每位学生都应该拥有的说明书。 巴萨奈特教授回答了这些翻译的关键性的问题，提供了翻译理论的历史来源，从古代罗马人开始，包含了21世纪的关键性工作。然后，她从时钟，从原文的实际解析探索了文学翻译的具体问题，她完成她的作品，里面提出了进一步阅读的广泛性建议。

作品发表的20年后，翻译研究的领域继续扩大，但是有一样没有变，那就是第二次更新苏珊巴萨奈特的《翻译研究》仍然重要的阅读经典。

《当代翻译理论》埃德温.根次勒

第二章 北美翻译工作室

在北美的很多学术圈，人们依然把文学翻译看作次要活动，机械性而非创造性，既没有让人深切关注的价值也没有让公众的普遍兴趣。翻译者也是如此，经常因这样的事实而哀叹：他们的工作没有市场前景，他们的作品一出版就降为学术调研的空白。然而，近40年来发展的亲密的解析者透露，在某些圈，文学翻译已经吸引了公众和学术界的关注。

在60年代早期，美国高层学习的机构并没有翻译的工艺品，翻译充其量只是一项空白的活动，在大学体系下，作为合理学习的领域，翻译并没有被学术界所认同。埃姆德.基利，一位翻译工艺品最先在爱荷华州和随后的普林斯顿发表的总策划，在他的散文《翻译的陈述》中写道，1963年，不以创办和继续公众论坛为宗旨：据我所知，没有翻译中心，没有文学翻译的社团。没有出版愿意主要为翻译，翻译者以及这些所引发出来的一系列问题而服务。鲍尔.恩格勒，爱荷华州大学的作家工艺品的总编，在这种情况下，成为第一倡导之人，认为创造性写作没有国界，并且把创造性写作项目扩展到了国际性的作家。1964年，恩格勒在美国雇佣了全职主编来做第一件翻译工艺品，开始为学术债权人提供文学翻译。接下来的一年，福特基金会协商拨款150，000美元给德州大学在奥斯丁创办国际翻译中心。1965年，泰德休斯和丹尼尔维斯波特主编《现代翻译诗歌》第一版的发表，为创造性工作提供了一个文学翻译舞台。1968年，《德洛斯》第一版在国家翻译中心的出版，

这是一本专门讲述历史和翻译的美学。文学翻译已经出现了一个平台，虽然在美国文化的产物里，这只是一个小小的平台。

成长与接受的过程一直持续到70年代。不久之后，就有好几个大学提供翻译课程和工艺品，其中包括耶鲁大学，普林斯顿大学，哥伦比亚大学，爱荷华大学，德州大学，纽约州立大学，餅厄姆顿大学。为学生的创造学，历史学和理论学提供高级学位。反之，这引发了70年代后期的专业组织“美国翻译家协会”的创办，为那样的组织，《翻译》期刊也成立了。到了1977年，美国政府为这一专门给文学翻译拨款的人文学科国家授权的创办过程提供了一些专家。不久之后的70年代末80年代初，看上去翻译工艺品好像追随着创造性写作的道路。也有人认为一次性一个非学术性领域会很快的提供到很多学校像写下的作品那样多。但是，尽管在六七十年代，翻译活动有所增加并得到少数机构的支持，它的成长过程已经稳定下来。产生了关于这一领域的次要位置的很多假设。如今，很多大学给创造性写作提供了高级学位，为文学翻译的机构贷款提供了少量的资金。一个原因是文化的单一语言本质。然而，这样的类型转换也因为社会经济的刺激，标明翻译作为衍生的服务来加强现存地位的现状，一个那样的地方起初并不强调过程而是在追求和原始意义的消费。翻译的活动展现了对立的过程到，某一卫冕的文学信仰，因此，它作为反文化运动的一部分，在教育制度和经济制度以及它的社会地位已经降级到边缘地位。

确实，在60年代和70年代早期，文学翻译的实践成为深深的卷入了备用价值体系和现实观的代表。然而，并没有被学者当真的文学文本翻译销售在公共市场受到史无前例的欢迎。也许没人可以阐明在这一阶段政治紧迫性，文学翻译比塔德修斯更受人欢迎的吸引力： 现代翻译诗歌受欢迎的销售发展繁荣且史无前例，尽管这只反映了混合能量波的其中一个方面。这些能量波以如此极端的方式激励着这些年，大部分受到这些的影响：佛教，一个极其疯狂的嬉皮理论，年轻人的反抗，甲壳虫乐队的流行音乐以及他们的后代.....可能会作为、、、见证那个历史性的时刻，内心没有展现出来的，西方工业化的现实观经历着千年的变化。（休斯，1983.9）

对于休斯来说， 六十年代的翻译发展是简单的一代人的运动，用各种不同的媒体有力的表达出来。然而在这一阶段，他对于作为反建立的翻译的观点不一定对所有的翻译都有用，但是这观点对于大型的影响很深的现代美国诗歌翻译群体的确是真的。

在美国，把Zdynas的笔记当作翻译的教材看上去有一种普遍假设的特征，他分享这个假设：创造性的这种潜能是先天性的，导致创造性写作是无法教授。这样的信念在创造性写作作为大学原则被人们接受之前，给它带来了多年的灾难。其次，zdanys以能够教学生

怎样欣赏原作诗歌为傲，其中一点就是要保持新的重要原则。他这样的结论毫不奇怪。因为这将有可能带来西方现实观的新的变化，尽管，他提倡反对惯例性的智慧，也就是翻译能够作为大学课程来教，并不是因为休斯的提倡。而是因为迫于非常传统的人道主义理论。矛盾散文中作为课程没有比揭示出来更好的的理论基础。一方面，zdynas希望课程吸引学生，使他们对理论性问题感兴趣。另一方面，他认为他自己反对受到预先决定的美学理论的束缚。总之，没有说为什么，zdanys只说，这篇散文很不幸，不能思考。尽管，很讽刺，耶鲁的数不清的批评家事实上都是相同系的其中一部分。这些系的课程是客观的，不能改变。.

Zdanys 很清楚的了解翻译是一门主观上的活动，包含着口译文学这一大目标之下的翻译，他认为对于翻译的学习能够使得理解“更丰富”这一定性来揭示人性的议程。他的目标很明确的揭示了在相同散文的同一个部分，这相同的散文讲述的是语言学专业的一个女学生出席研讨会。尽管zdany开始很担心这学生能否为研讨会出谋划策，但是事实上这女学生给审美的过程提出了一个即有价值又引人注意的观点，这一观点zdany曾经在课堂上教过。Zdany否认他的陈述前提，即对于提前决定审美理论的反驳。虽然女学生的方法是是枯燥的课程添加趣味，但最后，他还是秘密的希望自己能够通过课堂来改变她。纠结的是，要把她改变成什么？那不明确的表达“什么”是我要在这章里讨论的主题。与北美翻译工作室相关的学者的前提倾向声称，他们的方法并不是理论上的前提条件。这一章试着构想non-dit在作品中的现在时态，来解析那些潜在的假设，以及展示他们要怎样既不加强现存的文学华厦又不提供值得更深刻思考的反诉。通过这个方法，我希望来证明翻译工作室方法事实上可以两全其美。例如，同时加强，同时破坏。这因为方法必须生效双重的作用，对于正在进行的调查有着积极的作用。这调查不仅仅是调查翻译这个现象，也调查语言本身。

弗雷德里克. 威尔： 翻译的悖论

在理查德的翻译作品很有可能成为翻译批评延伸的特征的时候，弗雷德里克威尔的文学翻译刚开始并不像理查德的作品那样，而是因为他介入到翻译中而使其作品有着很多的改变。威尔的翻译工作理论是有着很多美国工作坊模式的信徒的征兆。威尔首次在德州大学教古典的时候，和威廉爱喽史密斯一起创办了《阿里昂》杂志。后来到了1964年，因为他接受爱奥瓦大学翻译工作室的董事而调到翻译前线。1965年，他创办《微型美噶斯》杂志，为文学翻译做贡献。杂志每一刊都以不同国家的诗歌为中心。1966年，他的第一本理论文本《文学内而外》出版了。文本提出了一个关于命名，意义，和间接的建议性问题，

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