真题:
得病以前,我受父母宠爱,在家中横行霸道,一旦隔离,拘禁在花园山坡上一幢小房子里,我顿感打入冷宫,十分郁郁不得志起来。一个春天的傍晚,园中百花怒放,父母在园中设宴,一时宾客云集,笑语四溢。我在山坡的小屋里,悄悄掀起窗帘,窥见园中大千世界,一片繁华,自己的哥姐,堂表弟兄,也穿插其间,个个喜气洋洋。一霎时,一阵被人摒弃,为世所遗的悲愤兜上心头,禁不住痛哭起来。
解析:
阅学生之译文,发现有一个问题值得我们教师注意,即如何在动笔翻译前,能迅速正确地确定英译的主语。如:
1. 得病以前,我受父母宠爱,在家中横行霸道。
学生译文(以下简称“学译”):
Before the illness, I was much petted by parents, doing everything at will in the home.
学译:
Before I became ill, I have received all the favor of my parents, just like a little tyrant at home.
参考译文:
Before I fell ill, I had been the bully under our roofs owing to my doting parents.
我们知道,汉语表达大多为“意合”结构,结构松散,以一个一个看似并列的短句“拼凑而成,彼此逻辑关系不明显;但英语则不同于汉语,它是形合语言,非常讲究句子内部的逻辑关系的“外化”,所谓“外化”,即,使用Connectives来表现其逻辑关系。我国译界有一个著名比喻:汉语句子的结构像”竹竿“,是一节接一节的;而英语句子则像“葡萄”,主干很短,而“挂”在上面的附加成分则很多。可以说,汉译英的过程,是一个由“竹竿”向“葡萄”转换的过程。首先要确定“一节接一节”的汉语句子,选其中的哪一节为英句的“(葡萄)主干”。
上面的汉语原句就含有一定的逻辑关系。“受父母宠爱”是因,而“在家中横行霸道”则是果。“果”应是全句的重心,英译上句,“(葡萄)主干”当选定“在家中横行霸道”而非学生译文所选的“我受父母宠爱”。
2. 一旦隔离,拘禁在花园山坡上一幢小房子里,我顿感打入冷宫,十分郁郁不得志起来。
学译:
When isolated and taken into custody in a small house on the hillside of our garden, I felt like I was abandoned, getting more and more depressed.
学译:
As soon as I was kept apart in a small flat built on the hillside in the garden, I suddenly felt being consigned to limbo, gloomily and disappointedly.
参考译文:
Feeling like being deposed into a cold palace, I began to taste the bitterness of depression and frustration immediately after I was segregated and confined in a small house on a hillside in our garden.
汉语原句有“四节”,哪一部分应该成为英句之“主干”?“我顿感打入冷宫”,还是“十分郁郁不得志起来”?学译都把“我顿感打入冷宫”处理为“主干”,而参考译文则反其道而行之。细细分析,“十分郁郁不得志起来”和“我顿感打入冷宫”,两者也有主次关系。显然,“十分郁郁不得志起来”为主,“我顿感打入冷宫”为次。两者之间,不仅存在时间先后的顺序,而且还存在着逻辑上的“因果”。因此,参考译文处理得当。另一个值得参考之处在于:“主干”(I began to taste the bitterness of depression and frustration)的前后均有附加成分,句子显出“平衡美”。