在此,我們將因理解障礙而難免于誤譯或硬譯的根由歸納如下:
第一、原語(yǔ)所指不明。在大多數(shù)情況下,這是最常見(jiàn)的原因,譯者只好訴諸于各種機(jī)械主義(如按“字面意義”face value、“字字對(duì)譯”word-for-word)的翻譯方法。
第二、缺乏辯證統(tǒng)一的語(yǔ)言觀,受同質(zhì)語(yǔ)言觀的觀念制約,即將漢語(yǔ)的異質(zhì)性特征泛化,沒(méi)有看到外語(yǔ)有異于漢語(yǔ)。以漢語(yǔ)為母語(yǔ)的人對(duì)語(yǔ)言符號(hào)的任意性常常認(rèn)識(shí)不足,面將形、音、義之間的聯(lián)系傾向于看成必然化,從而形成一種文本理解的思維定勢(shì):
在中國(guó)思想中,言語(yǔ)、思考論證及現(xiàn)實(shí)事物的發(fā)生過(guò)程之間有種自然而固有的相關(guān)性。由于中國(guó)語(yǔ)言是畫(huà)意擬聲的,因此雙關(guān)的論證在“似聲者必似義”的原則下可以接受。相似者互相感應(yīng),字聲、字形類(lèi)似者其意義亦類(lèi)似。因此,甚至字、句實(shí)際的發(fā)音,也與其意義有本質(zhì)上的關(guān)聯(lián),也是論證過(guò)程的一主要成分。
關(guān)于這一點(diǎn),索緒爾評(píng)論說(shuō):“每一種語(yǔ)言都有其獨(dú)特而專(zhuān)斷的方法以組織世界并以之化為自己的觀念?!?/p>
第三、語(yǔ)言屏障阻隔或阻斷準(zhǔn)確理解的通道,德里達(dá)稱(chēng)之為“文字的暴力”(““the violence of the letter,”Derrida:1967)。我們從語(yǔ)言文字本質(zhì)特征來(lái)看,確實(shí)具有“暴力”性質(zhì):它一方面可以不顧作者、取代作者“權(quán)威”,而代之以文本自己的自主性(Ricoeur:1991);另一方面它也可以不顧讀者和作者的原意,而以自己可能產(chǎn)生的視覺(jué)聯(lián)想,將意義強(qiáng)加于讀者。利科認(rèn)為,一旦擺脫了文本作者的當(dāng)下性(在場(chǎng)),文本就超出了作者自己,并加之以文本語(yǔ)義的歷史的、心理的、社會(huì)的羈絆,文本產(chǎn)生了自我性。福柯曾經(jīng)從“作者一功能”(“author-function”)的角度談到一個(gè)常常忽略的事實(shí):作者的功能實(shí)際上被“文字的暴力”擠壓在一個(gè)十分狹小的境地里。福氏在其著名的論文What Is an Author? 中說(shuō):
Further elaboration would, of course, disclose other characteristics of the "author-function,”but I have limited myself to the four that seemed the most obvious and important. They can be summarized in the following manner: the "author-function" is tied to the legal and institutional systems that circumscribe, determine, and articulate the realm of discourses; it does not operate in a uniform manner in all discourses, at all times, and in any given culture; it is not defined by the spontaneous attribution of a text to its creator, but through a series of precise and complex procedures; it does not refer, purely and simply, to actual individual insofar as it simultaneously gives rise to a variety of egos and to a series of subjective positions that individuals of any class may come to occupy.
福柯的意思是說(shuō):首先,作者的文本受到他所處的時(shí)代的典章制度的束縛,他是不能隨心所欲的;其次,他的文本不具有什么超文化、超時(shí)空性;其三,作者與文本之間不存在自然歸屬性,文本有其本身的精致人微的發(fā)展程式來(lái)限制作者;最后,文本具有同時(shí)指代多重自我、產(chǎn)生一系列主體的功能,文本作者并不具有主宰文本的絕對(duì)權(quán)威。后現(xiàn)代主義文論家認(rèn)為“文字的暴力”表現(xiàn)為一柄雙面刀:一面對(duì)付作者,一面對(duì)付讀者。
第四,忽視互文性(intertextual)參照的,孤立地就文本分析文本,必然導(dǎo)致謬誤。準(zhǔn)確的理解常常需要參照與此一文本有關(guān)的彼一文本,在相互參照中澄清、探明、校正或冰釋此一文本中的題難。這就是說(shuō)任何文本都不是孤立現(xiàn)象,它與別的文本之間具有千絲萬(wàn)縷的聯(lián)系:
Recent theorists have argued that works are made out of other works: made possible by prior works which they take up, repeat, challenge, transform. This notion sometimes goes by the fancy name of "intertextuality." A work cxists between and among other texts, through its relations to them. To read something as literature is to consider it as a linguistic event that has meaning in relation to other discourses: for
example, as a poem that plays on possibilities created by previous poems or as a novel that puts on stage and criticizes the political rhetoric of its day.