翻译本质的绝对与相对属性

“转换”、“对等”是关涉翻译本质的两个基本方面,如何合理阐释是翻译学的根本问题。本文立足于翻译本质的辩证论,对翻译的性质进行分析和探讨,指出翻译是一项具有“绝对”和“相对”双重属性的活动,其绝对性体现在“转换”和“对等”作为构成翻译范畴的必备条件,而它的相对性则体现在实际“转换”和翻译“对等”的多方面、多层级特征上。文章进而强调,百分之百的转换和对等不是翻译的本质要求,但“相对”意义上的转换和对等却又是翻译的“绝对”属性。

Translation as a translingual act of communication must necessarily involve ‘transfer’ or ‘change’ (i.e., ‘changing from one language to another’) and ‘equivalence’ (i.e., ‘presenting a target language text equivalent to its source text’), but how to account for these phenomena remains an unsolved fundamental issue for translation studies. The present paper is an attempt to offer one model of explanation in this connection. Adopting a dialectical approach to the nature of translation, it posits that translation is governed by two types of properties, properties that are defined in both ‘absolute’ and ‘relative’ terms. On the one hand, there must be ‘transfer/change’ and ‘equivalence’ in order for a target text to qualify as translation; and on the other, no change or equivalence should or can ever be measured in the absolute; and it is the translator’s responsibility that these ‘absolute’ and relative’ properties of translation are taken into account with equal stress