译言堂（上）
Jason Zhang, P&Q
[2007-8-2]

　　直译、意译的方法之争在中外翻译史上一直从古持续至今我国古代佛经翻译中关于译文风格的质直与文丽的争论，已见直译、意译之争的端倪。在五四新文化运动时期，“信”与“顺”的矛盾引发了一场激烈的直译、意译论战。直译派以鲁迅为代表，提出了“宁信不顺”的主张。早在1918年，他在写给张的信中说：“我认为译本…要使中国文中容得别国文的度量,…又当竭力保持原作的 ‘风气习惯,语言条理’。最好是逐字译，不得已也应逐句译，宁可‘中不像中，西不像西’，不必改头换面。”1925年，他又在?出了象牙塔?后记中写道：“文句仍然是直译，和我历来所取的方法一样；也竭力想保存原书的口吻，大抵连语句的前后次序也不甚颠倒。”1935年，鲁迅又明确表示反对“归化”，主张“尽量保存洋气”。
Looking back over both domestic and abroad translation history, the debate between literal and liberal translation has lasted from ancient time up to the present. It can be found early in the translation of Buddhist Scriptures, where arguments arouse over realistic and gorgeous translation styles. During the May Fourth New Culture Revolution, the conflict between “Fidelity” and “Fluency” resulted into a fierce debate of literal and liberal translation. Those who supported liberal translation, represented by Mr. Luxun, presented the opinion of “rather Fidelity than Fluency”. Early in 1918, he wrote to Mr. Zhang in his letter: “I believe that the magnitude of foreign language should be contained into Chinese version as well as maintain the “styles, tradition, and linguistic form” from original works. Translation should be performed word by word or sentence by sentence, rather the nondescript styles between foreign languages and Chinese than the re-composition. In 1925, he wrote in the postscript of Out of the Ivory Tower, “The sentences are still translated literarily, the way I always did. At the mean time I tried to maintain the tone of the original work, and I didn’t even change the sequence and context of sentences.＂ In 1935, he clearly opposed to “domestication”, and claimed “maintaining foreign styles as much as possible”.

　　梁对此提出异议，读鲁迅翻译的书，“就如同看地图一般，要伸着手指来寻句法的线索位置”。“读了等于不读，枉费时间精力”，“我们不妨把句法交换一下，以便读者能懂为第一要义” 。
Mr. Liang objected these opinions by claiming that, reading the books translated by Luxun is like reading a map, where one must use fingers to trace the routes and positions of sentences. “In which way, reading gains one nothing but a sheer waste of time and energy”, “or we may as well revise the syntax a little bit, realizing the primary goal of readers’ apprehension and recognition.

　　在五四新文化运动时期，外国的新思想潮水般涌入，而白话文处于初创期，还不成熟，翻译时有必要采用大量的外语表达方式，以输入新思想，丰富白话文。因此，在五四后的十五六年间，在鲁迅等人的倡导、带动下，不少翻译家有意识地采取异化译法，一方面吸收了大量的西方词汇，另一方面又引进了西方语言的一些句法结构，从而渐渐克服了汉语词汇贫乏和句式单调的弊病，促进了汉语白化文的最终发展成熟。但是，不可否认，鲁迅的“宁信不顺”的翻译主张，也产生了不少负作用，导致了一定程度的生硬翻译风。张在30年代开始做翻译时，无法接受当时流行于翻译界的晦涩译文，立志要采取“与之相反”的译法，提出用“地道的译文翻译地道的原文”的主张。? 这一时期主要的翻译家还有朱生豪等，他们强调译文与原文的“神似”，比较看重译文的通晓流畅不太注重原文的表达形式，他们的译作主要采用了偏向归化的翻译方法。
During the May Fourth New Culture Movement, when new abroad thoughts flooded into China, the Vernacular Chinese was just begun and far from mature. In the process of translation, it’s necessary to adopt many foreign expressions to import new thoughts and enrich Vernacular Chinese. As a result, in the 15 or 16 years after the May Fourth, as proposed and facilitated by Mr. Luxun and others, foreignization began to be used consciously by many translators, absorbing western words and phrases in large amount, while importing some syntactic structures from western languages. Through this, the disadvantages of sparse words and humdrum sentence patterns were gradually overcome, and Vernacular Chinese eventually matured. However, it's undeniable that, Luxun's claim of “rather Fidelity than Fluency” also led to many negative effects, and further caused a trend of stiff translation in some degree. When he started his translation career in the 30s, Mr. Zhang couldn’t accept the obscure translation style, which was then popular all over the translation field, and aspired to take an opposite measure, claiming “Translate original works into native Chinese version”. Other major translators in this period, including Zhu Shenghao etc, highlighted the “resemblance in spirit”, which means the perspicuity and fluency were emphasized than the expressions of the original works. Their versions were compliant with a translation tendency of domestication.

待续…