ARGUMENT198 by zephyrqq 意外了一下，差点不会写

zephyrqqUID: 2260290

ARGUMENT198 - There is a general idea that a translation always fails to preserve some of the qualities that distinguish the original work-i.e., that 'something always gets lost in translation.' Writers, critics, and the general reading public unthinkingly accept this cliché. But this belief is unwarranted: translators are sometimes distinguished authors themselves, and some authors may even translate their own works. As the translator pointed out in the preface to an English version of Dante's works, the violin and the piano make different sounds, but they can play what is recognizably the same piece of music.
字数：267  530        用时：00:40:00    加50分钟     日期：2008-2-23 21:10:59

1.杰出的作家也不能保证可以充分理解别人写的作品
2.翻译自己的作品也会受到语言的限制，无法准确表达
3.还有一部分译者不是杰出作家也不是原著的作者
4.小提琴和钢琴比喻不通的语言是不合适的


Before accepting the author's assertion that the general idea, which insists that a translation always could not preserve part of the qualities that distinguish the original work, we should make a contemplation on what is presented in this argument once more. The author try to support his opinion by evaluating the translating capacity of translators and cited a saying by a translator. but he commits some apparent fallacies which inevitably undermine his conclusion.

To begin with, the author indicates that some of the translators are prominent writer themselves. However, this fact could not serves as a guarantee that these gifted writer could develop a exact and accurate understanding of all the details of a work of another writer from their own country, let alone one from a different nation with total different customs and cultural characteristics. What is more ridiculous than expecting someone who could hardly understand an original work to produce a translation that could contain all its wonderful qualities?

Moreover the fact that some authors may even translate their own works lent less support to his conclusion. The reason is that the differences exist between different language often evolve their diverse cultural backgrounds, value systems and so on.  Some expression and aesthetical charm is the speciality of a certain language, and anyone who try to find a counterpart in the language system of another language might end up with getting nothing. Even if they are the writer themselves and they could grasp all the ideas of their own literary work would like to express, it is equally possible that they could not express all this meaning  exactly in a different language.

Furthermore, the author turns a blind eye to those translators who are actually neither outstanding writers nor the authors of what their have translated. It is quite understandable that there is even less possibilities for them to bring about a translation that could maintain the unique qualities of the original work. Most of them could neither understand the original work properly nor grasp a excellent skill in writing. Consequently, they tend to translate even worse than the two groups of translators mentioned above.

Finally, different languages could not be compare to different music instruments. They are too dissimilar to justify an analogical relationship. Common sense tells us that it is not so difficult for musicians with diverse music instrument to play the same music，because all these instruments  could simply share the same musical scales. However, different languages share less this kind of simple things. What is more, although the violin and the piano could play the same piece of music, they endow quite distinguishing style to it respectively. As a result, this inappropriate comparison could not be used as a strong bolster to the author’s view.


For all these foregoing reasons, one does not have to go very far to see that the author's conclusion is unconvincing. Therefore, we could not accept that a translation can always manage to convey all the distinguish qualities of the original works due to the auther's failure to make ua believe that translators could understand all the precise meanings lie in original works and express this meanings perfectly.

[ 本帖最后由 zephyrqq 于 2008-3-6 19:13 编辑 ]