摘要
文学翻译批评是整个文学翻译活动中不可缺少的一环,是翻译活动和译作社会接受之间的桥梁。本文以哈贝马斯的交往行为理论为视角,通过对语文学批评模式、结构主义批评模式和解构主义批评模式的批判性研究,对文学翻译批评活动的特点以及译本分析、意义理解、翻译批评标准等问题进行了理论探讨。语文学、结构主义和解构主义的文学翻译批评模式明显存在理论基础的脆弱性和研究的片面性这两个问题。哈贝马斯一直致力于克服结构主义和解构主义语言观本身的缺陷,他的交往行为理论就建立在对以语言为中心的交往活动做出合理解释的基础之上,以其为理论基础建构文学翻译批评研究可以有效地克服传统翻译研究中存在的问题。
文学翻译从本质上说是一种以语言为媒介的特殊的交往行为,是作者——译者——读者之间以文本为中介的言语行为,文学翻译批评以特殊读者的身份参与了对话,旨在理性、科学地评价这种交往行为的效度。文学翻译的交往行为属性决定了其内在地关联着三个世界并同时处于合理性研究的三个层面,交往各主体间是主体——客体——主体的辩证统一关系。传统的翻译批评研究都局限于单一世界和单一层面,其共同的诟病在于割裂了主体——客体——主体的辩证统一关系,从而把翻译批评变成了某一方的“独白”。
哈贝马斯认为言语行为包含“以言表义”和“以言行事”这“双重结构”。以言表义体现了言者的语言资质;以言行事体现了言者的交往资质。结构主义和解构主义割裂了言语行为双重结构间的内在联系,前者只关注语言本身,专注于译本的“内部研究”;后者从影响语言的外部因素着手,专注于译本的“外部研究”。以言语行为的双重结构为基础进行文学翻译批评研究既能根据语言的构成性规则考察译作的语言资质,又能根据言语的协调性规则考察译作的交往资质,对译本进行“全面研究”。
理解是翻译活动中至关重要的概念,是翻译的根本。理解不只是对语句的句法-语义关系的理解,更是参与主体之间的默契与合作,是通过对言语行为有效性要求的理解达到对存在事物的共识。译者不仅要研究原作的语言结构和意向,更要理解原作提出的有效性要求,同时必须使译作满足可能理解的有效性要求。哈贝马斯经由语言的中介把理解活动置于三个世界之中,置于社会“规范性背景”之中,把社会理解作为个人理解的参照与检验,从而有效地遏制了结构主义意义理解的绝对性倾向和解构主义意义理解的相对性倾向。
“普遍语用学”是交往行为理论的语言学基础,旨在研究人们如何选择符合社会交往规范与准则的表达方式和语句,其核心任务在于建立言语行为可供理解的四条有效性要求:可理解性、真实性、规范性、真诚性。这四条有效性要求也是判断言语行为是否成功的标准。在言语行为有效性要求的基础之上我们结合哈贝马斯有关文学语言“文学性”这一特质的分析,提出了文学翻译批评“真实”、“和谐”与“美”的标准。
Literary translation criticism, an intermediary movement bridging translation activity and its social reception, is an important component in the field of translation study. Based on the theory of communicative action, this thesis aims at a theoretical study on the nature of literary translation criticism, the approach to translated text analysis, meaning understanding, and literary translation criticism criteria through a critical analysis of philologist paradigm, structuralist paradigm, and deconstructionist paradigm of literary translation criticism. There commonly exist two problems in the three paradigms: their fragile theoretical basis and the one-sidedness in their study. Habermas has been working on overcoming the defects of both structuralists' and deconstructionists' views of language. His theory of communicative action, which is based on a rational explanation of language centered communicative actions, offers us a theoretical basis to tackle these problems effectively.
Literary translation is a special kind of communicative action in which literary translation criticism takes an active part with an aim to give a rational and scientific assessment on the quality of the communication and to find out to what extent the communication is successful. It inherently concerns the three worlds and stands on the three levels of the study of rationality simultaneously. There is a dialectical and unified subject-object-subject relationship among the participants. All the three paradigms of translation criticism confine their study within a single world and at a single level and thus cut the linkage between the elements in the chain of author-text-reader. They turn translation criticism into a monologue of one side.
Habermas contends that any single speech act can be analyzed from its "double structures": the propositional structure and the performative structure. The former embodies the linguistic competence of the speaker while the latter embodies the communicative competence of the speaker. Both structuralist criticism and deconstructionist criticism split the inner connection between the double structures of speech acts. Structuralists focus on language itself and adopt an "internal research" approach to the text translated; deconstructionists focus on the factors outside language and take an "external research" approach to the text translated. The literary translation criticism based on the theory of the double structure of speech examines both the linguistic competence and the communicative competence according to the constructive rules of language and the regulative rules of speech respectively. It adopts an "integrated approach" in analyzing the translated text.
Meaning understanding is of utmost importance to translation study. It is not only an interpretation of the syntactic-semantic structure of a subject sentence; it is a kind of tacit consent and cooperation reached through an agreement on the validity claims of speech acts among all the participants as well. The translator should not only study the language structure and the intention of the original work, he must also try to understand the validity claims the original work has laid out. What's more, he must make his work satisfy all the validity claims which would ensure the target text reader a good understanding of the text translated. Habermas brings the concept of understanding into the three worlds and the "formative background" of society via the medium of language. He takes social understanding as a reference standard and a technical testing of individual understanding and thereby deters successfully the absolutism and relativism in meaning understanding.
Universal pragmatics, the linguistic basis of the theory of communicative action, aims at finding out the ways in which the participants of a speech act can choose utterances according to social norms and rules. The core task of universal pragmatics lies in reconstructing the universal validity claims, namely, comprehensibility, truth, lightness, and truthfulness for a possible understanding. These validity claims can be used as the criteria to judge whether a speech act is successful or not. We combine Habermas' analysis of the nature of literary works with the four validity claims of speech acts and put forward a new set of criteria for literary translation criticism, namely, the criteria of "truth", "harmonization", and "beauty".
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