Guided Reading导读

George Steiner was born in 1929 in Paris, France. As a prolific author, essayist, literacy critic, and philosopher, he has written extensively about the relationship between language, literature and society, particularly in light of modern history, and the impact of the Holocaust with his field primarily in comparative literature and his work as critic has tended toward exploring cultural and philosophical issues, particularly dealing with translation and the nature of language and literature.

乔治斯坦纳1929年生于法国巴黎，著作等身，在文学创造、语言评论和哲学方面均有很深造诣。他主要的研究领域为比较文学，写了大量关于在现代历史背景下语言、文学和社会关系，以及是大屠杀的社会影响方面的文章。在文学批评上，他的视角延伸向了文化与哲学，在翻译，语言和文学的本质问题上的观点独树一帜。

The word “hermeneutics” originates in old Greek and its Latin spelling is “hermeneuein”, meaning to understand. In the Middle Ages, it developed into hermeneutics of theology, as it applied to the interpretation of the decrees of God and records of antiquity. Through the reformation of the Renaissance, hermeneutics, applied for semantic explanations in rhetoric and poetics, evolved into a methodology contributed by the German

Romantics, Schleiermacher (1786-1834) and Dilthey

(1833-1911) who interpreted various texts of historical records in their work.

Hermeneutics一词来源于古希腊，拉丁语的拼法为hermeneuein，意义为理解。在中世纪，这个词发展成了对神学的阐释，也就是对神旨以及历史记录的解读。经过文艺复兴时代的宗教改革，阐释学这个应用于修辞学和诗学上句法解释的词语，经过德国浪漫主义学派的哲学家施莱尔马赫91786-1834)和威廉.狄尔泰的努力，发展成为一种具有方法论意义的词汇，他们二人曾在他们的作品中对许多关于历史记录的文本进行了解读。

Steiner’s After Babel is the key advance of the hermeneutics of translation. The hermeneutic approach defined by Steiner is “the investigation of what it means to understand a piece of oral or written speech, and the attempt to diagnose this process in terms of a general model of meaning…It gives the subject of translation a frankly philosophic aspect” (Steiner 1975:249). “Steiner’s initial focus is on the psychological and intellectual functioning of the mind of the translator, and he gives on to discuss the process of meaning and understanding underlying the translation process”( Munday 2001:163 ).His description of the hermeneutics of translation, “the act of elicitation and

appropriative transfer of meaning,” is “based on a conception of translation not as a science but as an exact art”(ibid.). The core of his description is the hermeneutic motion, representing the four moves of translation. 斯坦纳的《巴别塔之后》是翻译阐释学的一个重要里程碑著作。他定义的阐释方法：研究在理解一篇口语讲话或书面文本时的意义问题，用一种意义的普通模式来解释这个过程……从而翻译这门课题具有了哲学研究视角。”最初，斯坦纳的首先思考了译者思维中的心理和心智功能，进而研究了在翻译过程中意义和理解的形成过程。（Munday,2001:163）他对翻译的阐释学描述为：“启发行为以及意义的适当转换”，是“以翻译的概念不是作为一种科学，而是一种严谨的艺术为前提的”。他的文章的中心是阐释的运作，也就是翻译的四重性行为。

The nature of translation is explicated in light of hermeneutics, as Steiner approaches the act of translation in the “four-beat model of the hermeneutics motion”—“a narrative of process”—(1) initiative trust (2) aggression (or penetration) (3) incorporation (4) reciprocity or restitution (Steiner 1975: xvi). Trust is the translator’s belief that there are meaningful ideas in the source text to be understood. “All understanding, and the demonstrative statement of understanding which is translation, starts with an act of trust” (ibid:312). Aggression is reflected in

the translator’s comprehension and expression of the source ideas, as subjectivity is unavoidable. Steiner points out, “It is Heidegger’s contribution to have shown that understanding, recognition, interpretation are a compacted, unavoidable mode of attack” (ibid: 313) “The translation invades, extracts, and brings home” (ibid: 314). 通过阐释学，斯坦纳陈述了翻译的本质。他用这种阐释运作的四重奏模式说明了翻译行为——“过程叙述”——（1）最初的信任（2）入侵（渗入）（3）融合（4）互补或补偿。信任就是译者相信在原文本中，一定有能够可以理解的意义。“所有的理解，以及作为翻译的对理解的外在描述，都起始于信任行为”。入侵反映在译者的理解和对原文思想的表达上，因为主观性是不可避免的。斯坦纳指出：海德格尔在这方面的贡献就是让我们认识到理解、认知和解释是一种简约、不可避免的攻击行为。”“在翻译中存在着侵入、提取和回归的过程”。

The third move of the hermeneutic motion is the impact of meaning and form of the source. “But whatever the degree of “naturalization”, the act of importation can potentially dislocate or relocate the whole of the native structure “(ibid.:315). As Steiner analyzes, the target language and text are being transformed in the incorporative movement, which leads to enactment of reciprocity in order to restore balance to the morals