摘要
Over fifty years has elapsed since the appearance of the first and only English language translation of Yen Fuh's "Notes on Translation" 譯例言 (Hsu, 1973: 4-6), in which the principles of xin 信, da 達, and ya 雅 that have shaped much of the contemporary Chinese discourse on translation were first revealed to the world. In the years since, new critiques and interpretations based on Western constructs have come to light with the potential to drastically alter our understanding of Yen's views, yet no new translations of his work have been forthcoming. In this paper, we reinterpret xin 信, da 達, and ya 雅 through the lens of modern communication theory and apply this understanding in a new rendition of the "Notes on Translation" into English, showing, along the way, how scholars have differed over the years in their interpretation of Yen's foundational principles and how a reading based on translation as an act of broadcast communication better fits with Yen's vision. Through this reading, we show also that Yen was not so much a stickler for classical language, as many have made him out to be, as he was a communicator who wishes for his message to reach a maximal audience.
並列摘要
嚴復《天演論》譯本中的〈譯例言〉對於中國近代翻譯論述影響重大，然而其英譯本至今只存在一種，且其詮釋方式仍停留在五十年前所流行的「忠於原著」、「易於理解」、「用詞高雅」等字面解讀，並未如近代相關著作套用西方語用學、翻譯學等各方理論加以闡釋，也未能對於文中關於譯者缺失、背景介紹、文獻探討等論點做出前後一致的交代。基於此，本文從傳播理論的角度重新詮釋〈譯例言〉中的「信、達、雅」，同時列舉各家對於文中爭議點的不同解讀，並提供一款論述一致、前後呼應的新英譯本。以新角度譯出的〈譯例言〉更能凸顯後人對於嚴復的誤解，以及其對於引進西學的用心，說明他並非食古不化的語言復古者，而是一位致力於促進知識、信息廣為傳播的現代知識分子。