Impacts of Textual Functions and Stylistic Preferences on English-to-Chinese Passive Voice Translation

文本功能與譯者風格對於被動式英中翻譯之影響

史宗玲(Chung-Ling Shih)

《東吳外語學報》 31期 (2010/09) Pp. 33-56

https://doi.org/10.29737/SJFLL.201009.0002

摘要

本研究係以語料庫研究方法調查文本功能與譯者風格對於被動式英中翻譯策略之影響。結果發現技術語料庫中，被動式譯成主動式(PV→AV)之策略比例(86.9%)高於文學語料庫(53.37%)。推測其原因乃係技術文本之功能是有效溝通，故為了清楚地傳達資訊，譯者會將被動式譯成較清楚之主動式結構。然而文學作品之功能是美學欣賞，故譯者會儘量保留原文的被動式結構，導致文學語料庫中，使用被動式譯成被動式(PV→PV)之策略比例(9%)高於技術語料庫。此外，譯者之教育背景及風格亦影響其翻譯策略，例如：具有外語背景之譯者偏愛PV→AV；具有文化背景之譯者偏愛PV→PV，而具有商業及新聞媒體背景之譯者偏愛將被動式譯成其他各種形式。綜合上述，本研究証實了被動式英中翻譯策略之動態特性，不同文類之翻譯會隨著不同文本功能而改變，然而相同文類之翻譯亦會隨著譯者不同風格而改變。

關鍵字

被動式翻譯 ； 文本功能 ； 譯者風格 ； 動態特性

並列摘要

This study investigates how textual functions and stylistic preferences govern the strategies of translating passive voice from English into Chinese through the analysis of two parallel corpora that consist of one technical subcorpus, and one literary subcorpus. The result of analysis shows that there is a higher frequency of the passive-into-active-voice strategy (PV→AV) (86.9 %) in the technical corpus than that (53.37%) in the literary one. My inference is that the function of technical texts is effective communication, so the translators are entitled to change the syntactic constructions of the source texts for the target audience's clear understanding of the translation message. In contrast, literary translation aims to create the aesthetic effect, so many translators try to retain the original passive form and this results in a higher frequency of the passive-into-passive-voice strategy (PV→PV) in the literary corpus than in the technical corpus. Additionally, the strategic variation in the four translated novels is attributable to the translators' educational backgrounds and stylistic preferences. The translator who majors in foreign languages prefers PV→AV; the translator who majors in cultural studies prefers PV→PV, and the other translators who major in business and mass media prefer the passive-into-other-forms strategy. In short, this corpus-based study confirms the dynamic nature of passive voice translation from English into Chinese. The strategic variation in the passive voice translation across text types is due to the impact of different textual functions, while the variation in different translations of the same text type is due to the impact of the translators' stylistic preference.

並列關鍵字

passive voice translation ； textual function ； stylistic preference

參考文獻

Methven, Andrew (2006). Voice changes in translation - A comparative study of active and passive voice in Chinese and English. Retrieved June 23, 2008 from http://www.translationdirectory.com/articles/article1457

Baker, M.(ed.)(1998).Routledge encyclopedia of translation studies.London:Routledge.

Baker, Mona(2000).Towards a methodology for investigating the style of a literary translator.Target.12(2),241-266.

Chao, Yuen-ren(1968).A grammar of spoken systems.Berkeley:University of California Press.

Din-enChen,Chen(2000).English and Chinese translation-A comparative study.Taipei, Taiwan:Bookman Books.