- 學位論文
當西方奇幻遇上東方思想：《地海傳說》系列中譯本之翻譯策略與風格評析
When Western Fantasy Meets Eastern Philosophy: An Analysis and Comparison of the Translation Strategies and Style of The Earthsea Cycle
摘要
《地海傳說》系列不僅奠定了美國科奇幻大師娥蘇拉‧勒瑰恩在西方奇幻文學界的地位，更被譽為是西方奇幻經典文學之一。勒瑰恩以細膩優美的筆觸，娓娓道來一段段探索心靈的冒險旅程，並在傳統西方奇幻的背景架構下，融入道家思想，獨具匠心，因而雖然此系列前三部曲被定位為青少年小說，書中卻不乏富含哲理的議題，更遑論勒瑰恩在沉思近二十年後所推出的後三部曲，亦具有深度。考量到文體類型以及作者淺顯易懂的用字遣詞、富有韻律的章句結構，中譯本採用了乍看之下帶有些許文言風格的手法實為獨特，加上前後三部曲分別交由兩位譯者執筆，卻似乎呈現類似的風格，相當值得從翻譯的角度深入剖析。 本論文將聚焦在《地海傳說》系列的風格，探討兩位譯者翻譯策略的異同之處，同時找出仿古的證據，並與原文相對照，分析仿古是否有其必要或是否在文中顯得突兀。分析方式將從定義風格及構成風格的要素著手，再依據語言、語法、修辭三大項，將地海系列中的語料分成五類：用字遣詞；包含人名、地名、專有名詞的專有名稱；可劃分為對話與敘述的行文節奏；慣用說法及諺語；詩歌。接著，將以中英對照的方式，舉出上述各類的譯例進行探討。最後，藉由統整譯者運用的翻譯手法，歸納出整體風格。 透過大量的譯例分析，儘管在較細部的手法上仍有所差異，但兩位譯者確實都刻意採用歸化的翻譯策略，時不時選用偏向文言或少見的詞語，運用大量四字、短句、排比、反覆出現的韻律，符合中文寫作常見的意合，同時亦帶有明顯的仿古痕跡。然而，相較於勒瑰恩在原文中呈現的簡潔精鍊風格，中譯本雖然試圖捕捉精簡的風格，文字上卻多了層潤飾，少了樸實的風味。除此之外，譯者的仿古策略雖然不少，但手法未必出色，甚至在不到位的情況下，會出現語意不清或翻譯腔的問題，因此，回歸較淺白直接的文學風格或許是一種可行的解決辦法。
並列摘要
The Earthsea Cycle not only raises Ursula K. Le Guin’s status to one of the masters in Western fantasy literature, but is also praised as one of the fantasy classics. Le Guin tells great adventures of the physical and the spiritual journey of the characters with her elegant writing style; in particular, she ingeniously integrates Taoist philosophy in a setting of traditional Western fantasy. Therefore, while the first trilogy is considered to be young adult fictions, the novels are full of philosophical issues, not to mention the second trilogy released after nearly two decades of contemplation and maturity. Taking the genre, simple diction and rhythmic structure into consideration, it is indeed unique that the traditional Chinese translations present a style carrying several traces of archaism. In addition, the first and last three books are translated by two different translators, yet both styles seem to be similar to each other, which deserves critical analysis from the perspective of translation. The present thesis will focus on the style of The Earthsea Cycle, investigating what the translation strategies of the two translators have in common or differ from each other. The evidence of archaism will be another focus while whether archaism is necessary or proves to be abrupt in the translation will also be explored. The analysis will begin with the definition and features of style. Based on the three main categories of linguistic, grammatical and rhetoric, the texts in the Cycle are devided into five subcategories, including diction, proper names (personal names, place names and proper nouns), rhythm (dialogue and description), idioms and sayings, and songs and poetry. Next, examples will be compared and analyzed under each subcategory. Finally, the overall translators’ style will be revealed with a summary of the strategies. With the comprehensive analysis, the two translators do choose to adopt an overall domesticated style despite some minute differences in certain strategies. Both select archaic or uncommon diction, often using four-character length, short phrases, parallelisms and repeated structure, conforming to the common paratactic feature of Chinese writing with an apparent trace of archaism. However, compared with the concise and simple style in the original, the translators seem to achieve the conciseness but with extra embellishment, lacking the simplicity Le Guin displays in the Cycle. Additionally, although the archaism can often been spotted in the translation, the unskillfulness might result in ambiguity and translationese. Thus, one of the possible solutions could be resorting to a plainer and less indirect style.