纽马克的翻译理论

Chapter 2

Peter Newmark

Semantic and Communicative Translation Guided Reading

Peter Newmark (1916) is an accomplished translation scholar as well as an experienced translator. He has translated a number of books and articles and published extaensively on translation. His publications on translation include Approaches to Translation (1981), About Translation(1983), Paragraphs on Translation段落翻译(1985), A Textbook of Translation翻译教程(1988), and More Paragraphs on Translation(1993).

In his work Approaches to Translation, Newmark proposes two types of translation: semantic translation语义翻译and communicative translation交际翻译. Semantic translation focuses primarily upon the semantic content of the source text whereas communicative translation focuses essentially upon the comprehension and response of receptors. This distinction results from his disapproval of Nida's assumption假定，假设，设想；假装；承担，担任that all translating is communicating, and the overriding最主要的，最优先的principle of any translation is to achieve "equivalent effect". For Newmark, the success of equivalent effect is "illusory", and that "the conflict

of loyalties, the gap between emphasis on source and target languages will always remain as the overriding problem in translation theory and practice"(1981:38). To narrow the gap, Newmark 系统地阐述，确切地表达；规划，构想出formulates his concepts of "communicative translation" and "semantic translation", which in a sense从某种意义上说are similar to Nida's "dynamic equivalent translation" and "formal equivalent translation". Newmarks admits "communicative translation" is a common method and could be used in many types of translation. Nevertheless, he justifies证明……正当/有理，为……辩护the legitimacy合法性，正当；合理性，妥当；嫡出，正统of "semantic translation" in the following three aspects. Firstly, all translations depend on the three 一分为二，二分法；本质对立dichotomies, namely, the foreign and native cultures, the two languages, the writer and the translator. Hence, it is unlikely to have a universal theory that could include all these factors. Secondly, previous discussions on methods of translation, either Nida's "dynamic equivalence" or Nabokow's "literal translation", does not reflect the actual reality of translation method, for each of them either recommends one or 贬低，轻视disparages the other. Thirdly, the social factors, especially the readers of the second language, only play a partial部分的；偏爱/袒/心的role

发挥部分作用in translation. Some texts, such as an expressive one, require a "semantic translation"(1981:62). It can be seen that可以看出by proposing the coexistence of "communicative translation" and "semantic translation", Newmark suggests a correlation相互关系，关联；相关性between translation method and text type.

It should be pointed out that应该指出的是Newmark's semantic translation differs from literal translation直译because the former "respects context", interprets and even explains while the latter sticks very closely to source text at word and syntax level(1981:62). Literal translation, however, is held to be the best approach in both semantic and communicative translation, "provided that如果equivalent effect is secured, the literal word-for-word translation is not only the best, it is the only valid method of translation"(1981:39). Here Newmark seems to only take account of考虑到，顾及，体谅literary translation rather than non-literary translation, which is often rendered more freely in order to communicate the meaning. But he also states that when there is a conflict between semantic and communicative translation, the latter would win out胜出. For instance, it is better to render communicatively the public sign 公共标志bissiger Hund and chien mechant into beward the