翻译教学的描述途径

翻译教学的描述途径

Chang Nam Fung [作者惠寄]

A Descriptive Approach to the Teaching of Translation

Department of Translation, Lingnan College

Abstract

There is no absolute truth about the “correct” way of translating, even with regard to a specific text for a specific purpose, correctness notions being determined by the values and attitudes of a culture, and there are competing sets of translational norms in any community at any time. The problem with the prescriptive approach adopted in the teaching of translation practice in tertiary institutions in Hong Kong is therefore that the norms adopted by the teacher to evaluate student works are either divorced from reality, if they are derived from mere theoretical speculation, or they just reflect the values of a certain section of the community, if they are derived from practical experience.

In the first case the teacher is not doing much service to the community, and in the second case s/he is actually taking sides with one particular set of those competing norms. It may be in line with the Chinese tradition for the intelligentsia to be involved in norm-setting activities, but it seems to be inappropriate for the scholar to assume the role of the norm-setter in the classroom, teaching the norms upheld by his/her own school.

It is argued that a more descriptive approach to the teaching of translation practice is not only possible, but also more effective in training competent translators. This approach aims at developing in students all-round language skills and translation skills, and, most important of all, an ability to apply these skills flexibly to satisfy the demands of their clients or their boss, or to seek their own ends. This ability must necessarily be based on a thorough understanding of all phenomena related to translation -- not just products, producers, initiators and receptors, but also the whole spectrum of linguistic and translational norms, their changeability over time, and all the socio-cultural factors that have contributed to the formation of these norms.

1. The Prescriptive Approach to Translation Teaching

All the translation programmes run by tertiary institutions in Hong Kong at diploma and undergraduate levels attach paramount importance to the training of translators (and interpreters). Strictly speaking, they

belong to the domain of applied translation studies, which is an extension of translation studies proper, or “pure translation studies” in James S. Holmes’ typology, and the teaching of their practical courses seems to be more or less prescriptive or normative in nature.

The main problem with this approach is: what are to be prescribed for students? What criteria are to be used to evaluate their translations? In other words, what kind(s) of translational norms are to be adopted in the classroom? And what should be the relation between these classroom norms and those operative in the community?

My experience as a student and as a teacher tells me that there are sometimes a gap between what is taught in the classroom and what is required from the translation profession, as Lance Hewson and Jacky Martin observe:

Students of translation tend to think of the ST as a definitive and somehow untouchable entity which must be preserved in translation at all costs. This is, of course, the result of certain attitudes taught in translation classes, particularly at university level when the ST is taken from a work of literature. It is quite understandable that the “beauty” of the ST is often evoked, but again the reality of the translating profession suggests a very different attitude towards the ST. This is not to say that there are “literary” (and untouchable) texts in one group, and “other”(somehow inferior) texts in another group, but quite simply that the teaching of translation does tend to exploit certain values which the professional will rarely find of use.

This difference in values is clearly reflected in an English-Chinese translation exercise where the students were required to preserve all the cricket metaphors in a newspaper commentary on current affairs, on the ground that failure to preserve these metaphors would not be doing justice to the author. Practical questions such as the possible purpose of the translation, the potential venues of its publication and the comprehensibility of the text to its potential reader were simply not taken into account. It should be noted moreover that in this case source-oriented translational norms that are traditionally associated with literary classics were applied to a text that could be regarded as “vocative” in Peter Newmark’s classification of text types. In contrast, it seems safe to assume that the professional translator will most likely be required to produce a text that is comprehensible to a wide readership, if the text is to be published in a Chinese newspaper.

It seems that this gap is not unnoticed in academia. Generally speaking, those who recognize its existence may take three different attitudes towards it:

1. Academic training is different from vocational training. Thus,