Cultural Presupposition and Decision-Making in the Functional Approach to Translation

文化預設與譯者之抉擇

10.7118/JHSS.200806.0083

陳淑明(Shu-Ming Chen)

翻譯目的 ； 譯者 ； 文化預設 ； 抉擇 ； translator ； purposes ； cultural presupposition ； decision-making

人文暨社會科學期刊

4卷1期（2008 / 06 / 01）

83 - 89

英文

中文字“豆腐”到底是要譯成英文的tofu或bean curd或bean curd加上註解呢？翻譯者如何從這三種可能的譯法中，選出適合其譯文的譯詞呢？而譯者在做抉擇時，所依據的原則又是什麼呢？本文要探討的就是類似像豆腐這樣的文化詞彙的譯法問題。 以像“豆腐”這樣的文化詞彙做爲討論的題材，本文在研究譯者如何在一些似乎都合適的譯法中做取捨，並且找出最符合譯文讀者需求的翻譯。作者採用功能學派(functional theories to translation)中諾德(Nord, 1997)的理論，試著要找出譯者在做抉擇時可遵行的法則。諾德的理論中，談論到預設(presupposition)這樣的問題，他認爲譯者在翻譯前，須預先猜測其讀者背景知識的多寡，尤其是與文化相關的翻譯，更是須要做到這一點。本篇將深入探討文化預設和譯者的抉擇之間的關係。

Baker (1992, p. 259) defined the term ”presupposition” as a pragmatic inference relating to the linguistic and extra-linguistic knowledge that a sender assumes the receivers to have or which is necessary to retrieve the sender's message. For example, the sentence ”Bill's wife is beautiful” presupposes the fact that he is married, and the sentence ”Helen regrets being angry with her boyfriend” presupposes that she was angry with him in the past. Regarding the concept of presupposition in translation, what matters is the concept of cultural presupposition because culture-or socio-culture-specific information may exist anywhere in source texts (ST), a detail that a responsible translator should not ignore when translating STs. By following Holz-Mänttäri's (1984) translation action theory, translation is viewed as a human activity having purposes and involving intercultural transfer. When a professional translator, being an intercultural mediator, translates the Chinese word 豆腐 into English as ”tofu” instead of ”bean curd, ” it may be supposed that the target readers have seen the word ”tofu” and know that it is a kind of Chinese food made from soybeans; alternatively, it may be assumed that the target readers are vegetarians or persons who like oriental meals. However, a problem may occur when a translator discovers that the target readers do not possess the aforementioned knowledge about 豆腐. The translator then has to make a decision to choose either ”tofu, ” ”bean curd, ” or ”bean curd” plus an explanation as the translated version. In Nord's (1997) model, she asserts that a translator should first compare the ST and TT profiles defined in the commission, such as the intended text function and the addressees, to determine where the two texts may diverge before starting translation; then, the translator analyzes the ST to decide on the functional priorities for the translation strategies. Nord then provides a list of intratextual factors for an ST analysis, a presuppositional analysis being one of them. When analyzing the presupposition, a translator may discover that many difficult problems result from the divergence in cultural backgrounds between the TT and the ST readers. When examining the study of translation from a prospective angle, cultural presupposition is considered to play a large role in the impression that a translator makes on the TT readers. A translator providing sufficient or poor cultural backgrounds for these readers, whether consciously or unconsciously, will cause a different effect and impact on them. A translator well acquainted with the concept of cultural presupposition has an advantage to apply it freely to successfully achieve goals based on the translation purposes.

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