什麼是好翻譯？

2020年2月27日

翻譯這檔事介紹Benjamin Moser在《紐約時報》的一篇翻譯批評文章，我覺得很值得參考。我摘了一些段落，放在後面，以便不想閱讀全文的人參考。

在當了自由譯者逾十年後，我頗深刻感受到，翻譯工作可說是個相當不幸的職業。這種不幸並非只是譯者普遍地位不高、收入偏低之類，雖然這對譯者來說確實很不幸。問題還涉及非譯者也理應關心的公共利益：翻譯，尤其是以大眾為目標受眾的翻譯工作，對社會非常重要，但長久以來因為各種難以改變的結構因素，從事翻譯工作的優秀人才一直顯著不足，翻譯品質（例如書籍翻譯的品質）長期良莠不齊，結果翻譯工作未能產生它應有的社會作用，譯者的地位和待遇也因此更難提升，結果是問題長期無解。

對譯作尖酸刻薄、沒有見地的批評固然傷人，而且無助提升翻譯品質，但因為各種不成理由的原因，容不下健康合理的翻譯批評，宣揚縱容劣譯的歪理，影響是否可能更壞？

老實說，我做自由筆譯工作十幾年之後，真的有點心灰意冷。主要不是害怕尖銳的批評，也不是對十年如一日的收入灰心，而是用心付出的工作結果，隨便一個阿貓阿狗因為有某種社會重視的身分地位，隨便一句他「覺得翻譯有問題」，也不用拿出什麼證據，你這個職業譯者就可能被懷疑，作品可能就此被冷藏起來。

結論是沒有多少人真的理解和尊重翻譯這門技藝，沒有多少人真的認為翻譯是種專業。

Did He Really Say That? On the Perils and Pitfalls of Translation

By Benjamin Moser

//“What is a good translation?” Briggs asks. Like so many other questions in this book, this one is posed as a head-scratching koan. But it is usually quite easy to distinguish between a good and bad translation. Though we quibble about diction, and though critical evaluations will diverge, we can at the very least agree that a translation that misrepresents the author’s meaning is bad.

But arguments like Briggs’s are surprisingly common when working with translation. They are compounded by the insistence that translators be respected as artists — no matter the quality of their work.

In any event, is it really too much to ask that Mann’s translator have good German? If so, should we wish to see this neglect of basic professional competence extended to other fields: dentistry, say, or aviation? But if translators are independent artists, the howler becomes a creative choice, criticism becomes “shaming” or “policing,” and standards become a simple matter of opinion. This is where I resist the insistence that translation is an unambiguous good. If that is true, then it follows that any translation, and any translator, is good, too; and it becomes possible to sing the praises of the Lowe-Porters: as artists entitled to their caprices.

Good translators approach their work in all sorts of different ways. They have egos as big as successful people in any other arena, but the ones I respect are keenly aware of the difference between creativity and appropriation.//