節奏 / Rhythm of Language

 

節奏 金雨田	Rhythm of Language By Jin Yu Tian
我說字幕，有同事誤會我反對翻譯劇。我本意是說翻譯劇有其先天的限制，一流譯筆一流導演一流演員都跨越不了。	TALKING of subtitles, I was taken for an opponent of translated drama.  Actually, I had meant to highlight the inherent limitations of drama in translation, a barrier insurmountable even for the best of translators, directors, or actors.
中國名演員李默然榮休前，我在廣州的旅店裡看電視，他以演莎劇著稱，間中回顧片段，我只能感慨：戴了假髮，他仍然是個中國人。	Li Moran, a celebrated actor in China, was about to retire when I was visiting the country. In the Guangzhou hotel, viewing a special TV programme with flashback clips from his acting career, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him –– despite the wig, the Shakespearean hero remained unmistakably a Chinese.
有一回在東京看能劇，團中有馬來與印尼記者，招待機構事先關照，可以中途離場。五個多小時的戲，我們是越看越入味，如果沒有字幕，如果換了一種語言，可能嗎？	Once I was watching a Japanese noh play in Tokyo with a group of fellow journalists, including Malay and Indonesian colleagues.  Our host had kindly granted us freedom to quit halfway, but the acting turned out to be so fascinating that everybody stayed enthralled throughout a good five hours of performance. Could that have been possible, I wonder, had the play been presented without subtitles or rendered in a language other than the original?
語言是文化的載體，語言是有節奏的，戲劇的性質是面對面，最具親和力，但也最脆弱，翻譯劇常常因語言節奏而削弱了這種親和力。	With its peculiar rhythm, a language conveys the charm of its culture that enables drama, a face-to-face art form, to breed human affinity most effectively.  Yet the genre is so vulnerable that the affinity gets impaired once the rhythm of language turns faulty, which often happens in a translated play.
這和文學翻譯不同，閱讀空間是想像空間，通過閱讀你可以想像一個李爾王，但却無法在臺下改變臺上的現狀。語言節奏是很微妙的，粵語連續劇配華語對白，總覺失味。在藝術波道看日本片和淡米爾片，雖然聽不懂，但那語言節奏傳送出來的感覺，就是舒服。	Literature in translation is a different case.  Reading creates a world for imagination –– the reader can visualise his own King Lear. The audience of a play, by contrast, have no choice but to accept the reality on the stage.  Hence the crucial power in the subtlety of rhythm. Therefore, a Cantonese sitcom would sound flat and flavourless once dubbed into Mandarin, whereas an original Japanese or Tamil movie on TV could well appeal to our sense and sensibility through the rhythm of a language we don’t understand.  That rhythm carries something pleasant to the ear –– and to the heart.   (Tr. Allen Zhuang)
原刊於新加坡《聯合早報》(2000)；後收入《不著地族 / A Lift-Off People》(潘正鐳著，Allen Zhuang 英譯；Singapore: All Publishing House, 2002)；曾貼於譯者早前的網誌 坡港英華 / SingaKong Chinese & English (2011-08-23)，今重貼於此。 【允許轉貼；請注明取自本網頁，並保留源文作者及譯者姓名。】