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1、语境与文学翻译（二）林玉鹏 2013.7.2 3.4 Error analysis: a symptom reading By errors analysis we mean the analysis of slight errors such as misrecognitions which are usually regarded as unimportant like a slip of pen or a slip of tongue and which are usually dismissed as casual, trivial or accidental .The author
2、of this paper discovers that these “slight ”errors which may actually be very significant in revealing the translators political or cultural ideology or political unconscious Fredric Jameson in The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act(1981) advocates Marxist criticism which ap
3、plies a political interpretation of a literary text and which involves an exposure of the hidden role of the “political unconscious”. It is to discover in literary text the “rifts and discontinuities” which are symptoms of the repression by a predominant ideology of the contradictions of “History” i
4、nto the depths of the political unconscious.”. (Abrams, 2004, p.152). We think that error analysis is a kind of symptom reading, which may prove to be important in discovering hidden ideology of the translator or the “unconscious” of the text of which the translator himself may be unaware. Let us fi
5、rst look at a notorious error in translating Nathaniel Hawthornes Preface to Mosses from an Old Manse: The wheel-track leading to the door, as well as the whole breadth of the avenue, was almost overgrown with grass, affording dainty mouthfuls to two or three vagrant cows and an old white horse who
6、had his own living to pick up along the roadside 园门里的林荫大路和宅门前的马车道 ，杂草蔓生，偶尔有两三只乌鸦飞来，随 意啄食，在路旁觅食的那头老白马，也可 以在这里吃到几口可口的美餐。（ 翻译论集第774-775页。转引自马红军 翻译批评散论第3-4页） 这再也不是普普通通的翻译，而是原作美 感经验的再度创作。译者和原作者达 到了一种心灵的契合，这种契合超越了空 间和时间上的限制，打破了种族上和文化 上的樊笼，在译者而言，得到的是一种创 作上的满足；在读者而言，得到的则是一 种新奇的美感经验。（翻译论集第774 、776页。转引自马红军翻译批
7、评散论 ，北京：中国对外翻译出版公司，2000年 ，第4页） The Chinese translation of the work by Hawthorne in which the above passage appears was made by a famous Chinese translator and his translation has been highly recommended as a model of perfect translation for its elegance and eloquence in expression. But there is a mi
8、stake in the translation: the word “cows” .in the original becomes “wuya” (crows). Unfortunately one prestigious translation critic neglected or ignored the mistake, and many textbooks on translation methodology published in China keep on citing the above translation as a good example of English-Chi
9、nese translation. And what is more unfortunate or even tragic is that in order smooth out the incongruity between the original and the translation some editors of the textbooks went so far as to change the word “cows” in the original into “crows”. (Ma Hongjun, 2000, pp1-2). This can be regarded as b
10、lack humor. Ma uses this to show that sometimes the fame of a translator outshines his mistakes and people are usually blind to well-known peoples mistakes. We think this case is more revealing than it may look. It can serve as a case of rifts or discontinuities in Jamesons words or symptoms of repr
11、essed ideology. This kind of mistakes may seem trivial: words with similar spellings are mistaken for each other, but we think they serve as a kind of subtexts which may reveal the translators ideology or political or cultural “unconscious”. Just as the slip of tongue was important to Freud in revea
12、ling a persons unconscious, the change from cows to crows may reveal the translators conscious or unconscious that the crow is an ominous bird which is suitable for the general bleak mood and the dark theme of most of Hawthornes stories. Because in the general ideology of Chinese people, the crow is
13、 associated with dark, misfortune and death. Therefore the translators mind “saw” the word “crows” though his eyes saw the “cows”. So did the translation critics and textbook editors. Similar mistakes also occur in poetry translation. For instance, the word “bitchery ” in a line in Sylvia Plaths poe
14、m “Winter Trees”: “bitchery”(meaning prostitution) in “Knowing neither abortions nor bitchery” is changed into “bitterness”（ “不知道坠胎或怨恨”）(Trans. Zhen Min, Zhang Manyi, 1994, p.409张曼仪主编现 代英美诗一百首北京：对外翻译出版公 司、商务印书馆（香港）有限公司，1994). Though it might seem that the translator mistook or confused the word word
15、s similar in shape, actually before her eyes saw the word, her mind saw it first. Or in other word, the translator was manipulated by her ideology in her translating instead of her manipulating the translation. There may have been a picture of a woman suffering in the translators minds eye during he
16、r translation and the picture was formed by the translators ideology. Error analysis is a worthwhile aspect in translation criticism or intercultural communication yet to be explored. We call for more attention to this field and we are sure that this is a fertile land and the exploration will prove to be fruitful. 参 考 文 献Beale,Paul.1991.A Con
