以班雅明的書寫理念閱讀〈譯者使命〉中「字」的旅行－－以「傳達」為例

Walter Benjamin’s Writing Style – Re-observing the Traveling Words in Benjamin’s “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers”

瓦特‧ 班雅明(Walter Benjamin) 的〈譯者使命〉( “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers” ) 是其生前少數發表的語言論述文章之一，也是當前翻譯理論研究經常引用的文章。其中，班雅明提出了許多看似平常的概念與字彙，然因刻意使用辯證式論證的方式，以及其神學、哲學、文學等多方的相互指涉的結果，使得這篇序言引發了不同的解讀，贏得了難解的名聲。
難解的原因之一，在於班雅明刻意為之的特殊用字手法及其論證式的論述邏輯。其中，「意象式思考」(Bilddenken) 對語言所產生的並列與辯證的張力，可謂其特殊用字手法的具體展現。本文即試以〈譯者〉中「傳達」(mitteilen) 一詞為例，並藉由其他相關文章的互文觀察，以據此重新檢視文中該字因此特殊手法所展現的無盡多義性。藉著這樣的梳理，筆者發現到，意象式的思考與書寫實踐的確為翻譯帶來很大的困難，這樣的困難亦使得語言的再譯與再詮釋產生了意義的流變。藉著「傳達」一詞的重新檢視，筆者亦試圖從該文的再譯與評論中檢視該字在其「後繼生命」(Fortleben) 中不斷旅行的軌跡，期能從中得到一些啟發，並為〈譯者〉解讀再多添一些可能。

Walter Benjamin’s “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers” is one of his most important published articles. Although it was published as an attached preface to his translation of Charles Baudelaire’s poetry, “Tableaux parisiens”, this article was written not primarily to offer ideas on practical translation issues, but to account for his continuous and consistent concerns with language and linguistic-philosophical questions. Yet Benjamin’s unique style in his writings, perhaps more poetic and philosophical than scientific or pragmatic, makes them seem enigmatic. Thus inevitably there are many different interpretations of his essays, including this one. Although to fully understand this essay may be an impossible task, it will surely help to look more closely at his writing process here. 　　This article thus looks at similar writing phenomena in Benjamin’s other texts that bear the same concerns with the philosophy of language. The primary focus will be on the Bilddenken (“picture thinking”) – the constant and repeated use of a word root in forming verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc. in order to unravel a concept. One of the most concrete examples of his habitual writerly practice, this tendency or idiosyncrasy gives his writing a foreign sense even to German readers reading them in the original German. Thus obviously Benjamin’s essays will be difficult for readers from any linguistic background, even if reading them in translation, and professional translators will likely be struggling with the possibilities of translatability. 　　Using the verb “mitteilen” (to inform, to tell something) as a concrete example, and also with the help of intertextual readings in Benjamin’s other linguisticphilosophical works, this article seeks to look once again at the method of Bilddenken employed in “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers” with the goal of facing these difficulties that the translators nowadays are still facing.