現象學的翻譯論述——論梅洛—龐蒂感知現象學的翻譯觀

The Discourses of Translation in Phenomenology: The Vision-point of Translation in Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception

綜觀中外翻譯史觀，絕大部份皆在討論譯文的可信度，即便出現甚多的翻譯學論述，泰半也都集中在討論譯文的可接受度，或者譯文的影響程度。較少觸及譯者如何面對源語，以及如何將之轉化成目的語的操作過程。梅洛—龐蒂（M. Merleau-Ponty）的感知現象學，或者更寬廣的，胡塞爾（E. Husserl）的現象哲學的語言觀，或者詮釋學派翻譯美學的闡述，應可提供吾人一項參照。本論文旨在梳理詮釋學派及後現代學派的翻譯論述，尤其針對梅洛—龐蒂的感知現象學中有關語言的論述，探討翻譯作為一種藝術表現形式的諸多限制及可能，以及譯者在進行語文轉換過程中的視角和作為，及其在這項跨文化溝通中的積極角色。 A general survey of the history of ideas about translation reveals that most of them were centered on the acceptability of different (translated) versions of a text, and less concerned with how the translator confronts the source language and transforms it into the target language. The theories of language and perception that we find in the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and of his student Merleau-Ponty, and also in theories of the aesthetics of translation in Gadamer’s hermeneutics, might offer us a useful frame of reference. This paper will present and criticize the discourses of translation that we find in both hermeneutics and phenomenology, insofar as these are tied to Merleau-Ponty’s ideas about language. Merleau-Ponty takes language as a sort of “visual field” or totality, a field of perception, so that translating the words of one language into those of another can in effect be “seen” as the transformation of an entire linguistic-visual “field”, and thus in effect also as an artistic transformation such as we might have if one painting were gradually (or suddenly) transformed into another. Thus linguistic transformation becomes a key concept, and here I would also like to relate this conception to the constructive role of translation in cross-cultural communication.

A general survey of the history of ideas about translation reveals that most of them were centered on the acceptability of different (translated) versions of a text, and less concerned with how the translator confronts the source language and transforms it into the target language. The theories of language and perception that we find in the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and of his student Merleau-Ponty, and also in theories of the aesthetics of translation in Gadamer’s hermeneutics, might offer us a useful frame of reference. This paper will present and criticize the discourses of translation that we find in both hermeneutics and phenomenology, insofar as these are tied to Merleau-Ponty’s ideas about language. Merleau-Ponty takes language as a sort of “visual field” or totality, a field of perception, so that translating the words of one language into those of another can in effect be “seen” as the transformation of an entire linguistic-visual “field”, and thus in effect also as an artistic transformation such as we might have if one painting were gradually (or suddenly) transformed into another. Thus linguistic transformation becomes a key concept, and here I would also like to relate this conception to the constructive role of translation in cross-cultural communication.