譯者的操縱：從Cuore到《馨兒就學記》

Abstract

This study proposes to discuss translators’ manipulation, especially focusing on the manipulations of genre, narration, characters, and plot. The case to be studied is Cuore, an Italian diary novel written by Edmondo de Amicis in 1886, which was translated into English by Isabel F. Hapgood in 1887. The English version was translated into Japanese in 1902, whence the first Chinese translation, Xin’s Journal about School Life (馨兒就學記), was derived. The voyage from Italy to China constitutes a complicated translation process and the differences among these versions place the translator’s role in the spotlight. This study compares the Italian, English, Japanese and Chinese versions, observing how these translators manipulated the texts and inferring that a translator could be a rewriter with an ideological agenda. With some interesting examples from these translated versions of Cuore, this study emphasizes that a translator could in all likelihood be influenced by the moral or poetic norms of his/her society. In the Chinese first translation of Cuore, Bao Tianxiao (包天笑), the translator, localized and trans-wrote the stories therein. These strategies were popular in the late Qing Dynasty, but through my comparison and analysis, it shows that Bao was influenced more by the Japanese translation, which his translation was based on, than by his own creativity. Sugitani Daisui (杉谷代水), the Japanese translator, manipulated the stories first, and Bao was more like a follower. Both of their manipulations, however, demonstrate that they struggled between new and old, West and East, foreignization and domestication, and their struggles are very much connected with the historical and social contexts. In this case, translation is not a reflection of the original but an afterlife that has new purposes and effects.