翻译评析：第二十二届韩素音青年翻译奖竟赛英译汉译文和译文评析-2.doc

Hidden Within Technologys Empire, a Republic of Letters 隐藏于技术帝国的文学界索尔?贝妻When I was a boy “discovering literature”, I used to think how wonderful it would be if every other person on the street were familiar with Proust and Joyce or T. E. Lawrence or Pasternak and Kafka. Later I learned how refractory to high culture the democratic masses were. Lincoln as a young frontiersman read Plutarch, Shakespeare and the Bible. But then he was Lincoln.我还是个探索文学的少年时，就经常在想：要是大街上人人都熟悉普鲁斯特和乔伊斯，熟悉T.E.劳伦斯，熟悉帕斯捷尔纳克和卡夫卡，该有多好啊！后来才知道，平民百姓对高雅文化有多排斥。虽说少年时代身居边陲的林肯就在阅读普鲁塔克，、莎士比亚和圣经，但他毕竟是林肯。Later when I was traveling in the Midwest by car, bus and train, I regularly visited small-town libraries and found that readers in Keokuk, Iowa, or Benton Harbor, Mich., were checking out Proust and Joyce and even Svevo and Andrei Biely. D. H. Lawrence was also a favorite. And sometimes I remembered that God was willing to spare Sodom for the sake of 10 of the righteous. Not that Keokuk was anything like wicked Sodom, or that Prousts Charlus would have been tempted to settle in Benton Harbor, Mich. I seem to have had a persistent democratic desire to find evidences of high culture in the most unlikely places.后来，我坐小车、巴士和火车在中西部旅行，经常走访小镇图书馆；发现在衣阿华州基奥卡克市，或者密歇根州本顿港市，读者们借阅普鲁斯特和乔伊斯的作品，甚至还有斯维沃和安德烈?别雷?的著作。D. H.劳伦斯的书也深受欢迎。有时我会想起上帝愿为十个义人而饶恕所多玛城的故事并非基奧卡克市和邪恶的所多玛有何相似之处，也并非普鲁斯特笔下的夏吕斯?想移居密西根州的本顿港，只不过我似乎一直有一种开明的想法，希望在最难觅高雅文化的地方找到高雅文化的证据。For many decades now I have been a fiction writer, and from the first I was aware that mine was a questionable occupation. In the 1930s an elderly neighbor in Chicago told me that he wrote fiction for the pulps. “The people on the block wonder why I dont go to a job, and Im seen puttering around, trimming the bushes or painting a fence instead of working in a factory. But Im a writer. I sell to Argosy and Doc Savage,” he said with a certain gloom. “They wouldnt call that a trade.” Probably he noticed that I was a bookish boy, likely to sympathize with him, and perhaps he was trying to warn me to avoid being unlike others. But it was too late for that.至今，我已写了几十年小说，而且一开始就意识到，这是个颇有争议的职业。20世纪30年代，芝加哥一位年长的邻居告诉我，他给通俗杂志写小说。街坊邻里都纳闷，为什么不去上班，却见我游来荡去，修剪修剪树木，粉刷粉刷篱笆，就是不去工厂干活儿。可我是作家啊，稿子卖给大商船和萨维奇医生那些杂志，他说话时神情有些抑郁。他们不会把这当作正事儿。他很可能已经觉察到，我是个喜欢读书的孩子，兴许会与他产生共鸣，或者他想提醒我，不要与众不同，但这为时已晚。From the first, too, I had been warned that the novel was at the point of death, that like the walled city or the crossbow, it was a thing of the past. And no one likes to be at odds with history. Oswald Spengler, one of the most widely read authors of the early 30s, taught that our tired old civilization was very nearly finished. His advice to the young was to avoid literature and the arts and to embrace mechanization and become engineers.一开始也有人告诫我，小说正频临死亡，犹如城郭或弓弩，已属昨日之物。谁也不愿和历史作对。奥斯瓦尔德?斯宾格勒*30年代初拥有最广泛读者的作者之-曾教导我们，陈腐、古老的文明已几近末路，建议年轻人避开文学和艺术，拥抱机械化，去当工程师。In refusing to be obsolete, you challenged and defied the evolutionist historians. I had great respect for Spengler in my youth, but even then I couldnt accept his conclusions, and (with respect and admiration) I mentally told him to get lost.你拒绝被淘汰，就是对进化论史学家的挑战和蔑视。年轻时我非常尊重斯宾格勒，但即使那个时候，也无法接受他的结论，而（怀着敬慕之情）在心里对他说：你走远点吧。Sixty years later, in a recent issue of The Wall Street Journal, I come upon the old Spenglerian argument in a contemporary form. Terry Teachout, unlike Spengler, does not dump paralyzing mountains of historical theory upon us, but there are signs that he has weighed, sifted and pondered the evidence.时隔60年，在最近一期华尔街日报上，偶见斯宾格勒式老调新弹。跟斯宾格勒不同，特里?蒂奇奥特并没有将一座座令人窒息的史论大山压在我们身上，但迹象表明，他权衡、筛选、思索过相关证据。He speaks of our “atomized culture,” and his is a responsible, up-to-date and carefully considered opinion. He speaks of “art forms as technologies.” He tells us that movies will soon be “downloadable”that is, transferable from one computer to the memory of another deviceand predicts that films will soon be marketed like books. He predicts that the near-magical powers of technology are bringing us to the threshold of a new age and concludes, “Once this happens, my guess is that the independent movie will replace the novel as the principal vehicle for serious storytelling in the 21st century.”他谈到了我们的原子化文化，观点新颖可靠，并经过深思熟虑，谈到了 作为技术的艺术形式，告诉我们，电影很快就可以下载，即从一台电脑转入另一存储设备。他还预测，电影不久会如书籍般销售。他预言近乎魔法的技术之力将把我们引入一个新时代，并得出结论：一旦这成为现实，我猜想，独立电影会替代小说，成为21世纪严肃故事叙述的主要载体。In support of this argument, Mr. Teachout cites the ominous drop in the volume of book sales and the great increase in movie attendance: “For Americans under the age of 30, film has replaced the novel as the dominant mode of artistic expression.” To this Mr. Teachout adds that popular novelists like Tom Clancy and Stephen King “top out at around a million copies per book,” and notes, “The final episode of NBCs Cheers, by contrast, was seen by 42 million people.”为了支持这一观点，蒂奇奥特先生指出，图书销量不幸下降，而电影观众却大幅上升。对30岁以下的美国人来说，电影已经取代小说，成为艺术表达的首要模式。蒂奇奥特先生补充道，汤姆?克兰西和斯蒂芬?金等畅销小说家每本书最多也就卖到一百万册左右，还说，相比之下，全国广播公司的欢乐酒店*的最后一集，观众达4200万之多。On majoritarian grounds, the movies win. “The power of novels to shape the national conversation has declined,” says Mr. Teachout. But I am not at all certain that in their day “Moby-Dick” or “The Scarlet Letter” had any considerable influence on “the national conversation.” In the mid-19th century it was “Uncle Toms Cabin” that impressed the great public. “Moby-Dick” was a small-public novel.就数量多寡而言，电影赢了。小说左右国民言谈的力量巳经削弱，蒂奇奥特先生说。但我丝毫不敢肯定，当初白鲸或红字对国民言谈有过什么重大影响。19世纪中期，打动大众的是汤姆叔叔的小屋。白鲸是一部小众小说。The literary masterpieces of the 20th century were for the most part the work of novelists who had no large public in mind. The novels of Proust and Joyce were written in a cultural twilight and were not intended to be read under the blaze and dazzle of popularity.20世纪的文学杰作大多出自没有大众意识的小说家之手。普鲁斯特和乔伊斯的小说，创作于暗淡的文化暮色之中，本来就无意让人在大众化的耀眼光焰下阅读。Mr. Teachouts article in The Journal follows the path generally taken by observers whose aim is to discover a trend. “According to one recent study 55 percent of Americans spend less than 30 minutes reading anything at all. It may even be that movies have superseded novels not because Americans have grown dumber but because the novel is an obsolete artistic technology.”蒂奇奧特先生在华尔街日报上的文章，沿用了观察家们旨在发现某种倾向的套路，指出根据最近一项调査，55%的美国人阅读时间不超过30分钟甚至可以说，电影取代了小说，不是因为美国人变傻了，而是因为小说这种技艺已经过时。“We are not accustomed to thinking of art forms as technologies,” he says, “but that is what they are, which means they have been rendered moribund by new technical developments.”我们还不习惯把艺术形式看成技术，他说，但事实上艺术形式就是技术，也就是说，艺术形式已经因为新技术的发展而濒临死亡。Together with this emphasis on technics that attracts the scientific-minded young, there are other preferences discernible: It is better to do as a majority of your contemporaries are doing, better to be one of millions viewing a film than one of mere thousands reading a book. Moreover, the reader reads in solitude, whereas the viewer belongs to a great majority; he has powers of numerosity as well as the powers of mechanization. Add to this the importance of avoiding technological obsolescence and the attraction of feeling that technics will decide questions for us more dependably than the thinking of an individual, no matter how distinctive he may be.文章除了强调崇尚科学的年轻人有吸引力的技术之外，还看得见其他一些取向。如大多数同时代人做什么，你最好就做什么，与其和区区数千人一样读一本书，不如和几百万人一样看一场电影。另外，读者只是独自阅读，而观众却是与许多人共赏，既借机械技术之力，又得人数众多之势。不妨还可以补充说，避免技术上落伍也很重要，而人们总觉得就解决问题而言，不管个人有多么出众，技术要比个人的思想更可靠。这种感觉也很有吸引力。John Cheever told me long ago that it was his readers who kept him going, people from every part of the country who had written to him. When he was at work, he was aware of these readers and correspondents in the woods beyond the lawn. “If I couldnt picture them, Id be sunk,” he said. And the novelist Wright Morris, urging me to get an electric typewriter, said that he seldom turned his machine off. “When Im not writing, I listen to the electricity,” he said. “It keeps me company. We have conversations.”很久以前，约翰?契弗对我说，让他坚持不懈地写作的是读者，那些从全国各地给他写信的人。写作时，他觉得那些读者和写信人就在草坪那边的小树林里。脑子里要是没有他们，那我就完了，他说。还有小说家赖特?莫里斯?极力劝我去买一台电动打字机，说他自己的打字机都很少关掉。不写作的时候，就倾听电流的声音，他说，它陪伴着我。我们可以交谈。I wonder how Mr. Teachout might square such idiosyncrasies with his “art forms as technologies.” Perhaps he would argue that these two writers had somehow isolated themselves from “broad-based cultural influence.” Mr. Teachout has at least one laudable purpose: He thinks that he sees a way to bring together the Great Public of the movies with the Small Public of the highbrows. He is, however, interested in millions: millions of dollars, millions of readers, millions of viewers.不知道蒂奇奥特先生如何使这些个人习性与作为技术的艺术形式两者相容。也许他会说，这两位作家由于某种原因脱离了 广泛的文化影响。蒂奇奥特先生至少有一个值得称道的目的：他认为自己发现了一个方法，能使电影大众与精英小众协调起来。但是，他感兴趣的却是几百万这个数字：几百万美元，几百万读者，几百万观众。The one thing “everybody” does is go to the movies, Mr. Teachout says. How right he is.蒂奇奥特先生说，人人都做的一件事情，就是去看电影。他说得对极了。Back in the 20s children between the ages of 8 and 12 lined up on Saturdays to buy their nickel tickets to see the crisis of last Saturday resolved. The heroine was untied in a matter of seconds just before the locomotive would have crushed her. Then came a new episode; and after that the newsreel and “Our Gang.” Finally there was a western with Tom Mix, or a Janet Gaynor picture about a young bride and her husband blissful in the attic, or Gloria Swanson and Theda Bara or Wallace Beery or Adolphe Menjou or Marie Dressler. And of course there was Charlie Chaplin in “The Gold Rush,” and from “The Gold Rush” it was only one step to the stories of Jack London.回想20年代，每到周六，8到12岁的孩子们就会排队买张五美分的电影票，看看上个周六的危机是如何化解的。女主人公在火车就要辗过她之前几秒钟被松了绑。接着新的一集开始了，然后就是新闻短片和小顽童。最后是一部汤姆?米克斯的西部片；或者是一部珍妮盖诺的电影，讲述年轻的新娘和她丈夫在阁楼上的幸福生活，或是葛洛莉娅?斯旺森和蒂达?巴拉，或是华莱士 ?比里，阿道夫?门吉欧，玛丽?杜丝勒等影星主演的影片。当然，还有査理卓别林的淘金记，而淘金记离杰克?伦敦的故事只不过一步之遥。There was no rivalry then between the viewer and the reader. Nobody supervised our reading. We were on our own. We civilized ourselves. We found or made a mental and imaginative life. Because we could read, we learned also to write. It did not confuse me to see “Treasure Island” in the movies and then read the book. There was no competition for our attention.那时候观众和读者并不对立。没人去管我们的阅读。我们自己做主，自我教化。我们发现或者说创造了充满想象的精神生活。我们因为能够阅读，所以也学会了写作。先看电影金银岛，然后再去读这本书，并没有让我感到困惑。那时候，电影和书籍并没有为吸引我们的注意力而争先恐后。One of the more attractive oddities of the United States is that our minorities are so numerous, so huge. A minority of millions is not at all unusual. But there are in fact millions of literate Americans in a state of separation from others of their kind. They are, if you like, the readers of Cheever, a crowd of them too large to be hidden in the woods. Departments of literature across the country have not succeeded in alienating them from books, works old and new. My friend Keith Botsford and I felt strongly that if the woods were filled with readers gone astray, among those readers there were probably writers as well.美国有一件更引人注目的奇事，那就是我们的少数群体数目众多，规模庞大。几百万人构成一个少数群体，根本算不得反常。但实际上，还有几百万能识文断字的美国人，相互之间处于隔离状态。可以说，阅读契弗作品的人，就是一个数量大得无法藏身于小树林的群体。全国各地的文学系没能让他们疏远书籍，无论是旧作还是新书。我和我的朋友基思?博茨福德都深深感到，如果小树林中挤满了迷路的读者，那么其中很可能也有作家。To learn in detail of their existence you have only to publish a magazine like The Republic of Letters. Given encouragement, unknown writers, formerly without hope, materialize. One early reader wrote that our paper, “with its contents so fresh, person-to-person,” was “real, non-synthetic, undistracting.” Noting that there were no ads, she asked, “Is it possible, can it last?” and called it “an antidote to the shrinking of the human being in every one of us.” And toward the end of her letter our correspondent added, “It behooves the elder generation to come up with reminders of who we used to be and need to be.”要详细了解他们的生存状态，你只需办一份像文学界这样的杂志。一旦得到鼓励，原先的无望之辈，就会显山露水。一位早期读者来信说，我们的刊物内容非常新鲜、非常亲切，真实、不造作，阅读时不会让人分心。她注意到上面没登广告，便问，这行吗？能办得下去吗？还将其称作一味解毒剂，治疗我们每个人身上的人性萎缩症。在书信末尾，我们这位笔友补充道，老一代人有必要站出来提醒一下，我们过去是什么样的人，应该成为什么样的人。This is what Keith Botsford and I had hoped that our “tabloid for literates” would be. And for two years it has been just that. We are a pair of utopian codgers who feel we have a duty to literature. I hope we are not like those humane do-gooders who, when the horse was vanishing, still donated troughs in City Hall Square for thirsty nags.这正是当初我和基思?博茨福德期望中的读书人小报。两年来，刊物信守着这个理念。我们俩是一对乌托邦式的老怪物，总觉得对文学负有责任。我希望我们别像那些不现实的行善者，马匹都快绝迹了，居然还把料槽捐赠到市政广场，以备口渴的马儿饮水。We have no way of guessing how many independent, self-initiated connoisseurs and lovers of literature have survived in remote corners of the country. The little evidence we have suggests that they are glad to find us, they are grateful. They want more than they are getting. Ingenious technology has failed to give them what they so badly need.我们无从猜测，究竟有多少独立、自发的文学鉴赏者和爱好者在全国各个偏远的角落里生存了下来。手头的点滴证据表明，他们为能够找到我们而高兴，也很感激。他们期望的比眼下得到的要多，精巧的技术并没有满足他们的迫切需求。英译汉参考译文：注释1) 本文作者索尔?贝娄（19152005)为美国作家、1976年诺贝尔文学奖得主.原文发表于1999年10月11曰纽约时拫，后收入纽约时拫：作家谈写作选辑。标题中文学界（the republic of letters) 词来自拉丁语Respublica literaria, 18世纪盛行于欧美，指的是一个由文人组成的、想象的共和国，不受地域和国别限制，这一概念对启蒙时代的学者影响很大。2） 普鲁塔克（46? -120?),古希腊传记作家、散文家，著有希腊罗马名人比较列传等。3） 斯维沃（18611928),意大利商人、作家，著有泽诺的意识等。4) 安德烈?别雷（18801934),俄罗斯诗人、文艺理论家，著有银鸽、彼得堡等。5） 圣经创世纪第18章：上帝欲灭所多玛城，亚伯拉罕代为求恳，上帝允诺若城内有十名义人.便不施惩罚。6） 夏吕斯男爵为普鲁斯特小说追忆似水年华中的人物，生活堕落。7)大商船是美国一份通俗杂志，创刊于1882年，一般认为是美国第一份通俗杂志，萨维奇博士是美国一份杂志，1933年至1949年发行，1964年起，杂志中的故事先后单独出版发行，影响颇大。8） 斯宾格勒（18801936),德国史学家、哲学家，著有西方的没落等。9） 汤姆?克兰西（1947),美国通俗小说家，著有猎杀红色十月等，斯蒂芬?金（1947),美国畅销作家,著有肖申克的救赎等。10） 美国一部情景喜剧。11） 约翰?契弗（19121982),美国小说家，著有华普肖一家、大收音机等。12） 赖特?莫里斯（19101998),美国小说家，著有幻象之地、草原之歌等。13） 美国20世纪初一部流行的喜剧短片。(集体讨论，周小进执笔）英译汉参赛译文评析:戴着镣铐跳舞第二十二届韩素音青年翻译奖英译汉原文是美国著名作家索尔?贝娄的文章，选自纽约时报（1999年10月11日）的作家谈创作栏目。该文文字并不晦涩，句法结构也不烦杂。贝娄文风自成一家，学界素有贝娄风格之说。文中有议论、有叙述、有对话，议论有立有驳，叙述有繁有简，对话有雅有俗，文风时而幽默、时而庄重，看似随性甚至杂乱（结尾还介绍了他自己的杂志），其实有一个贯穿全文的立场和风格。文中还有大量的文化信息和互文文本，译者需要动用各种资源仔细查询和甄别。贝娄常常点到即止，所以要处理好文化信息，还要联系作者的观点和态度。在信息时代，这种学者的考据功夫，也是译者应该具备的。这两个方面的特点，是对译者文字功力和考据功夫的检验。译者有很大的发挥空间，但也面临陷阱和挑战，简单的词句和变化的风格甚至还可能是诱惑。从1144份参赛译文来看，大多译者都做了扎实的工作，也都有自己的发挥。但总体上还存在个性有余、严谨不足；流畅有余、忠实不足的倾向。主要体现在文字、语境和风格这三个方面。一、文字的忠实本届参赛译文中，有些误译是个别词语造成的。例如第一段中的refractory,意为麻木、不感兴趣、排斥，有误译为（大众）难以拉拢、(高雅文化）晦湿难懂、免疫等，皆似是而非。第三段中的trade应为工作、行当，并非贸易Vpulps 通俗出版物，俗称纸浆文学，此处为作家自述，故不宜译为二流、末流、低级、劣质等。第六段中的dump意为堆、倒，并非倾销。第十二段中的moribund意为垂死、将死，并非已经死了或寿终正寝。第十四段中作家契弗所说的picture,意为大脑中想象，误译为（用笔）描写或描绘，是没有看懂原文的意思，同样他说的sunk是完了的意思，并非沉沦。第二十段的materialize,意为现身、出现或崭露头角等，不可译为有了物质保障。有些误译则涉及短语的理解，例如第一段的every other person,根据上下文此处应指除我之外的每一个人，可直接译为所有人、大家等，有译为隔三岔五（地碰上）、一半的人，是选错了义项且没有充分理解原文。第五段的get lost是走开、滚开、闪开。另有些误译，严格来说，乃是误现。译者应该理解了原文意思，但没能找到合适的中文表达。例如第四段中的walled city,都知道指的是有围墙的城，即城郭（内之为城、外之为郭；)，有译为城池、城市、城镇、古城、城堡、寨城的，都是明白原文意思但没有充分表达出来。误译也可能是语法所致。如第三段For many decades now I have been a fiction writer.，句中的现在完成时和for表示当小说家已经几十年了，若译为几十年过去了，现在我也已经是一个小说作家了，读者会以为他经过几十年的努力终于成了小说家。有些句子字面看来非常简单，反而容易引起误译。如：【例一】But then he was Lincoln.(第一段)很多译者把then直接理解为那时、当时，乃是望文生义。But then除了等同于but then again之夕卜，还有个义项，OED解释为：used before a statement that explains or gives a reason for what has just been said,即用以引出对上文某话的解释或说明其原因。根据上下文，这句话可译为可他（毕竟）是林肯啊，是说林肯虽然年轻时就阅读高雅著作，但他是一代伟人，是特例，并不能说明大众都喜爱高雅作品。不少译者译为可那时他是林肯，也有少数人觉得这话费解，又补上伟大总统等修饰语，或译为那时的林肯仍旧是林肯、无奈，并非人人都是林肯等，都是为表面简单的词语所误导。还有一点，不算误译，但属于中文表达的问题，就是欧化的倾向，略举数例：【倒二】.and perhaps he was trying to warn me to avoid being unlike others.(第三段)译文：而且可能他那时正在试图警告我要避免和别人不一样。【例三】From the first too, I had been warned that.(第四段）译文：从一开始我就被警告。【例四】In refusing to be obsolete, you challenged and defied the evolutionist historians.(第五段)译文：在46绝落入过时之列的努力中。【例五】.his is a responsible, up-to-date and carefully considered opinion.(第七段)译文：他的观点是负责任的、最新的以及经过反复思考的。第一例欧化自不待言。第二例中被的使用并不地道，但似乎非常普遍，实际上咱们平常说话，在叙述行为的时候，总是用主动居多，被动式只是一种特殊形式?,所以翻译中多以有人、人们、大家等主语结构替代转换。第三例不仅理解错误，拒绝和在的努力中都比较欧化。最后一例中，三个以的结尾的形容词叠加，的的不休，也是汉语不够纯熟或欧化的表现。文字的运用总是可以精益求精的。有的译文中有劳伦斯的作品，也是他们喜爱的作品、我的职业是颇受争议的职业等句子，则是文字功力的问题，并非欧化的影响。至于把thirsty译为三十、把42 million译成4.2亿，则不是笔误，而是眼误，那已经是语言造诣之外的事情了。二、语境的忠实意义是语境中的意义。语境像一张大网，文字只是这张网上的一h个绳结。所以对语境理解不充分，就会把文字当作孤立的个例来处理，导致译文风格凌乱，传递原文信息不全面，甚至出现错误。贝娄这篇文章的语境可以从两个方面来讨论。一是文化语境，二是社会语境。贝娄身兼作家和学者，博学多识，在芝加哥读书时曾像我们吸入空气一样吸纳书本和观点。这篇文章中涉及大量的文化信息，包括地名、人名，报刊、电影、著作、小说人物、圣经故事等。参赛译者对于文化信息，基本上都有意识，翻译也符合中文惯例，比如莎士比亚、卡夫卡、普鲁斯特、林肯、杰克?伦敦等常见人名，白鲸、红字、金银岛等常见作品，华尔街日报等报刊，参赛者处理得都很好，一千多份译文，几乎没有问题。说明青年译者们有很好的知识储备和文化素养。有些文化信息并不太常见，就需要译者去花功夫了， 一方面査找信息来源，另一方面还要核査现有的中文译法。这些考据式的水磨功夫，其实正能分出高下来。如果不去查询，或者一目十行地看看一两个网页，往往会犯错误。例如，第一段的T.E.Lawrence乃是阿拉伯的劳伦斯，不是第二段的D.H.劳伦斯。第二段的Prousts Charlus是法国作家普鲁斯特笔下的人物，所以Charlus不宜译为査勒斯，而是夏吕斯；Keokuk和Benton Harbor都是城市名，不是区；Iowa作为州名一般译为衣阿华，艾奥瓦常常用来指原住该州的印第安人。文中提到的很多电影.电视剧和演员的名字，中文里都有现成的译名，有时还有多个，或者大陆译名和港台译名不同，译者根据约定俗成的原则选择即可，但选择的标准宜全文统一，且应考虑目标读者的接受情况。【例六】 And sometimes I remembered that God was willing to spare Sodom for the sake of 10 of the righteous.(第二段）句中引用的是圣经*创世纪第18-19章中关于所多玛城的故事。参赛译文中，所多玛都能译出来，一些译者还添加了注释，说明出处和故事梗概。但有些译文将the righteous译成好人、正直的人士、君子、贤达等，字面意义也都正确，但损失了原文的宗教指涉。文化信息如果涉及到传说、故事、典故等，则要详细阅读来源信息，只查字典可能不够。除文化语境外，贝娄写这篇文章，有其时，有其势，这是文章的社会语境。有其时，是说贝娄的文章有针对性，讨论的是艺术发展某个阶段出现的普遍问题。文章写于1999年，这是互联网深人大众生活的年代。蒂奇奧特的猜测，在十几年之后的中国，巳经成为现实。这是读图和读文字的对抗，但也可以像蒂奇奥特那样从技术的角度进行解释。类似的问题在照相机刚出现的时候就已经有过讨论，而互联网对传统媒体的冲击、通俗文化对传统精英文化的挑战，是全球化时代一个重要的文化命题，至今仍在讨论，所以说贝娄的观点有其时。文章的发表则有其势。蒂奇奥特是美国一位文化评论家，常在华尔街日报上评论戏剧、电影和文化。他在1999年8月6日的华尔街日报上发表了一篇文章，称小说和电影之战已经结束，电影赢了。正如贝娄所言，文章的主要手法的确是统计两者受众的人数多寡，强调电影的普及程度，视角则主要是技术层面的考虑，把原因归结于技术的革新。既然反面的观点已经发表，贝娄的文章的发表就有迫切性和针对性，而且必须予以批驳和回应，所以有其势。对于原文这两个方面的社会语境，译者就算平时没有这方面的积累，只要下笔前能多做些了解，对译文也会有很大帮助。如atomized culture,atomized指个体处