These days, several groups related to translation and language studies are discussing one thing-the translation of this year's Nobel Prize in Literature Prize-winning words.
You know, things related to language always interest me, so I did a little research. Anyway, the research results are still interesting. Share them with your friends.
The original English text of this year's Nobel Prize in Literature Prize-winning speech (the contents in the following quotation marks) is as follows:
Before delving into the awards, we can learn two collocations.
1.Description of "YY Nobel XX Prize": The Nobel Prize is in XX YY or YY Nobel Prize is in XX, where XX is the field and the year is. For example, the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry means the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020, or the English for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020.
2. "XX Award to YY": XX Award to YY or YY Award to XX, where XX is the award and YY is the winner. Note that when the winner is the subject, there is no to. For example:
As for why the prize is awarded to someone, just add an A at the end to indicate something. The whole structure is that something awards something or something awards something.
Next, we will focus on the part for something in Nobel Prize in Literature's acceptance speech this year.
"Because of her unmistakable poetic voice, her simple beauty makes personal existence universal."
As short as 13, there are many versions of translation. I collected some for your appreciation.
There are some other versions, so I won't take screenshots one by one. They are listed as follows:
There is no doubt that the poetic voice has the beauty of simplicity, which makes the existence of every individual universal. com)
"Express the simplicity of universal individual existence with extraordinary poetic voice" (Taiwan Province United Daily News)
"Poetic narration with unique and simple beauty enables individual existence to communicate with the world" (Hong Kong Ming Pao)
"Her clear and poetic voice is simple and beautiful, making personal existence a universal experience" (Feng Media)
"With her unmistakable poetic voice and simple aesthetic feeling, personal existence is popularized" (Hong Kong Apple)
If we carefully analyze all the above translations, we will find that the main difference between them lies in ambiguity and make translation ... universality.
There are at least seven different translations of an unknown:
In the translation of make ... omnipotent, everyone also shows their magical powers:
The similarity between these different versions is also obvious, that is, no matter which sentence you read, you don't know what you are talking about, which reflects the "irrefutable universality" in the unintelligible. In addition, everyone's attitude towards poverty is surprisingly consistent, which is basically translated as "simple".
The versions listed above may all be translated by people (but I'm not 100% sure about this). Let's take a look at the performance of several mainstream machine translation engines and see if there will be such a big difference between them.
Let's take a look at Google Translate:
What Google Translate clearly translates is "unpretentious" and "austere", which is different from any human version and a bit surprising. It seems that Google Translation has gone further and further on the road that runs counter to human beings.
Let's look at Microsoft's translation:
Bing is similar to what humans think. But why is the Chinese font so big? The aesthetics of Microsoft applications has always been a mystery.
Then I read the Youdao translation:
The treatment of a translator is very interesting. It directly regards the unknown as "full". As a modification of poetic degree, it is quite innovative and even surpasses human beings in flexibility.
Baidu translation:
Finally, DeepL, which is popular in recent two years:
Generally speaking, the treatment of make by machine translation is consistent ... universal, but there are still great differences in the unmistakable treatment.
As mentioned earlier, there are many Chinese versions of Nobel Prize in Literature's acceptance speech this year, and the only similarity between them is that two orioles sing green willows-I don't know what to say.
Why is this happening?
In my opinion, it is not that the original English sentence is difficult, nor that the translators in China are failing, but that the original sentence itself is confusing. Do not believe me, I will give you a simple analysis.
First of all, why are there so many differences in the translation of The Clear Voice of Poetry? The reason is that the phrase itself is incomprehensible.
What did Louise Gluck win the Nobel Prize in Literature for? Poetry, right? The question is, can we use "poetry" to describe poetry? Can't! Why? Poetry must be full of poetry, or is it still called poetry? Isn't it nonsense to say that poetry is poetic?
All styles except poetry can be described as "poetic", except poetry. We can sigh that a person's novel is full of poetry, a painting is full of poetry and a poem is full of poetry.
Lamenting a person's poetry is like praising a person for "really liking someone". There is only one situation where we will do such a thing as "take off our pants and fart", that is, the speaker is not sure whether Louise Gluck's poem is a poem.
I didn't make such a guess for nothing. In fact, many translated versions of the word "unmistakable" reflect that the speaker is not sure whether Louise Gluck's works are poems.
No matter how we translate the word incredible, one thing we can be sure of is that it means "a certain conclusion is conclusive" or "no one will make mistakes" In the acceptance speech, what does the speaker think is absolutely correct for anyone? Of course, Louise Gluck has a "poetic voice".
Louise Gluck is a famous poet herself. Everyone who knows her has confirmed that she has a "poetic voice". Why do you need to emphasize this point? Emphasizing an obvious fact often means doubting.
Several China translators were brought into this pit. "No doubt", who is doubting? "Unbreakable", who is arguing with you? The spear has no shadow, and the shield has been held high, which only shows that I have no confidence.
The word unexplained is difficult to translate because it should not appear here.
Look at the back, it is an attributive clause that modifies the voice. It modifies the verb phrase make ... universal. We can add with steamy beauty at the end of the sentence, which is more like the English sentences we often see.
In other words, if we turn for into a sentence, it should be:
English usually puts adverbials at the end of sentences, but sentences with strong literariness often don't follow this convention, but prefer to put adverbials before verbs.
The translation of the beauty of poverty into the beauty of simplicity is not a big problem, and there is nothing to say.
It is difficult to understand the generalization of individual existence. Are we too stupid and uneducated to read such profound sentences?
I don't think so. In my opinion, the phrase itself is incomprehensible.
What is the specific meaning of universalization? How to universalize individual existence? What is the form of expression?
I doubt very much that the person who said the acceptance speech could not answer any of the above three questions.
In terms of academic style, we call this writing style full of rhetoric but obviously unintelligible $ term dropping. The purpose of throwing out a bunch of terms that you don' t quite understand is to make people dare not doubt that they don' t really understand the topic they are talking about.
As a writer who has received academic training for many years and pursues simplicity in his own writing, I hate $ TERM' s speaking and writing style.
So, let's not waste any more time thinking about how to translate this sentence. Not worth it. There are still many good words in the world. Save some time and read more meaningful things.