【作者】 龙涛；

【导师】 向小林；

【作者基本信息】 重庆大学 ， 外国语言学与应用语言学， 2008， 硕士

【摘要】 2001年4月1日,中美撞机事件发生后,中美双方为解决这一严重外交事件而采取的举动备受关注。其中,最受关注的和最具争议的莫过于怎样用中文翻译美国政府向中国政府递交的道歉信中的措辞“VERY SORRY”。媒体和网民对中国外交部的中文译文“深表歉意”进行了激烈讨论。大多数美国的主流媒体嘲讽中国政府将英文意思“遗憾”或“惋惜”篡改成中文的“道歉”。一些年轻的中国网民则认为美国政府并没有道歉,因此不认同中译文里的道歉。一些学术界人士甚至认为这样的翻译违背了忠实、对等的原则。那么到底应该怎样看待具有歧义的外事文本的翻译?本文将德国功能派翻译理论——目的论应用于外事翻译领域,通过目的论的三个主要原则分析了中国外交部的中译文本。分析表明,由于外事翻译的首要目的是维护国家利益,根据费米尔(Vermeer)的目的原则,翻译的目的决定翻译的方法和策略,因此,对于具有歧义的外事文本,译员可以根据翻译的目的在一定范围内自由选择翻译策略。同时,这个选择的范围是由原文本的性质决定,即在外事翻译中,如果选择歧义或模糊语言是双方谈判的结果,如本案例中的“VERY SORRY”,那么实际上就已经赋予了双方各自解释的权利和空间。因此,中方的翻译是合理的,也是忠实的。最后,本文提供了一些针对有歧义的外事文本的翻译的原则性指导。更多还原

【Abstract】 After the happening of the Sino-US military plane collision on April 1, 2001, any action taken by China and the US to resolve the serious incident has attracted the world’s attention. Among them, the most spotlighted and controversial action is how to translate the "very sorry" in the English letter for expressing an apology to the Chinese government and people by the US government into the Chinese language. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China ’s Chinese translation of "very sorry" as "shenbiaoqianyi" has been argued fiercely on media and Internet. Most mainstream media in United States mocked the Chinese government with the excuse of twisting the English "regret" into a Chinese "apology". Some young Chinese netizens refused to accept the Chinese translation, holding that "very sorry" is not a formal apology from the US government. Some intellectual men criticized the translation as non-equivalent and unfaithful. Then how to look at the translation of ambiguous diplomatic texts? This thesis applied the Germany functionalist Skopos theory to the diplomatic translation. Through the three key principles of Skopos theory, this thesis analyzed the Chinese translation made by the Foreign Ministry and found that, as the top Skopos for the diplomatic translation is to safeguard national interests, it is reasonable, according to Vermeer’s Skopos rule that the skopos determines the translation methods and strategies, to translate the diplomatic texts with semantic ambiguity or vagueness freely in certain scale. Meanwhile, the scale is restricted by the nature of the source text, that is to say, as long as the ambiguous text is the negotiated result, such as the citation of "very sorry" in this case, it provides the authority and room for different interpretations of the result. Therefore, the Chinese translation issued by the Chinese Foreign Ministry is completely rational and faithful. The present analysis also provides an insightful way to understand the controversial diplomatic translations and the guiding principles for the diplomatic translators dealing with such texts.更多还原