Why is Yang's death a great loss in cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries?

165438 On June 23rd, 95-year-old Yang died of lymphoma in Beijing. People gave the old man the titles of "Great Translator", "Bridge between Chinese and Western Cultures" and "Man who has translated almost the whole of China". However, he seems to be more accustomed to calling himself a translator before his death.

Yang's mother dreamed that a white tiger jumped into her arms the night before he was born. The fortune-teller told her that it was both a good omen and a bad omen: the newborn will achieve brilliant career after many difficulties and obstacles. "I don't know if my life's career is brilliant ... I have really experienced many hardships for 70 years. Therefore, the fortune teller can say that his calculation is not bad. " Yang said in his autobiography "Drinker".

He spent four years in prison during the Cultural Revolution, and his only son committed suicide in England, which was a hardship. Since 1930s, the translation of Li Sao, Historical Records, Zi Tongzhi Jian and A Dream of Red Mansions, as well as the introduction of western China new literature, should also be regarded as brilliant. At that time, the Foreign Languages Bureau assessed the monthly special contribution allowance of 100 yuan, but there was no such person as Yang. A colleague said: "If Yang has no special contribution, there will be no special contribution in the bureau."

"It doesn't matter, my brother always says it doesn't matter." Sister Yang and translator Yang Yi of Wuthering Heights told the China Youth Daily reporter. But when it comes to translation, he is cautious. "He sometimes adds a lot of notes himself and lists all the places he is not sure about." Li Jingduan, the former president of Yilin Publishing House, who has known Yang for more than 20 years, said: "Where did this place come from? What do you know? He truthfully told different sources in the book, which is very responsible and not a family statement. " During the Great Leap Forward, Yang and his British wife spent 65,438+00 days translating Lu Xun's A Brief History of Chinese Novels, but he always regretted that there was not enough time to translate it better.

"Thirty years ago, I was a translator in Qin Zhen, A Xin, and I was a fake foreigner for half my life." "Or translation, that's generous, translation can also. Fake foreigners are really from China. " He said this.

165438+1On October 29th, Yang's memorial service was held in Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery. The elegiac couplet of the Bureau of Foreign Languages Publishing and Distribution reads: "Silver and Ding Qiao are empty, and the Golden Silk Road is cold." Behind Yang, there is not only a Houhai, but also a Xiaojinsi Hutong where he once lived. Literary translation is a lonely profession. Two old people, Ji Xianlin and Yang, who won the Lifetime Achievement Award in Translation Culture, died one after another within one year. Behind them, the translation industry has ushered in a more withered winter.

"People don't think so. They regard us as translators. "

The sound of typewriter is the main theme of Yang's Home.

Yang's niece and painter still vaguely remember that when she was admitted to middle school from Nanjing, she lived at her uncle's house on weekends and often heard the sound of typewriters. "Their children rarely talk to each other and are very quiet." Zhao Heng said.

Typing is Dai Naidie, Zhao Heng's aunt. Although Yang Xianyi can tap with one finger, she is always not as fluent as her wife. The way they work is this: Yang speaks English in Chinese, and after typing, they polish and proofread it. "He speaks very quickly, sometimes only once." Zhao Heng said. In this way, Yang, Yang and Yang put China's classical literature on the shelves of western readers.

"Not many people find out now that my brother has always called himself a translator and a marginal person." Yang Yi said, "I am also a translator, and my brother still laughs at my slow translation. I said, who can translate like you two? " He just smiled and said that people didn't think so, and they took us as translators. "Of course, there is a self-deprecating element in it." He is sometimes helpless and really dissatisfied on this issue. "

Yang once said in his autobiography, "It is not up to us to decide what to translate, but it is often that young China's editorials know little about China literature, and the selected works must adapt to the political climate and taste at that time. Even the choice of classical poetry depends on its' ideology' and political content. "

During the Great Leap Forward from 65438 to 0958, Mr. and Mrs. Yang "frantically translated books day and night", which inevitably affected their translation quality. "My brother told me about it. He said they didn't understand the task given above. They tell you to take it out 1 week, that is, to catch up with the progress, but it still needs to be scrutinized and polished. Still very elegant. "

"Literati are not translators." Li Jingduan said, "Translation is not a simple equivalence, but a new work produced after the transformation of two cultures. If you are a translator, use online translation. We have promoted many writers in China, but there are not enough translators in China. Since the May 4th Movement, China translators have played an indelible role in promoting the cultural construction in China. After liberation, translation has gradually shrunk into an application tool for serving politics and going abroad, and the function of literature itself has also shrunk. "

Until now, translation is still just a tool or a skill in most cases. Translation is translation, and even few young people are willing to do literary translation.

"Translate this thing, and you will be free when you go in."

1987, Li Jingduan, then president of Yilin Publishing House, approached Yang and hoped that he would translate Ulysses, which would be the first Chinese translation of this book, but this request was rejected by Yang.

"He said: This book is really worth translating, and you are right to decide to introduce it. I read it when I was in England, but I couldn't understand it. How dare I translate a book I can't understand? He told me frankly: either I am modest or many British people don't understand. As a publishing house, I can't turn it over because it is difficult to understand, but from my point of view, I dare not turn it over because I don't understand, otherwise it will be deceptive. " Yang suggested finding some people who have studied stream-of-consciousness literature in Britain. Finally, Li Jingduan found Xiao Gan.

"If you are a person who is fishing for fame, no one will find fault with this translation gap. Yang is a master in translation. He never turns over everything, regardless of technology and education, but basically turns over literature. He said, translate this thing, and you will be free after you go in. He likes literature himself, and he is familiar with the situation of writers, so he can communicate with each other. If you go to another field, the old resources are completely useless, and the new ones are unfamiliar, and mistakes will occur. Someone asked him to turn over the hair selection, but he didn't want to answer it. He said that I am engaged in literature, and I am not good at people with strong politics. "

"He himself is very cautious. Unlike now, some of our young people can turn everything upside down. " Li Jingduan said. However, the "best Song Ruifen translator in history" revealed by netizens a few days ago is a person who knows dozens of languages and can really "translate everything". In the end, the media investigation found that Song Ruifen's identity was unknown, which was just a hidden rule in the publishing industry.

"It is not easy to judge the quality of a translation," said Li Jingduan. "Simply put, translation is easy to fool people. Know a little foreign language, just look it up in the dictionary. Some publishers are eager for quick success and instant benefit, which is very confusing. " Plagiarism and translation plagiarism are no longer news, but Chiang Kai-shek has become a "regular". Some netizens said that the current translation is simply "ecstasy" and "robot cat" can be translated into "public railway".

In his later years, Yang couldn't stand many problems outside the Chinese translation in the market. On one occasion, Li Jingduan visited his home and just received a letter from a person from Peking University, pointing out some mistranslations in China's external publicity at present. "You see, no one has dealt with these humiliations until now." Yang said to him.

Li Jingduan believes that translation management is scattered in various departments, such as publishing books, interpreting by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, scientific and technological translation by the Ministry of Science and Technology, and translation of teaching materials by the Ministry of Education. "Moreover, in the past, translation was only taught by foreign language departments, and now there is a postgraduate direction of translation, which is an improvement. But now the college translation class is a bit difficult. This is a very realistic problem. How to translate Chiang Kai-shek into Chang Shenkai? "

"Their pursuit has not been fully realized, and they have their own regrets. It is even more regrettable for us that they are gone. "

"Now everything is for the economy." Yang's colleague Liu Fang, a French translator in foreign languages press, said.

According to Li Jingduan, before liberation, there were a group of translators who took translation as their profession. Ye Shuifu was able to buy a house in Shanghai when he translated "Young Guards". In the 1980s, translation flourished. Liu Fang translated a novel of Dude, and then she bought a set of furniture at a remuneration of 5,000 yuan. Now, a new translator charges only 60 yuan per thousand words to translate subtitles for TV stations, and he can get 160 yuan to 180 yuan per thousand words. "There are not many professions engaged in translation. They are all amateurs or university teachers. " Li Jingduan said.

Most young people who study translation choose foreign companies. "Not many young people are willing to come to our Qingshui Yamen to sit down and dig word by word." Liu Fang said that as far as she knows, there are even fewer people engaged in Chinese-English translation, and basically all her contemporaries are engaged in this work. In an interview with the media in 2008, Huang Youyi, vice president of the International Translation Association, revealed that there are not enough qualified Chinese-English translators in China 100, and the lack of Chinese-English translation will lead to a "cultural deficit".

At the same time, the problems of translation ethics and translation quality have not improved much. In 2002, initiated by Li Jingduan and signed by Ji Xianlin, Ye Shuifu, Feng Heyang, it was proposed that translation should be responsible to the original author and the target readers.

"Their pursuit has not been fully realized, and they have their own regrets. Their departure is even more regrettable for us. Inheritance is still the second step. We have not fully understood what the spirit of this generation is. " Li Jingduan said.

198 1 Yang's "China Literature" followed the example of British penguin books and launched a translation plan for the panda series. Yang is very enthusiastic about this. The first thing he wanted to introduce was Shen Congwen, who was still sensitive at that time. He tried his best to introduce China and China to the west. Later, Ba Jin, as well as the popular scar literature at that time. Yang once said to his sister, "We must introduce them. We China people have classical literature, but our new literature is not bad. " 43 years ago, he translated Li Sao in England just to show the Oxford teacher that China has a long literary tradition.

"Translation is not only the exchange of words, but also the exchange of ideas and even the collision of personalities. Sometimes translation will affect generations. " Li Jingduan said. After Yang's death, enthusiastic young netizens re-extracted Virgil's Pastoral which he translated in 1950s:

Look, the swaying world carries the sky.

Look at the earth and the sea, and the far-reaching sky.

See how everything sings for the future,

I hope the end of my life can be extended,

Have enough energy to tell about your achievements.

Yang (191565438+1October12009165438+1October 23), a native of Tianjin, a native of Baoji Town, Xuyi County, Anhui Province (now Yang and his wife cooperated in translating many famous China historical works, such as A Dream of Red Mansions, The Scholars, etc., which were well received abroad and had a wide influence.