後殖民與翻譯：康拉德小說之聯經系列譯本分析

Abstract

原波蘭籍水手約瑟夫‧康拉德 (1857-1924)，在海上遊歷多年後中年踏上寫作生涯，陸續出版散文及小說，一舉在英國文壇上受重視。特別是小說中的情節及探討議題，如湯瑪士‧曼所述，被視為是對於後續二十世紀殖民擴張「預言式」的觀點。康拉德的作品涉及的後殖民議題尤其受到關注，至今仍引發相關學術討論。這些著作在近代透過各式的電影、戲劇等藝文改編，更加深植東西方世人心中。然而，除了 Heart of Darkness 外，康拉德經典作品在台灣譯本版本並不算多，其他小說作品大多僅有聯經系列以香港背景的譯者為首整理出作品出版，透過這些譯者在台出版，可增進讀者對康拉德的認識。

聯經系列譯本目前共有五譯本─《奧邁耶的癡夢》(Almayer’s Folly)、《海隅逐客》(The Outcast of the Islands)、《黑心》(Heart of Darkness)、《勝利》(Victory)、《颱風》(Typhoon)。此系列譯文水準整齊而同質性高，多項特色值得探討。本論文將以後殖民觀點為主軸，分別從三大相關面向進行文本分析。第一、政治正確議題：種族歧視語及咒誓語言(swear words)。第二、世界英文：外語、外語式英文。第三、歸化等譯文特色：香港文語與高語域、歸化色彩與改寫、口語及疊字。本文透過以上三類主題，探討聯經系列經過譯文操弄與策略運用，在翻譯文本時帶來的「得」與「失」，以及整體對於康拉德在台作品呈現的啟示與影響。Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), a former Polish sailor turned British novelist, began his writing career in middle age after years of sailing the high seas. Soon after his first essays, short stories, and novels were published, he began to gain fame in the English-speaking world. Thomas Mann deemed the themes and narratives developed in Conrad’s novels to be "prophetic" in terms of subsequent twentieth-century colonial expansionism . To this day, Conrad's works remain relevant to academic discussion, especially in post-colonial contexts, and continue to exert a global influence through dramatic and cinematic adaptations. Nevertheless, few Chinese translations of these classics have been published in Taiwan. For many of Conrad’s novels, only one Chinese translation exists in Taiwan: the Linking edition, translated into Chinese by translators from Hong Kong. All the same, these publications ha vegiven readers in Taiwan a chance to become better acquainted with Conrad and his critically acclaimed works.

In the 1980s, Linking Publishing Company put out a series of translations of Conrad’s works, hereafter referred to as “the Linking Series,” which includes the titles Almayer’s Folly, An Outcast of the Islands, Heart of Darkness, Victory, and Typhoon. As this series has played a vital role in molding Taiwanese readers’perception of Conrad’s works, it is important to examine the manner in which these works were translated. In this paper, our analysis focuses on the following three aspects: 1) political (in)correctness—racial slurs and swear words; 2) cosmopolitanism in English—the use of foreign languages and foreignized English; 3) domestication and other characteristics of the Linking Series—rewriting and high-register, formal language which appears alongside colloquial language with duplicated Chinese characters. This analysis also explores the gains and losses brought about by textual manipulations and translation strategies and, finally, evaluates the Linking Series’influence on the representation of Conrad’s works in Taiwan.