蘇斯博士系列的粵語翻譯實驗

Abstract

希奧多．蘇斯．蓋索（Theodor Seuss Geisel, 1904－1991）以筆名「蘇斯博士」享譽於兒童文學界，由於作品大受歡迎，當中不少被改編為動畫、電影，而他亦曾兩奪奧斯卡獎項。自1937年起，蘇斯博士完成了48本童書，他的作品被翻譯成20種語言，暢銷全球，歷年總銷量超過二億冊。

蘇斯博士系列的中文版由詹宏志、郝廣才、曾陽晴等三位台灣文化界名人翻譯，並由台北遠流出版社於1992年出版，可是礙於國語的限制，該中文版的翻譯水平實在談不上十分好，主要原因就是譯者未能將原文的趣味順利帶到譯文裡去。

鑑於遠流1992年的蘇斯博士系列中文版權到期，小天下出版社去年邀請賴慈芸教授為新版作中譯，賴教授認為以國語翻譯該系列有點難度，學生機緣巧合之下想到中譯版的不足之處能否以粵語填補，因為聲調語言豐富的音韻組合實在有助翻譯如蘇斯博士系列般充滿音樂感和押韻的作品。

本文將簡介蘇斯博士系列及其國語譯本、兒童文學的功能與影響、國語粵語的差異，並以粵語作翻譯實驗，試譯蘇斯博士系列其中的三冊，此三冊的國語譯本分別由上述三位譯者完成，每篇翻譯實驗都附有比較與評論。Two times Oscar winner, Theodor Seuss Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, was famous for his success in children’s literature. His works have been converted to cartoons, movies and many other forms. Since 1937, Dr. Seuss had completed 48 books of children’s literature. His works have been translated to 20 languages and sold a total of over 200 million copies worldwide.

The Chinese version was translated by Hao Kuang-Tsai, Jan Hung-Tze and Tseng Yang-Ching and published by Yuan-Liou Publishing Co., Ltd. in 1992. However, maybe due to the limitations of Mandarin, the quality of the Chinese translation is not very good as the three translators didn’t very successfully move the interesting elements of the original text to Chinese, or more precisely, to Mandarin.

Prof. Sharon Lai introduced the series to the class last year because she was invited to translate the forthcoming Chinese version which a subsidiary of Commonwealth Publishing Co., Ltd. would publish, as the copyright of Yuan-Liou 1992 version expired. Prof. Lai found the task somewhat challenging as Mandarin seemed to be hardly up to preserving the funny features of the original works. The idea whether the works of Dr. Seuss could be translated to Cantonese suddenly came to my mind, since tonal languages provide more possible combinations to help translation.

This paper covers an introduction of the original and Mandarin translation of Dr. Seuss’ series, a discussion on the function and impact of Children’s literature, a simple comparison between Mandarin and Cantonese, and most of all, a translation experiment that converts three volumes by different translators of the series to Cantonese, followed by the evaluation and discussion of each volume translated.