8．6　Flexibility and Accuracy灵活与准确

8．6　Flexibility and Accuracy灵活与准确

About the two terms，translators and scholars have various descriptions and opinions，but Mr．Jin Di(金堤)gives more wholly descriptions in 1989．He takes it what accuracy does not equal indiscriminate copy suggests there must be flexible treatment in translation．The chief difficulty lies just here: while one is to be flexible，he must completely transfer the original content and aptly represent the original thoughts and feelings as well．It is just because of this，too，that one is necessitated to exert himself to learn and research it．

Flexibility is a relative concept．It is rigidity in translation if one preaches the exact equivalent in lexical system between two languages and urges formulaic equivalence between different syntactic systems．Mechanical ways of translation cannot lead a correct transfer of the original content，so the translative flexibility is by no means an adornment that we may as well without it as with it but an indispensable means used to reach the aim of accuracy．

Poverty is often off the beaten track．It always has been．The ordinary tourist never left the main highway，and today he rides interstate turnpikes．He does not go into the valleys of Pennsylvania where the towns look like movie sets of Wales in the thirties．He does not see the company houses in rows，the rutted roads(the poor always have bad roads whether they live in the city，in towns，or on farms)，and everything is black and dirty．And even if he were to pass through such a place by accident，the tourist would not meet the unemployed men in the bar or the women coming home from a runaway sweatshop．

(注:选自《新编英语教程》，上海外语教育出版社，2003. 46)

　贫穷常常无人问津，但却永远存在。在过去一般游客决不会离开主干道，而如今只驱车穿梭于州际之间。他不会进入宾夕法尼亚谷地去参观破旧不堪的村庄，它们看上去很像20世纪30年代威尔斯的电影布景;不去参观那一排排公司雇员的住房、坎坷不平的土路(穷人不管居住在城镇还是农场，其道路总是很糟糕的)以及任何污黑肮脏的东西。即使碰巧走过这样的地方，游客也不会会晤在酒吧里喝酒的失业男人，也不会拜访从榨取血汗的工厂下班回家的妇女。

Comments We find it little difficult to understand the underlined parts in the original．If we render them exactly on the basis of literal meaning，though the Chinese version follows the principle of accuracy，the reader probably feels confused about them．The writer uses synonyms like “track” ，“turnpikes”and“highway”for the sake of figure of speech．We，however，translate literally．“The towns look like movie sets of Wales in the thirties”is not hard for us to understand superficially，but we should know that in the 1930s，there was disastrous unemployment in South Wales，and after World War I Wales was a depressed area with a third of the population on relief．Movie sets are the furniture，scenery，etc．，used for making moving pictures．Here the author means that the towns in the valleys of Pennsylvania are shabby and dilapidated．Therefore we have to exert the translative flexibility in translation just like the version in order to reach the aim of accuracy．

From the above-mentioned example，it is easy for us to find that the principle of flexibility consists precisely in sensitively discerning minute changes and rendering this sort of linguistic transformation really agreeable with laws of language in the transformation between two languages，without following some rigid，simple formulas．While linguistic phenomena are ever changing，there must be laws that govern the changes since language is an instrument for social communication，only that they are very subtle and complicated，and not capable of being covered with several formulas．The reason that so far machine translation has been applicable only in a very limited area，and that the electronic brain has not been capable of fulfilling such tasks as literary translation lies exactly in the fact that it has not been able to know well the complex laws in linguistic transfer although it is capable of no less than 100 million calculations per second and of helping humans go up into the sky and down into the earth．It is the human brain that is able to reflect laws as truthfully as possible by giving full play to the flexible spirit in the practice of translation although it is not necessarily capable of giving a complete revelation of the concrete laws．The fundamental reason that translation is endowed with both scientificalness and artistry resides precisely here．

Not restricted by any ready translated expressions，one is to bring TL positive factors into full play so that he will be able to choose the words and expressions that can really express the original intention; this is the meaning of flexibility in translation．Only by doing this can one arrive at accuracy．