Born(e) Free: The Ten Commandments in Translation Cross-Cultural Studies

Abstract

在〈簽名 事件 語境〉一文中，德希達寫道：「任何符號，不論是語言的或非語言的，口語的或書寫的──也不論其組成的大小，都可以放置在引號之間被援引；如此，符號就可以從任何特定語境中脫離，並且以絕對無法飽和的方式，無窮盡地產生新的語境。」這個德希達或許會稱之為「括引活動」的現象，使得任何意義皆無法達成立即且圓滿的全面體現。本篇論文以《聖經》「十誡」為例，挪用德希達的看法，意圖說明「十誡」──無論是以口語的或文字書寫的形式，也不論是在其英文「原文」或中文譯文／音譯裏──持續受制於一種「普遍的重覆／括引性」，因此其意義早已在「意繹」之中不斷開放。任何企圖對十誡所做的翻譯都會遭受自身之內「剝離的力量」的制約，因而不停地在可譯與不可譯的雙重束縛之中產生意義的變化。

In “Signature Event Context,” Jacques Derrida writes, “Every sign, linguistic or nonlinguistic, spoken or written . . . as a small or large unity, can be cited, put between quotation marks; thereby it can break with every given context, and engender infinitely new contexts in an absolutely nonsaturable fashion.” This “citational play,” as Derrida might have called it, virtually renders the immediacy and plenitude of meaning a mere illusion. This essay, with special reference to the Ten Commandments in the Bible, aims to appropriate Derrida by arguing that the Ten Commandments, be it in spoken form or written, in its English “original” or Chinese translation and/or transcription, is subject to the play of “general citationality/ iterability”—that is, a “force of rupture” that constantly deterritorializes any given context and defies any claim of self-presence of meaning. In short, the meaning of the Ten Commandments is always already open, and any attempted translation of the Ten Commandments will thus become an activity that shows both the possibility and the impossibility of translation per se.