以法國童話為翻譯範例詮釋中法文化的差異

Abstract

文化代表著一個民族看待世界的角度和它的生活方式。小從衣食住行，大到風俗習慣、行為規矩、價值理念等，都涵容在其中。不同的文化背景表現出不同的思想邏輯，不同的思想邏輯又呈現出不同的語言文字。所以說，語言是文化的產物。 即使是同樣的語言，在不同的國家也會因文化的差異，而呈現不同的風貌。譬如說法語，加拿大法語和法國法語就有所不同。加拿大人說：S’ennuyer comme un crapeau〈厭煩得像(看到)癩蛤蟆〉，而法國人說：S’ennuyer comme un rat mort〈厭煩得像(看到)死老鼠〉。這兩句用語上的差異，說明了加拿大人和法國人對某些動物有不同的評價。加拿大人對癩蝦蟆沒有好感，而法國人由於以前歐洲流行過黑死病，對死老鼠有負面的評價。 如果說文化是一個民族的內在美，那麼，語文就是它傳遞內在思維的工具。透過翻譯，不但可以將他國的語文解碼成本國語文，更可以經由文字中傳遞的訊息，促進我們對該國文化的認知。因此，翻譯是拉大文化視窗的有效途徑。 舉一個教學上的例子。有一次筆者教授法國人寫的一篇中國童話，為了傳達一種異國情調，法國人用中國有名的水果「荔枝」來稱呼故事中的女孩，學生聽了當場哄堂大笑。因為在中國人的習慣中，是沒有人會用水果的名字來叫自己的掌上明珠的，而法國人則剛好相反。他們會用水果的名字來叫自己的愛女，如用「香李」、「小甜橘」、「蘋果」、「櫻桃」、「覆盆子」等可愛甜美的水果，或用「百合」、「丁香」、「小雛菊」等清雅的花名，來替自己的女兒命名。對男孩則用高大的樹名稱呼，如「橄欖樹」、「覆盆子樹」等等。至於愛人間，更是喜歡用動物來相稱，譬如說男人暱稱女伴為「我的小母鹿」，女人暱稱男伴為「我的鴨子」、「我的兔子」等。這些稱呼說明法國文化中對植物、動物具有的正面評價。 法國人對龍、對天鵝、對蝙蝠、對貓頭鷹的觀念也與中國人迥然不同。本文將以社會語言學的角度，透過法國童話的翻譯，研究不同語言所傳遞的文化訊息，並歸納比較，探討中法文化間的差異。相信與異國文化的對照，有助於我們深入了解自己的文化特質，並汲取對方文化的優點，進而培育出符合現代潮流、中西兼具的國際視野。

Culture represents how an ethnic group sees the world and its ways of life. It contains small details like clothes, food, habitation and transportation but also the important customs, behaviors and values. Different cultural backgrounds give rise to different ways of thinking, and different ways of thinking give rise to different languages. So people say that language is the product of culture, and the carrier of culture. Even the same languages would appear with different features in different countries because of cultural differences. For example, Canadian French and French French are quite different. Canadians would say s’ennuyer comme un crapeau (bored like a toad), while French people would say s’ennuyer comme un rat mort (bored like a dead rat). The syntagmatic differences of these two expressions show how Canadian and French people evaluate some animals: Canadians don’t feel comfortable with toads, while rats have somehow a negative connotation for French people because Europe suffered plagues in the past. If culture is deep-rooted values of one ethnic group, then the language would be an important way to transfer thoughts and messages. By way of translation, we can not only « decipher » another country’s language into ours, but also improve our understanding of the country’s culture. We can say that translation is an efficient way to enlarge cultural visions. Take one example in class. Once we gave a lesson on a Chinese fairy tale written by a French writer. The French used the name of a quite famous Chinese fruit, litchi, to name the girl in the story. The students in the class burst out laughing, because in the usage of Chinese language, nobody would name his daughter after a fruit, but the French people, on the other hand, like to use flowers’ or fruits’ names for their loving daughters, for example the lovely fruits like “mirabelle”, “clementine”, “apple”, “cherry” or “raspberry”, or they may also use graceful flowers’ names. Lovers are more likely to call each other by animals’ names; for example men like to call their companion ma biche (my doe), and women call theirs mon canard (my duck), mon lapin (my rabbit), etc. These examples show how French culture show plants or animals in a positive light. Also French and Chinese people have different connotations about notions like the dragon, swan, owl, and bat. So, with the perspective of some translations of French fairy tales, also with a socio-linguistic point of view, our research aims to study the cultural messages transferred or seen in linguistic phenoma, to induce or compare French and Chinese cultural differences. We believe that comparison with a foreign culture will help us understand the characteristics of our own culture, learn the merits of other cultures and finally develop an overall vision which will go with both the Chinese and Western main streams.