Source: People's Daily
Dong Qiang translated the cover of the Analects. Profile picture
Dong Qiang translated the cover of "The Road of Tang Poetry". Profile picture
In today's increasingly developed artificial intelligence, there is a phenomenon that has frustrated translators and delighted onlookers: machines can already continuously improve intelligence through "deep learning". People predict that just as alpha dogs can beat the world champion of Go, one day, artificial intelligence can also complete high-quality translation work through continuous "deep learning". Regardless of whether artificial intelligence can complete high-level translation, I would like to put forward some thoughts on "deep learning".
Translators need to do "deep learning"
As translators, people—not machines—also need "deep learning." Translators are often imagined as static, people with a fixed "level." My opinion is: quite the opposite. Every translation by a translator is a challenge, a kind of self-improvement, a process of "deep learning". This is the beauty of translation, and it is also where translation comes closer to craftsmen and artists, beyond what theory can dominate.
This involves the definition of the translator, i.e. what qualities does a translator have?
More than 10 years ago, I was commissioned to translate the Analects into French. Previously, I translated the Selected Poems of Li Bai, which was given as a state gift to the President of France. But the complete translation of the Analects is still a huge challenge for me. In this case, I gradually understood the need for "deep learning" for translators.
Regarding the Chinese language, there is a beautiful "myth" among foreigners: the Chinese language is well preserved, has not changed much in more than a thousand years, and Chinese still understand Confucius today. It is true that due to long-term inheritance, many of Confucius's discourses have been deeply integrated into the Chinese language, and have been successfully "reproduced" in modern languages in various forms such as introductions, aphorisms, and transliterations. However, beyond these examples precipitated in the language, into the ocean of the Analects itself, any contemporary person will find that in most cases, it is difficult to read the Analects without the careful guidance of experts. In particular, in the long river of history, various interpretations are superimposed on each other, and there are many interpretations of a sentence. In the final translation, even if the translator can add other explanations to the notes, the main text can only choose one. This requires the translator to finally use an explanation responsibly and accurately express it in a foreign language on the basis of a unified tone, style, thought, upper and lower logic, etc.
Therefore, to translate the Analects, we must first study the Analects and read all the versions. See the basic meaning of the paragraphs between the lines until a meaning that can convince itself emerges from it. This is a kind of historical crossing, in which the interpretations of each era are clearly revealed like geological layers, and then selected to be as seamless as possible with some of the more simple and explicit statements in the Analects that do not need to be explained. In other words, the most seamless explanation, the most logical and persuasive in context, is the best option. This is the result of the translator's "deep learning" and the translator's true "responsibility system": when a translator signs, the most important and most important responsibility is not only the accuracy of the language or the correctness of the grammar, but also the rationality of the internal logic of the translation. At the end of the day, this is the minimum ability a translator should have.
The ideal state for a translator is to be a creator
As a result, the translator becomes a highly responsible person for the combination of objective and subjective. Objective, because the translator is also a learner, must learn as objective knowledge as possible; subjective, because the translator needs to be guaranteed by all sensibility, rationality and understanding, and make decisions such as "taking" in Lu Xun's "take-ism". This is an option with a high sense of responsibility. Therefore, the ideal state of the translator is to become an author at the same time, or one of the translators.
The result of this practice is my poetry collection "The Road to Tang Poems," which I co-authored with the French writer Le Clézio, a Nobel laureate in literature, and translated by me into Chinese. None of us are experts in Tang poetry, but we all have the experience of reading Tang poetry and the understanding of Tang poetry, and I believe that my understanding of Tang poetry is higher than that of many foreign sinologists and translators. Therefore, I have made a "guarantee" for Le Clézio's creation, which is a moral, intellectual responsibility guarantee. As a world-renowned writer, Le Clézio's literary space is vast and far-reaching, and he has a special love for Chinese culture since he was a child, especially For Tang poetry. Therefore, his understanding of Tang poetry is also broad. He placed Tang poetry in the context of world literature and believed that Tang poetry was at the peak of world literature. At the same time, his understanding of the poets of the Tang Dynasty also looked at the big picture, and simplified it in a big way after grasping the fundamental characteristics.
I named the Collection of French poems "The River of Poetry Will Run Endlessly" and the Chinese "The Road of Tang Poetry." Rivers and roads, one for water, one for soil. The long flow of poetry never stops, which is equal to the meaning of the never-ending road of Tang poetry, and also expresses the continuity of time, as well as the historical inheritance and change process of poetry creation as a culture, which is the "continuation" in the sense of the French philosopher Bergson's theory. In the translation of specific verses, I read various expert explanations, using the method of translating the Analects, extracting a meaning that I felt was most usable and translating it into French. The only difference is that the translation of The Road to Tang Poetry can stand the test of Le Clézio and the editors of French publishing houses at any time. In fact, Le Clézio, who was proficient in English, started from the English translation of Tang poetry and translated many poems into French. But after comparison, he and the editor chose the version that I translated from Chinese to French because they were more "vivid and full" and "completely different" than that.
Translation is the responsibility of cultural exchange
In most cases, translators are not really "content" experts. Translators of the older generation, such as Fu Lei, often exchanged a lot of letters with the original author, gradually understanding something they did not understand; or following a foreign tutor, studying a kind of idea, an author, and then translating. This means that even "professional translators in the industry" have to go through "deep learning", but this "deep learning" process is completed before translation. Conversely, the reason why many translations fail is that people mistakenly believe that translation has a secret, and once mastered, everything can be translated.
If there are "professional translators," they should be the translators who are the best at learning—and "deep learning." Therefore, the more humble the translator, the better he can complete the work; the more responsible he is, and the more courageous he is at the moral and intellectual level, the higher the value of a translation. The master of art Ingres once left a mysterious sentence that is evocative: "Sketching is the moral responsibility of art." "Similarly, translation is the responsibility of cultural exchange. This puts forward extremely high requirements for translators, who need to constantly carry out "deep learning" and continuously improve their self-cultivation.
Only after reaching this level can translators become a real "medium" and a solid bridge, becoming a deep learner and "ferryman" of different cultures. Whether translating ancient classics or new works, a true translator is looking for the best "outlet" for works of foundational and symbolic significance in a culture, so that readers can feel the vastness of culture and its new power in today's world.
Dong Qiang, born in 1967, is a Liberal Arts Distinguished Professor at Peking University, the dean of Yenching Academy, and the head of the French Department. From 2009 to 2014, he served as the chairman of the jury of the Fu Lei Translation and Publication Award, and since 2015, he has served as the chairman of the organizing committee of the award, and has served as a judge of the 7th Lu Xun Literature Award Literary Translation Award. He was awarded the "Gold Medal of the Union of la Francophonie" by the Académie française. His major translations include the Chinese-chinese works "Analects" and "Black Horse", as well as the French translations of "The Logic of Feeling- Deleuze on Bacon", "The Art of Novels", "The Rabble" and so on. (Dong Qiang)
People's Daily ( 2022-03-20 Edition 07)