第五届“《英语世界》杯”翻译大赛

参赛译文评分原则及要点

评分大致原则：

1.       评分按百分制计算。此次参赛原文是美国大学低年级学生的习作，参赛者对原文内容的理解应该问题不大；但原文在描写景物、刻画心境和抒发感情方面都颇为考究（此乃这篇习作被收入英文写作教材的原因），参赛译文在描摹原文风格方面可能会有欠缺；因此可划出30分用于译文全文的整体效果。

2.       其余70分用于参赛译文的标题（附加作者署名）和对应于原文的7个自然段落：标题3分，较短的第6段7分，其余6段每段10分，采用减分制评分。

3.       误译、漏译根据具体情况每处扣0.5–3分。

4.       表达不通顺、用词不恰当每处扣0.5–2分。

5.       错别字和不规范标点符号每处扣0.5分。

6.       每段评分亦须兼顾译文整体质量，包括原文理解程度、翻译技巧之运用和变通、遣词造句能力、前后句的衔接连贯、可读性，以及文体风格之再现等等。

7.       其余情况各评委老师可在标准一致的前提下酌情处理。

评分大致要点：

0.   Limbo/ By Rhonda Lucas【要点：1、标题的翻译：正文第1段末句“All was frozen in limbo between the life just passed and the one to come”、《范文：短文读本》（Patterns: A Short Prose Reader）在Limbo一课后所列生词表（Words to know）对limbo的释义（an intermediate place or state; a region or condition of oblivion or neglect），以及课后思考题第1题（Why is the title of this essay “Limbo”? Between which two stages of life is the writer?）都说明作者用Limbo做篇名是取该词的引申义，美国学生（读者）也是按此义理解，所以翻译时不宜纠结于该词的神学意义。2、作者名Rhonda Lucas应严格按照《英语姓名译名手册》翻译，同时应按译界惯例标明作者的国籍。3、Limbo这篇课文前的导言（生活中某种变化或某种新的体验，会使人们从一个新的视角来看待熟悉的事物。一个新的场所会使一件旧物（如一件家具或一件衣服）显得陌生。一天，坐在堆满了打包纸箱和旧家具的车库里，东洛杉矶学院学生朗达·卢卡斯发现了这两点。这篇散文记录了她当时的所见所思（A new experience, a change in our lives, can make us see familiar objects in a new light. And a new location can make an old possession—a piece of furniture, an article of clothing—look strange. Rhonda S. Lucas, a student at East Los Angeles College, discovered both these things one day as she sat in a garage full of packing boxes and old furniture. She describes what she saw in this essay.）可为确定这篇散文的基调（文体风格）提供参考。】

1.       My parents’ divorce was final. The house had been sold and the day had come to move. Thirty years of the family’s life was now crammed into the garage. The two-by-fours that ran the length of the walls were the only uniformity among the clutter of boxes, furniture, and memories. All was frozen in limbo between the life just passed and the one to come. 【要点：1、第3句中的Thirty years of the family's life指包括子女在内的全体家庭成员的生活，不应受上文“divorce”影响而将“family’s life”翻译成“婚姻生活”（http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_621889920102er5t.html），同时注意作者以虚喻实的手法，也不宜将Thirty years of the family’s life翻译成“三十年来用过的所有东西”或“三十年的家庭用品”等等。2、第4句中的“The two-by-fours”：定冠词和复数表明这是名词，而two-by-four用作名词只有一个所指，即a piece of lumber having dimensions of 2 by 4 inches, or finished dimensions of 1^5/8 by 3^5/8 inches（见附图）。3、注意第4句中的ran the length of = ran from one end to the other of, be as long as。4、第4句中的boxes就是下文说的cardboard boxes（见附图），提倡一开始就译作“纸箱”或“纸板箱”。 5、翻译第5句中的“limbo between the life…”应讲究与译文标题呼应，从而彰显文章主题（点题）。】

    the two-by-fours

    the cardboard boxes

2.       The sunlight pushing its way through the window splattered against a barricade of boxes. Like a fluorescent river, it streamed down the sides and flooded the cracks of the cold, cement floor. I stood in the doorway between the house and garage and wondered if the sunlight would ever again penetrate the memories packed inside those boxes. For an instant, the cardboard boxes appeared as tombstones, monuments to those memories.【要点：1、应注意协调第1句中的隐喻和第2句中的明喻，从而合理选用动词。2、第3句中的“again”= further, furthermore, or moreover，不宜翻译成“再次，又一次”（once more），因为上文中阳光并未实施过“penetrate”这个动作。3、注意第4句中tombstones、monuments 和memories的复数形式，鼓励译文用叠音量词表复数，以避免重复使用“那些”（those）。】

3.       The furnace in the corner, with its huge tubular fingers reaching out and disappearing into the wall, was unaware of the futility of trying to warm the empty house. The rhythmical whir of its effort hummed the elegy for the memories boxed in front of me. I closed the door, sat down on the step, and listened reverently. The feeling of loss transformed the bad memories into not-so-bad, the not-so-bad memories into good, and committed the good ones to my mind. Still, I felt as vacant as the house inside.【要点：1、注意不要把“furnace”混同于“fireplace”（前者指an apparatus usu. consisting of a firepot and a system of pipes to carry heat to all parts of a building，后者指a square of rectangular opening made at the base of a chimney in or against the wall of a room and surrounded with brick, stone or metal to hold an open fire for heating），不然后文对furnace的形态描述会不得要领。2、保持第1句中“was unaware of”和第2句中“hummed”等拟人化描写（但第1句中fingers这个拟人化说法不适合在中译文中复制，可据输暖管的实际形态（见附图）变通处理，只要保持这两句对暖气炉的拟人化描写效果即可）。3、第4句末的mind最好译成“心”（《英汉大词典》mind第5义项），从而与下句中的I felt as vacant形成呼应。】

暖气炉部件专业名称

                    暖气炉“指状分叉的大尺寸输暖管”

4.       A workbench to my right stood disgustingly empty. Not so much as a nail had been left behind. I noticed, for the first time, what a dull, lifeless green it was. Lacking the disarray of tools that used to cover it, now it seemed as out of place as a bathtub in the kitchen. In fact, as I scanned the room, the only things that did seem to belong were the cobwebs in the corners.【要点：1、翻译第1句中empty时应注意措辞与翻译上文的vacant措辞呼应，从而使译文衔接连贯。2、注意第2句中的“Not so much as”与相似短语“not so much… as”的区别，前者的意思是“连……也不；连……也没有”。3、第3句应译出what a dull, lifeless green中“what”所表达的感叹意味，同时应注意，若取消感叹的部分，此句的意思是I noticed, for the first time, it was green.（从前工具台台面完全被工具所覆盖，所以作者不曾注意其颜色）。4、末句中的“belong”不宜简单地翻译成“属于”，最好取其“to be in an appropriate situation or environment”之义，根据自己的译文风格措辞。5、应译出cobwebs和corners的复数。】

5.       A group of boxes had been set aside from the others and stacked in front of the workbench. Scrawled like graffiti on the walls of dilapidated buildings were the words “Salvation Army.” Those words caught my eyes as effectively as a flashing neon sign. They reeked of irony. “Salvation—was a bit too late for this family,” I mumbled sarcastically to myself.【要点：1、第1句应译出“A group of boxes”和“the others”的分离状态（暗示被分出部分有特殊用途——慈善捐赠）。2、第2句是倒装句，正常语序是“The words ‘Salvation Army’ were scrawled like graffiti on the walls of dilapidated buildings.”。从文化差异上讲，部分参赛者也许不知美国人搬家时多会把用不着的物品捐给教会或其他慈善组织（如“Salvation Army”或“Goodwill”等），因此想不到“救世军”几个字是写在分出来的那部分纸箱上（见附图）；从语法上讲，有参赛者可能会忽略“like”引导的介词短语是个比喻（类比），并忽略该短语中的“dilapidated buildings”是复数形式，从而误以为“dilapidated buildings”是指作者家的那幢房子（或车库），进而将此句误译成“破旧不堪的危房，墙壁上涂鸦着‘救世军’的字样。”（http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_621889920102er5t.html）4、对“救世军”可加注，但注释内容应精当，以让中国读者理解为何那部分纸箱会写上“救世军”字样为限。】

 Salvation Army donations

6.       The houseful of furniture that had once been so carefully chosen to complement and blend with the color schemes of the various rooms was indiscriminately crammed together against a single wall. The uncoordinated colors combined in turmoil and lashed out in the greyness of the room.【要点：1、提倡将原文第1句中起修饰作用的定语从句翻译成定语，以保持原文的叙述方式和描述重心。2、注意第2句中“lashed out”的“半拟人化”描写（除人以外，lash out的主语还可以是其他动物）；此处的lash out 没有通常由介词at引出的动作对象，所以可取《韦氏三版》to move violently or suddenly之义，从而与上文（第2段）中对阳光的动态描写形成呼应。另：梁实秋《远东英汉大辞典》第1160页将不及物动词短语lash out解释为“e. 突然做，突然行动。d. 作过分的动作或暴烈的行为。”】

7.       I suddenly became aware of the coldness of the garage, but I didn’t want to go back inside the house, so I made my way through the boxes to the couch. I cleared a space to lie down and curled up, covering myself with my jacket. I hoped my father would return soon with the truck so we could empty the garage and leave the cryptic silence of parting lives behind.【要点：1、此段前两句不难理解，但需斟酌译文的遣词造句和行文节奏。根据中文行文习惯，可考虑将第1句第3个分句的主语（so 后面那个I）和第2个分句的主语（I）合并（承前主语）。2、第3句末尾的 the cryptic silence of parting lives从理解和表达来说都可能是难点。要明白cryptic silence的意思，首先应明确parting lives的所指。lives是life的复数，而life = a living being, especially a person，此处指该家庭的成员；parting作为形容词，在此处包含了departing 和separating双重意思，departing暗示家庭成员眼下将各奔东西的严酷现实（篇名用Limbo，以及文中用“墓碑”和“挽歌”作比喻都说明在作者心目中家庭解体的现实是严酷的），separating则暗示家庭成员（尤指作者的父母）此前貌合神离的尴尬状态。明确了parting lives的所指，cryptic silence就容易理解了，那就是家庭成员之间因隔阂而产生的相互间的缄默（silence），而作者认为这种缄默难以言表（cryptic，说不清道不明），故有cryptic silence这一表达。】