英国小説の日本語訳(1) : Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d\u27Urbervillesの日本語訳

There have been ten Japanese translations of Thomas Hardy\u27s Tess of the d\u27Urbervilles, the first published in 1925, the most recent in 1970. On the basis of a comparison of these translations with the original, this paper proposes to show by means of some typical examples how the various translators have misrepresented original text and to attempt to locate the causes of such mistranslation. Consideration of the influence on the various translations of the time when they were made or of the personal literary style of the translators lies outside its scope, as does any comparative assessment of the quality of the different versions. The causes of mistranslation are both linguistic and literary. Mistranslation due to linguistic factors tends to occur at points where the discourse structure or the grammar of the English have no near Japanese equivalent. The Japanese paragraph, for example, is much more loosely structured than the English paragraph, and as a result, Japanese translators sometimes err by interpreting a sentence in isolation or in the narrow context of the immediately preceding and following sentences, overlooking the place of the sentence in the structure of the paragraph. Translators seem to bring to novels certain preconceptions about character and plot, and this also leads them into misinterpretation. In the present case, the nature of the love that Angel Clare and Tess have for each other becomes considerably less complex in the Japanese translations. Inadequate rendering of individual phrases or sentences blurs the strain of irony in Hardy\u27s portrayal of the idealistic, impractical side of Angel and the limitations of his character and weakens the author\u27s characterisation. Similarly, the Japanese translations soften the earthier country elements in the character of Tess. A consideration of mistranslations serious enough to affect the reader\u27s overall response to the novel is followed by a brief discussion of a number of local errors resulting from a translator\u27s failure to recognize an idiomatic expression or appreciate the implication of a word. The aim of this paper, it is emphasized, is not merely to draw attention to the weaknesses of the translators. It seeks rather to view those errors common to a majority of these versions (whatever their literary qualities) in cross-cultural perspective and thus to define differences in attittude, sensibility and values between the English novelist and his Japanese translators