以转化求忠实：《捎话》英译本“万物有灵”观的跨语际再现研究

Achieving Faithfulness through Transformation: An Interlingual Study of the “Animistic” Worldview in the English Translation of Bearing Word

摘要: 《捎话》是茅盾文学奖得主刘亮程的长篇小说，以“万物有灵”为核心叙事内涵，构建出灵性互通的文学世界。其英译本——程异的Bearing Word，作为该书首部正式出版英译本，对中国文学外译传播具有重要价值，为考察灵性叙事的跨语际传递提供了典型样本。本文采用原文与译文的对照分析法，从动词选择、语义优化、语态重构、语篇调控以及认知等效五个维度，系统分析“万物有灵”叙事内涵的再现策略与效果。研究发现，译者突破英语物我分明的表达惯性，以语言转化实现深层忠实，有效传递出中国文化中万物共感、灵性互通的叙事特质，在可读性与文化再现之间达成平衡。本文通过系统考察译文对“万物有灵”叙事内涵的跨语际再现策略，以期为当代中国同类文学的英译实践提供参照。

Abstract: As a novel written by Liu Liangcheng, the winner of Mao Dun Literature Prize, Bearing Word (Chinese title:《捎话》), is centered on an “animistic” worldview, creating a literary universe in which all beings are spiritually interconnected. Its English translation, Bearing Word by Jeremy Tiang, serves as the first formally published English version of the novel, holding significant value for the global dissemination of contemporary Chinese literature abroad and providing a representative case for examining the interlingual transmission of spiritual narratives. Adopting a comparative analysis between the source and target texts, this paper systematically examines the strategies and effects of rendering the “animistic” narrative connotation across five dimensions: verb selection, semantic enhancement, voice restructuring, textual modulation, and cognitive equivalence. The findings indicate that the translator breaks through the English convention of strictly differentiating subject from object, achieving a deeper faithfulness through linguistic transformation. The translation effectively conveys the narrative characteristic of “shared sensation and spiritual interconnection among all things” embedded in Chinese culture, striking a balance between target language readability and cultural representation. By systematically exploring the interlingual reproduction strategies for the “animistic” worldview, this paper aims to provide a referential framework for the English translation of similar works in contemporary Chinese literature.