修辞

英语中的修辞决非"文学语言"之专利，它已渗透到各种体裁，各类文体。即使是在Internet上，我们每日也能欣赏到五光十色、美不胜收的英语修辞。如：1. U.S. stocks decline; global markets churn（平行结构）2. Hurricane Bonnie hammers Carolina coast（比喻）等。再以科技英语为例，原本一本正经、味同嚼蜡的科技英语中也经常闪现修辞的光彩，如：Electric power becomes the servant of man only after the motor was invented.（只是在电动机发明之后，电力才开始造福人类。）再如：Alloys belong to a half-way house between mixture and compounds.（合金是介于混合物和化合物的中间物质。）英语广告对于修辞的运用更是"穷凶极恶"。如：What is your choice when inflation is slowly eroding the value of your nest eggs? （这是一家投资公司的广告，它把你平日的积蓄比作nest eggs，比喻独到，形象鲜活。）再如：Wash the big city right out of your hair. （广告里的big city即刻让人意识到the dirt of the big city，生动形象。）

英语的修辞可以分为消极修辞和积极修辞两大类。

一、 消极修辞(Passive Rhetoric Techniques)

它主要指那些没有相对固定格式的修辞性写作技巧，它与语法、语言结构和词汇的关系密切，只是为了修辞和立意新颖的缘故，对之做了一些调整。举一种情况进行说明：为了增加文采，强化文章的表现力，常常避免重复使用同一个词汇，而另选他词。这种无固定格式可循的消极修辞手段被称为Elegant Variation（求雅换词）。如在Elizabeth Razzi写的题为10 Ways to Lose Pounds 的文章中，"减肥"的表达竟有8种，文笔活泼，文采灿然：1. Try to shed a few extra pounds? 2. Studies show these efforts may shave off the pounds quickly. 3. Here are ten simple strategies that can help melt away your fat forever. 4. ...like a logical way to peel off a few pounds. 5. ...roughly the amount needed to burn off one pound. 6. You must eat less to lose weight. 7. A key obstacle to dropping extra pounds is after-dinner snacking. 8. 10 Ways to Lose Pounds. 以上8句中的斜体字让我们欣赏了英语词汇的活力与风采。遗憾的是，大部分精彩的用词不能直译。

求雅换词的手法之一是大字小用，或小词大用。如：Don't take the low-fat label as a license to eat. 句子写得精彩，最难忘的是其中license一词。它是用途很广的大词。用在这里给人一种"头小帽大"的感觉，新颖别致。译文很难挽留此韵。（不能因为食品标明低脂肪，而敞开食用。）再如：If the term sounds unscientific to 20th-century ears, let us remember there is a definite connection between marshy lands and malaria... （如果这个术语对生活在20世纪的人听来不科学的话，那就让我们记住在沼泽地和疟疾之间有一定的联系......）。求雅换词的手法之二是科技词汇和日常用词的"错位"。如：Na?ve rats and frogs are said to have reacted wildly to such proposed experimented situation. Na?ve用于现代生物学时的含义为：not previously subjected to experimentation or a particular experimented situation.（据说，首次用来作实验的鼠和蛙对这种设定的环境改变都有剧烈反应。）再如：However, there are plenty of people who like tennis. It is the megagame. Mega的含义是兆，百万，是一个科技英语的词缀。使用在这里新义溢出。（但是许许多多的人喜欢网球，这是一项十分普及的运动。）

二、 积极修辞(Active Rhetoric Techniques)

它主要指那些有相对固定格式的修辞性写作技巧。常见分类如下：

1． 词义修辞格(Lexical Stylistic Devices)

metaphor（比喻）, metonymy（借代）, personification（拟人）, irony（反语）, hyperbole（夸张）, understatement（低调）, euphemism（委婉语）, contrast（对照）, oxymoron（矛盾修辞法）, transferred epithet（移就）, pun（双关）, syllepsis（异叙）, zeugma（粘连）, parody（仿拟）, paradox（隽语）

2． 结构修辞格(Syntactical Stylistic Devices)

repetition（反复）, catchword repetition（联珠）, chiasmus（回文）, parallelism（平行结构）, antithesis（反对）, rhetoric question（设问）, anticlimax（突降）

3． 音韵修辞格(Phonetic Stylistic Devices)

alliteration（头韵）, onomatopoeia（拟声）

三、 英语修辞的理解与翻译

马克?吐温在其著名游记A Tramp Abroad中，有这样一句：We had plenty of company in the way of wagon-loads and mule-loads of tourists------and dust. 句末的-----and dust看似寻常一笔，其实是一种不可多得的妙句，使用了英语中anticlimax的修辞格。如果不能识破，则让对照阅读原文者"饮恨"。如：同路的有许多旅客，有乘马车的，也有骑骡子的--一路尘土飞扬。/ 我们的旅伴真不少，有乘马车的，有骑骡子的，还有滚滚尘土呢。

下面就几种常见的修辞格进行讲解：

1． Parody（仿拟）如果译者功底不凡，能知作者之所"仿"，那么，理解与翻译也就"水到渠成"。如：Clearly, when it comes to marriage, practicing beforehand doesn't make perfect. 可以译成：显然，在婚姻问题上，婚前同居并不能令婚姻生活趋于完美。再如：When flu hits below the belt, it can be a challenge to keep down anything more nourishing than tea and water. 词典对成语hits below the belt的通常解释是：用不正当手段打人（原指拳击中打对方的下身）。若是照搬，译文就会闹笑话。对待"仿拟"修辞格的方法之一是还原。所谓还原，即故意撇开成语的引申义，而"硬"用其字面义。如：若流感影响到了肠胃，那就只能饮用点茶水，要吃下其他东西就非常困难了。再如：Little John was born with a silver spoon in a mouth, which was rather curly and large. 英语成语to be born with a silver spoon in one's mouth的含义是"出生在富贵之家"。这里，作者不用此引申义，而用字面意思。试译：小约翰嘴形弯曲，且大得出奇，好像生下来的时候嘴中含了一把银勺子似的。

2． Syllepsis（异叙）此修辞格的特点是用一个词（动词、形容词或介词）同时与两个词或者更多相搭配，巧用一词多义的特点。如：He first put a club in my hand when I was about ten. I threw a lot of tantrums in the upland hills of North Carolina, and clubs too. I was in such a rush to be good that he would urge me to "relax and enjoy the round. The game ends far too soon." I didn't have a clue what he meant. 试译：他第一次把高尔夫球棒放在我手里的时候，我大概十岁。在北卡罗来纳州的山中，我一次次发脾气，一次次把球棒扔掉。我急于求成，老爸总是劝我"放松点，慢慢打，比赛结束得太快了。"我一点儿也不明白他的意思。再如：By day's end, I had drilled 4216 holes to a depth of 18 inches, and I had lost mine pounds, my hearing, feeling in both hands and the ability to lift anything heavier than the evening paper. 试译：一天快结束的时候，我已经钻了4216个深达18英寸的洞，为此，我失去了9磅体重，失去了听力，失去了双手的感觉，还失去了举起比一张晚报更重的东西的臂力。

3． metonymy（借代）借代一般可以保留原文的修辞方式，不会引起误会，同时让译文多了一份词趣。如：So, during any five-week shape-up, focus more on the tape measure than on the bathroom scale. 译文A：因此，在此五周的减肥期内，要更多地注重自己的腰围，而不是自己的体重。译文B：因此，在此五周的减肥期内，把注意力放在量腰围的卷尺上，而不是放在浴室的磅秤上。

4． pun（双关）有许多看似无法在译文中挽留的原文形式的神韵和风采在译文中却得以挽留。如：First gentleman: Thou art always figuring disease in me, but thou art full of error, I am sound. Lucio: Nay, not as one would say, healthy; but so sound as things that are hollow; impiety has made a feast of thee. （整个对话之谐趣尽系双关词汇sound。）试译：绅士甲：你总以为我有那种病，其实你大错特错，我的身体响当当的。路奇奥：响当当的，可并不结实，就像空心的东西那样响当当的，你的骨头都空了，好色的毛病把你掏空了。

5． alliteration（头韵）英语辞格押头韵的手法历来被认为是不可译的，但是，面对alliteration，并不意味译者就无所作为。如下的两段译文就做了成功的尝试。如：Change is part of life and the making of character, hon. When the things happen that you do not like, you have two choices: You get bitter or better. 试译：变化是生活的一部分，而且也塑造了人的意志品德，亲爱的。当你不喜欢的事情发生了，你有两种选择：要么痛苦不堪；要么痛快达观。再如：Predictably, the winter will be snowy, sleety, and slushy. 试译：可以预言，今年冬天将多雪，多冻雨，多泥泞。（原句当中的snowy, sleety, slushy也是非常漂亮的押头韵，译者殚精竭虑，用心可嘉。）

6． metaphor（比喻）这个metaphor并非狭隘意义上的把A比作B的不使用比喻词（如as, like, as if等）的暗喻，而是广义上的英语词汇的比喻义。换言之，也就是英语词汇denotation(本义)之外的connotation(转义)。Peter Newmark在A Textbook of Translation中把英语中的比喻分成四类，令人耳目一新:I have suggested elsewhere that there are four types of metaphor: fossilized, stock, recently created and original. 第一类：有学生在作文中写出如下句子：In the middle of the picnic, it started to rain cats and dogs, and everybody got soaked. 该句子被改为：While we were busy eating a picnic, a storm cloud suddenly appeared and everybody got soaked. 在A Dictionary of American Idioms中，写道：rain cats and dogs: To rain very hard; come down in torrents------A cliché. 美国朋友说: If you use this metaphor, I will doubt if you are my grandfather's uncle! 第二类：stock(常用的)这是指已被收入词典，但并不属于cliché范畴的比喻。如：flood一词的用法。She was in a flood of tears. (她泪流如注。) The corridors were flooded with girls. (走廊里挤满了女孩子。) Strawberries flooded the market and prices dropped down. (草莓充斥市场，价格下跌。) 第三类的标准应该是：至少目前商未被收入词典，同时又让人接受，并感到新意扑面。如在一篇名为Rescue of A Newborn 中有三个句子：A. I focused on a small blob in the mud amid the columns of legs and trunks. B. I suddenly came upon a wall of feeding elephants. C. ...grabbed their lost baby and tugged her gently into a stockade of legs. 第四类：original这种比喻并非随处可见，唾手可得。它是灵感思维的产物。这种比喻在词典上无踪影可觅，而且连参照物可能也没有。如：Jeff Rennicke在A Promise of Spring 中开卷段是：Nothing. No tracks but my own are stitched into the dusting of fresh snow, white as birch bark, that fell during the night. No flittering shadows in the trees, not a sliver of bird song in the air. 试译：白茫茫的一片。没有别的什么踪迹，只有我的脚印如细密的针脚印在积雪上。积雪白如桦树皮，是昨夜落下的。在树上没有鸟儿轻捷的身影，在空中也听不到鸟儿一丝的啁啾。

对比喻的翻译可以分为两类：

一是保留原文的形象，即: to find an equivalent image. 如：Ani began pounding and yelling to be let out as the car screeched from the parking lot. But rock music blaring from the radio speakers drowned him out. 试译：当汽车从停车场急速驶过时，Ani开始猛烈敲打和大声呼喊，但是从车内喇叭发出的摇滚音乐淹没了他发出的声音。再如：The policemen who patrolled the big city slum area that summer were sitting on a volcano. 那年夏天，在城市大贫民区巡逻的警察如同坐在火山口上。

二是实行翻译的"补偿原则"(compensation)。所谓以补偿方法译比喻，就是在寻找对等形象无门的情况下，使用变通的方法，尽可能地对译文中比喻形象的流失作某些补偿，以求得译文与原文大致相等的可读性。如：Cavorting and diving at breathtaking speeds, the beautiful birds (指鹰) mirrored each other in flight. A. 在空中翻飞嬉戏，时作闪电式俯冲，矫健的鹰双双携游于碧空。B. 在空中翻飞嬉戏，时作闪电式俯冲，矫健的鹰比翼齐飞，形影相随。再如：But after six years of a stormy marriage, Cewe decided to end it. She didn't want her son to grow up thinking that kind of relationship was normal. 试译：六载婚姻生活，风雨交加，Cewe决定结束这种婚姻。她不愿让她儿子在这样的环境里长大成人，并误以为这样的关系是正常的。又如：Rudy knew they had severed the wrong rope and that it was the thick tow line that trapped him. "Try cutting the other rope!" said Rudy, his hopes, and his grip, eroding. 试译：Rudy发现他们割错了绳子，是那根粗的牵引绳缠住了他。"把另一根绳子割断！"Rudy说。此刻，他的希望，他的握力，似油将尽、灯将灭。再如：The following week was family conference, something I dreaded. This was the day the dirty laundry got hung out to air in a private session between parent, child and counselor. 试译：下周将开家长会，这正是我害怕的。在这一天，家长、孩子和辅导员将开私下的碰头会，列数孩子做的坏事。再如：The operation may not succeed; it's a gamble whether he lives or dies. 手术不一定成功，能否保住他的生命没有把握。
关键字:英语翻译
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