Johnson

Why translators have the blues

译者为何悲伤？

A profession under pressure

压力下的职业

Print edition | Books and arts

May27th 2017

TRANSLATION can be lonely work, which may well be why most translators choose the careerout of interest, not because they crave attention. Until recently, a decent translator could expect a steady, tidy living, too. But the industry is undergoing a wrenching change that will make life hard for the timid.

翻译[1]可以是一份孤独的工作，这就很好地解释了为什么大多数翻译选择这项职业是出于自身兴趣，而不是关注度。时日之前，可以说一名合格译员都可以谋得一个稳定体面的生活，但是翻译行业正经历着扭曲的变革，让胆小者感受到谋生之艰。

Most translators are freelancers, and with the rise of the internet a good translator could live in Kentucky and work for Swiss banks. But going online has resulted in fierce global competition that has put enormous downward pressure on prices. Translators can either hustle hard formore or better-paid work—which means spending less time translating—or choose an agency that fights for the work for them, but which also takes a cut.

大多数翻译都是自由职业者，随着因特网的普及，一名合格译员可以人住在肯塔基州但服务于瑞士银行。但是网络互通也导致了激烈的全球竞争，随之即是大幅压价。译员们要么拼命多做或者抢酬劳高的活－这意味着实际翻译的时间少了－要么找一家能帮他们争取到任务的代理机构，但这意味着佣金抽取。

The alternative toschmoozing oneselfor working with an agency is to market one’s skills in online marketplaces. But these display the most relentless price pressure of all: fees as low as $13-15 per 1,000 words translated are not unknown. Traditionally, something more like $50 has been the low end, with literary translation at around $120, and high-end work at $250. Buyers who know little about foreign languages and quality will, in online markets, shop almost purely on price.

除了自己单干或者和代理机构合作，译员还可以在线上市场宣传自身技能，但这暴露了最残忍的竞价压力：像译文千字[2]13-15美金这么低的价格也不是没有。以前50美金左右就算低价翻译，那时候文学翻译大概是120美金，高价是250美金。在线上市场，几乎不懂外文和译文质量的买家几乎单纯按价格进行买卖。

To these pressures comes another: the rise in higher-quality machine translation. Just a year ago, machine translation still produced reliably rocky results: both inaccurate as to content, and often unreadable too. Both have improved dramatically with translation engines based on so-called deep neural networks.Those who offer rock-bottom prices for translation are almost certainly using translation software, and then giving it a quick edit for accuracy and readability. By and large,the big translation agencies are excited about technology and the possibilities of scale it offers them. What worries the translators themselves, though, is that the future may lie in nothing more intellectually pleasing than this kind of clean-up.

职业压力还有另外一个出处：较高质量的机器翻译的涌现。仅仅是一年前，机器翻译的结果还不可靠：内容上不准确，且常不具可读性。而如今这两个缺陷都由基于所谓深度神经网络的翻译引擎大幅改善。几乎可以确定那些报特低价的译员们使用了翻译软件，然后直接针对译文的准确度和可读性进行快速编辑。总体来看，大的翻译机构都对这些科技和其广阔可能性拍手叫好。但是，另译员们本身感受担忧的是，自己的未来除了这种科技大清洗，智力上的愉悦感，别无其它了。

Like all incumbents, those affected are not happy. To avoid being “the coffee-beanpickers of the future”, one veteran counsels improving specialist knowledge and writing skills to get high-end work. But not all can do that. Translators in the bulk and middle markets will inevitably be doing more editing, or will be squeezed out.

对于所有现役译员来说，受影响者都不开心。为了避免成为“未来捡咖啡豆的人”，老译员建议提高专业领域知识和写作技能，以争取高端翻译。但并非人人都能做到。身在普遍性和中端市场的翻译们必然更多的是做编辑工作，否则就是被挤出局。

What will the rest be doing? For one, literary translation is under no threat. Sales of translated fiction rose by more than 600%  in Britain between 2001 and 2015, and have been growing strongly in America too, with big authors like Elena Ferrante conditioning readers in those countries to look beyond their borders for good books. Nobody thinks a novel can be translated by a machine. In Roy Jacobsen’s “Unseen”, which is on the shortlist for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize (MBIP), the original dialectal island Norwegian has been deftly rendered by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw into a kind of English that carries the same flavour: “Hvur bitty it is!” (“How small it is!”). The MBIP recognises that translation is, in effect, a kind of writing by sharing the prize money equally between author and translators.

那剩下的翻译们何去何从呢？其一，文学翻译不受威胁。2001至2015年间，在英国，经翻译的小说售量上升了600％还不止，在美国也一直处于强劲增长中。像埃莱娜·费兰特（Elena Ferrante）[3]这样的大作家也建议这些国家的读者们跳出自己的国度找好书。没人会相信一部机器可以翻译出一本小说。罗伊.雅各布森（Roy Jacobsen）[4]的《看不见的事物》（Unseen）被列入2017年布克国际文学奖（Man Booker International Prize－MBIP）决选名单，原本的挪威岛方言经由唐.巴特利特（Don Bartlett）和唐.肖（Don Shaw）地道译出了带有同样风味的英文：“Hvur bitty it is!”（“How small it is!”“这个真是太小了！”）。MBIP让本书原作者和译者共享奖金，认可了翻译事实上是一种创作。

Most work is in commercial translation, but that is a kind of writing too. Executives sometimes reject a translation of a speech or a letter because it doesn’t look enough like their original. But a good translator needs to rethinka text, rewording important pieces, breaking up or merging sentences, and so on. Translation software can be accurate, but it translates sentence-by-sentence. Since languages have different rhythms and different expectations for what counts as a good sentence, that approach can result in a mess. So it is often best simply to rewrite after thinking about the intended meaning.

大多数翻译属于商业翻译，但那也属于一种创作。高管们常常否定一份讲稿或者一封信件的译文，因为那看起来不像他们的原作。但是一名好译员需要再度思考文章本身、重述重要篇章、分解或合并句段，如此等等。翻译软件可以做到准确，但它是逐句翻译。由于语言在考量句子好坏时基于不同的节奏、有不同的期待，因此软件效果可能是一团糟。所以翻译最好的办法只能是先思考原语所指深意，再重新创作。

Another market is “transcreation”, in which a translator—often in advertising—is expected to rethink a message, making sure that the version in the new language has the right culturalreferences, jokes and suchlike to recreate the impact, without the wording, of the original. In this case, the “transcreator” is even more of a writer than most translators.

另一个市场就是“译创”（transcreation），常见于广告业，这里要求译员重新思考一条信息，确保它在新语言（译语）中的版本具备正确的文化参照、笑点等诸如此类，来复刻原语的影响力，跳出语言本身。在这种情况下，“译创员”相比大多数译员来说，更是一名原创作者。

Translationis hardly alone inbeing shaken up by technology. The legal industry, accounting and many other venerable professions are seeing repeatable knowledge work done passablyby machines. The translators of the future need not only language and writing skills. They must, like the partners at a law or accounting firm, gain clients’ trust and learn their minds in order to do truly good work. The loners of the field, in other words, may find it hard going.

正在被科技重塑的翻译工作很难是一项孤独的工作了。法律、会计以及其它很多可敬的工作正见证着重复性脑力工作由机器完成，效果差强人意。未来的翻译想要做得真好，需要的不仅仅是语言和写作技能，还必须获得客户信任、站在客户角度考虑，就像律所或者会计所的合伙人。换句话说，翻译行业里的孤独者可能举步维艰了。

This article appeared in the /react-text Books and arts section of theprint edition under the headline "Translators’ blues"

本报道于本报印刷版书籍和艺术专栏，印刷版标题为“译者的悲伤”

英文链接：https://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21722609-profession-under-pressure-why-translators-have-blues

[1]译注：文章中翻译指“笔译”，不是“口译”。

[2]译注：后面价格均按千字译文字数算。

[3]埃莱娜·费兰特（Elena Ferrante），当代一名意大利小说家的笔名，《时代》杂志于2016年将之评为最有影响力的100名人物之一，真实姓名未知。

[4]罗伊.雅各布森（Roy Jacobsen），挪威小说家和短篇故事作家。