人人网 - 抱歉
哦，抱歉，好像看不到了
现在你可以:
看看其它好友写了什么
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文明办网文明上网举报电话： 举报邮箱：&&&&&&&&&&&&Treatment of Puns and Word Play in Translating Harry
(Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese)
&Tom Marvolo Riddle
The climactic scene in 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets' is the showdown
with Voldemort in the Chamber of Secrets at Chapter 17. And the climactic moment
is when Tom Riddle uses Harry's wand to trace three shimmering words in the
TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE
Riddle then waves the wand once and the letters of his name re-arrange themselves
into a terrifying revelation:
I AM LORD VOLDEMORT
Besides this re-arrangement, there is a second level of word play in this name:
'Tom Riddle' tells us exactly the nature of the name -
a riddle. In
order to translate this wordplay 100%, you need to find a name that can be re-ordered
to mean 'I am Voldemort', and what's more it should mean something like 'riddle'.
An impossible order!
Given that it's impossible to translate this word play 100%, what devices do
the translators resort to?
Chinese (Mainland version):
In the Chinese translation, the main text is in Chinese. A footnote explains
the word play by quoting the two sentences in English. The effect is roughly
as follows:
He took Harry's wand from his sleeve and tracing it in the air wrote
three shimmering names:
汤姆?马沃罗?里德尔
Then he waved the wand and the letters automatically re-arranged themselves
我是伏地魔 (1)
Footnote: ‘In English, 汤姆?马沃罗?里德尔
is &Tom Marvolo Riddle&. The letters in this name are
exactly the same as those in 我是伏地魔
&I am Lord Voldemort&, arranged in a different order.’
Chinese (Taiwanese version):
The Taiwanese translation gives the main text in English, with the Chinese
meaning shown in brackets at the left. (Since the Taiwanese version is printed up and down the page, this is equivalent to
placing it below). This method assumes somewhat greater familiarity with English
among the readership. The general effect is as follows:
He took Harry's wand from his sleeve and started to write in the air,
forming the row of letters:
TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE
(湯姆?馬佛魯?瑞斗)
Then he waved the wand and the letters in the air started to re-arrange
themselves:
I AM LORD VOLDEMORT
(我是佛地魔)
Japanese version:
The Japanese translation uses the same device as the Taiwanese. Again, this
method is more suitable for a readership that is reasonably familiar with English:
Riddle took Harry's wand from his pocket and wrote letters in the air.
Three words shimmered faintly:
TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE (トム?マールヴォロ?リドル)
He again waved his wand. The letters of his name re-arranged themselves:
I AM LORD VOLDEMORT (わたしはヴォルデモート卿だ)
Vietnamese version:
The Vietnamese version uses the original English, giving the Vietnamese meaning
of 'I AM LORD VOLDEMORT' in a footnote.
Riddle pulled Harry's wand from his pocket and began to collect in the
air, writing the three shimmering words:
TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE
Then he waved the wand again. The three words rearranged themselves into:
I AM LORD VOLDEMORT (1)
Footnote: Ta là Chúa t? Voldemort. (= I am Lord Voldemort.)
Comment: Even in languages such as French, German, Spanish, etc. that
use the Latin alphabet, a meaningful recreation of this word play is not easy,
although some translators manage to do so. In the scripts of East Asia,
the task is more difficult.
For instance, no amount of re-arranging the characters 汤姆?马沃罗?里德尔
Mǎwòluó
Lǐdé'ěr
is going to yield the sentence 我是伏地魔
('I am Voldemort'). What about creating a new name for Tom Riddle that could
be re-arranged into 我是伏地魔?
Due to the nature of the Chinese script, no amount of ingenuity could work 我
('I') or 是 shì ('is, am, are') into a plausible personal name.
There is more hope in Japanese because it has two phonetic scripts, hiragana
and katakana, which could theoretically be re-arranged to gain the desired
effect. But since these two scripts are syllabic rather than alphabetic, the
task requires the matching of sound combinations, not just single sounds, which
is quite a bit more difficult. The syllables トム?マールヴォロ?リドル
to-mu-ma- - -ru-vo-ro-ri-do-ru are impossible to
re-arrange into わたしはヴォルデモート卿だ
wa-ta-shi-ha-vu-o-ru-de-mo- - -to-kyo-o-da 'I am
Lord Voldemort' or anything like it. Finding a pausible, English-sounding name that would yield
this sentence is a tall order. Besides, Japanese translators generally prefer
to retain the English names rather than create new ones.
In the end, all the translators resort to the English original to explain Voldemort's
sleight of hand. (Incidentally, Voldemort must himself be congratulated for
his foresight in coming up with this little conundrum just so he could spring
it on the unsuspecting Harry Potter many years later.)
All versions must be awarded a ,
but with extenuating circumstances.