2. Abruptly the weather deteriorated, a freezing haze and blustering snow enclosing them in a towering world they glimpsed only intermittently. Tense days passed, they continued their reconnaissance, waited for the haze to lift，packed and repacked their rucksacks. Optimistically, they packed one piton, to drive into the summit as proof of their ascent. Then, on the night of August 7，Hidden Peak appeared out of the fog silliouetted in a star-lit sky. Before daybreak next day, they set out. "We felt,"Messner wrote later, “like bows drawn taut.”

                                                                   —Reader's Digest, March 1978, p.25

首先，它们证明了：“剑拔弩张”这一形象在英语民族看来同汉语民族看来一样都会引起共同的联想，产生同样的交际价值。在这一前提下，乙类译法是比较理想的译法——它在表层似乎只传达了形象，但在深层，不论在汉语民族还是英语民族来看，却又内涵着同样的交际功能，意味着“紧张”。这就是说它在译出形 象的同时也译出了含义——可谓一举两得。

最后，还有一点：以“sabre-rattling”译“剑拔弩张”究竞是否确切？因为据Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English,“sabre-rattling”之释义为：

(the action of) showing or talking about (military) power in a threatening way

如上所述，“剑拔弩张”如只译其义，是个短处，但如成语不涉及形象或只须译其义时，则《当代汉英词典 》对“剑拔弩张”的处理却有其可资借鉴之处：把不同涵义的上下文情境分别规定下来——“(of persons) ...”，“(of armies)... ”，“(situation)...”。

责任编辑：admin