其二，背景信息展示得十分具体，这隐藏着人物与环境的特别关系。原文不作任何评述，而是让读者随着镜头，观看眼前发生的情景，独立作出判断。在鲁迅创作小说的时代，西方的城市规划学者即指出：街道、房屋、开阔的空间是城市的三大要素。庄氏父女此刻所经过的地方，已初步具备这些要素。需特别注意的是这些情景细节与庄氏父女的关系：“魁星”是常被附会为主宰科名和文运的神，显然与渔民庄木三及其女儿的生活距离遥远；不长的街道已有三十家“门面”（即店铺），这些店铺显然也与庄氏父女无关。可见，庄氏父女正处于完全陌生的、甚至是威胁性的环境，而商业兴旺往往蕴含道德滑坡这个永恒的文学主题，也暗示导致爱姑婚姻搁浅的社会因素。夏志清（1979：11）曾批评“五四”一代小说家的作品“在描绘一个人间现象时，没有提供了比较深刻的、具有道德意味的了解。”不言而喻，该批评有失公允。

与上述城市三要素相关的细节均属“可感细节”(sensory specifics,见Hall,2001：111),分别具有象征意义。Kundera（2003：63）借用法国象征派诗歌先驱波德莱尔（C.P.Baudelaire）诗中的词句，指出人是“走失”在“符号森林”里的“孩子”。上述“可感细节”无疑就是“符号森林”。遗憾的是，译者均在不同程度上译错或忽略了这些细节，包括把“魁星阁”分别译为tower(王译）、pavilion(杨译）、temple(Lyell与Lovell译）；把“门面”忽略不译（姚译）,或者译为houses(王、杨译）、gates（Lyell译）、dwellings（Lovell 译）。而在一法文译本（未署译者）

里，这些细节分别被译为pavillon(即pavilion）和maisons(即houses)(Lou,1974:260)。类似的误译、忽略或粗略处理会损害译本主题与模仿纬度的彼此构建，使译本不能传递原文的修辞效果和多层次的信息。

留意视角的变化并不意味着译者仅仅关注话语的局部语言形式，译者还应注意语篇的结构。兹以《祝福》的叙述者“我”回到故乡后对于农妇祥林嫂的描写为例：

我这回在鲁镇所见的人们中，改变之大，可以说无过于她的了：五年前的花白的头发，即今已经全白，全不像四十上下的人；脸上瘦削不堪，黄中带黑，而且消尽了先前悲哀的神色，仿佛是木刻似的；只有那眼珠间或一轮，还可以表示她是一个活物。她一手提着竹篮，内中一个破碗，空的；一手拄着一支比她更长的竹竿，下端开了裂：她分明已经纯乎是一个乞丐了。（鲁迅，2005b：6）

姚莘农的译文：

Although other folk I used to know in Lo Ching have apparently changed little, Hsiang-lin Sao was no longer the same. Her hair was all white, her face was alarmingly lean, hollow, and burnt a dark yellow. She looked completely exhausted,not at all like a woman not yet forty,but like a wooden thing with an expression of tragic sadness carved into it. Only the movement of her lusterless eyes showed that she still lived. In one hand she carried a bamboo basket: inside it was an empty broken bowl; and she held herself up by leaning on a bamboo pole. She had apparently become a beggar. (Lu et al., 1936: 53)

杨宪益夫妇的译文：

Of all the people I had seen this time at Luchen none had changed as much as she: her hair, which had been streaked with white five years before, was now completely white, quite unlike someone in her forties. Her face was fearfully thin and dark in its sallowness, and had moreover lost its former expression of sadness, looking as if carved out of wood.There was only the occasional flicker of her eyes to show that she was still a living creature. In one hand she carried a wicker basket, in which was a broken bowl, empty; in the other hand she held a bamboo pole longer than herself, split at one end: it was clear that she had become a beggar. (Lu, 1954: 97)

William A.Lyell 的译文：

Among the people I had run into on this visit, I can safely say that no one had changed as much as she: the grey hair of five years back was now entirely white. No one would have taken her for the woman of forty or so that she was. Her face was sallow with dark

circles around the eyes, and what was more, even the expression of sadness that she used to wear had now disappeared altogether. Her face seemed to be carved of wood. Only an occasional eye movement hinted that she was still an animate creature. In one hand she carried an empty bamboo basket; a broken bowl lay inside it-empty. With the other hand she supported herself on a bamboo pole that was taller than she and had started to split at the bottom. It was obvious that she had become a beggar, pure and simple. (Lu, 1990: 221-222)

Julia Lovell 的译文：

Of all the people I met on this visit to Luzhen, she was the most changed. Hair that five years ago had been grey was now completely white. Her ashen face gaunt with deprivation, she looked years, decades beyond her true age – around forty. The expression of haunting sadness she had once worn was gone, replaced by a kind of facial paralysis; only the occasional movement of her eyeballs indicated she remained a functioning organism. A bamboo basket in one hand contained a cracked, empty bowl; the other hand grasped a tall bamboo staff, split at the bottom. She had obviously become a beggar. (Lu, 2009: 162-163)

杨宪益夫妇在以后的版本中,把There was only the occasional flicker of her eyes to show that改为Only an occasional flicker of her eyes showed, 把 in the other hand 改为in the other,把split at one end改为split at the bottom,并删除了最后一个子句中的that(Lu, 1956: 152; 1970: 160; 1972: 127)。