Sunday, November 28, 2010

"武俠" 的英文就是 wuxia

前些日子,有個以前屏商的學生在語國一方留言,問到 "武俠" 的英文。

事實上,"武俠" 是一種中國文學、華語電影特有的文類,不見於其他文化,因此我在《麥克米倫高級英漢雙解詞典》(2008) 附錄 6 的〈漢語文化特色詞〉裡 (頁 2364),把它譯為 wuxia novel; Chinese knights errant novel。前面的音譯是我推薦的,是理想;後面較長的,是藉助中世紀歐洲的背景來做簡單的解釋,讓初次接觸到 wuxia 的英文母語人士,能有個認知上的參考座標。

週五剛買到了才問世不久的 Oxford Dictionary of English, Third Edition (2010),隨手一翻,發現這本《英語牛津詞典》收錄了 wuxia,令我感到驚喜。而且在隨書附贈、可一年免費線上查閱的 Oxford Dictionaries Online《牛津線上詞典》,更收錄了多達 20 條 wuxia 的例句。

事實上,早 5 年出版的 The New Oxford American Dictionary, Second Edition (2005) 就已經收錄了 wuxia,這本 5 年前的《新牛津美語詞典》,應可算是第一本收錄 wuxia、正式出版的英文詞典了。

有了牛津詞典的加持,wuxia 算是已經登堂入室,正式成為英文詞彙的一員了。將來 "武俠" 的英文,逕可大方使用 wuxia。當然,在文章內做適時而簡短的解釋還是必要的,以免對武俠文類毫無所悉的外籍人士讀了之後不知所云。

以下為 Oxford Dictionary of English, Third Edition (2010) 所收錄的 wuxia:

wuxia /wu:'ʃɑ:/ noun [mass noun] [often as modifier]
a genre of Chinese fiction or cinema featuring itinerant warriors of ancient China, often depicted as capable of superhuman feats of martial arts.
─ ORIGIN Chinese, from ‘military’ + xiá ‘knight errant’

以下 20 條例句為 Oxford Dictionaries Online 額外收錄。關鍵專有名詞的中譯由本人提供,第 18 條例句中的 hommages 誤拼,在此原文重現:

1. We're looking now at the globalization of wuxia with the success of Crouching Tiger (臥虎藏龍).

2. Jen is neither a typical villain nor a persona of heroic proportions in the conventional sense of chivalry inherent in the notion of wuxia.

3. Like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (臥虎藏龍), Hero (英雄) carries on the wuxia tradition of featuring strong female characters.

4. Quite by accident, my friend had some wuxia novels imported from Hong Kong.

5. He has turned wuxia into something utterly exquisite.

6. You can't do a wuxia film without having a tavern fight.


7. The film is also an absolutely breathtaking visual feast, surpassing anything that has been achieved with wuxia films.

8. The Elimination Pursuit (三大名捕會京師) is a lesser-known wuxia that probably should have stayed lesser-known.

9. I think Ang's (李安) relationship to wuxia is much more literary than it is filmic, in some ways.

10. I'd be a fool if I wasted words savaging wuxia for not being high art.

11. A very disappointing film and falling far short of the mark in the wuxia genre.

12. Woo (吳宇森) himself also began early in his career as a director of martial arts kung fu and wuxia pictures.

13. Astonishing action set pieces serve as punctuation marks for a piquant romantic melodrama in Zhang Yimou's (張藝謀) second effort in the wuxia genre.

14. I thought it would be very interesting for a wuxia movie to have this kind of structure.

15. Born in a time of social/political crisis, the wuxia film reflects a nationalist nostalgia/fantasy for a China that never was.

16. Wong Kar Wai's (王家衛) one and only wuxia film has just been upgraded with loads of elegant enhancements.

17. Tharoor (塔魯爾:印度知名政治人物) noted that there were international exports of Bollywood (寶萊塢) films as well as Chinese wuxia and kung fu films.

18. From the outset, the picture signals a definite genre tradition, and from it flows hommages [sic] to the form, to old masters, and to the conventions and themes of wuxia.

19. "Hero" (英雄) has much in it to discuss, though the artful, exciting, and intelligent exploration of wuxia is far more interesting than the film's somewhat stolid political allegory.

20. Jade Empire (編按:翡翠帝國,一種 XBox 電腦遊戲) is set in the alternate fantasy China of wuxia films.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

謝謝老師的解惑...
真得很開心看到老師的回答...

經由老師的精闢又專業的解釋,讓我更有信心用wuxia這個字了
老師的回答是我最棒的禮物..謝謝老師!!!感謝曾老大...

里里 said...

HI~我是今年修老師辭源學課的學生,
上老師的課真是收穫多多呢~
現在也來大推老師的網站
不果想問老師一下
有沒有可能開類似"教同意字"的課程呢?
因為上作文課時發現同意字對寫作很有幫助,
不過只是建議而已拉^^

治 said...

老師
因為到國外參展需要用到武俠這個單字,
總覺得先前的翻譯及英文解釋不夠精確
在網上找資料時偶爾看到您的網站
真是精闢~
好感激~

前陣子因為阿岳結婚
所以一群人回到母校坐坐
充滿綠意的屏商還是一樣漂亮
只不過我們大家都邁入三十大關了
時間過得真快