梁昊 陈国华

【譯者言】   跟我以前教的翻译课不同，我这次教的实际是机器辅助翻译。2020年上半年第一次给北外学院2018级的学生上课，听说网上出了一款新的机器翻译软件，名叫DeepL翻译器（DL），其推文称其译文质量辗压群雄。我试了一下，并将之与其他几款比较流行的机器翻译软件做了对比，发现这个翻译器确实不错，于是决定主要以Google翻译（GT）和DL这两款软件作为辅助工具，引导学生识别机器译文里的问题，加以订正，从而快速提高自己的翻译水平和效率。既然学生有机器帮忙，我给他们布置的作业量差不多是我之前给硕士生布置作业量的两倍，每次英译中的英文本大约是1000词，中译英的中文本大约是1500字。我的教学思路是，学生看到机器译文的不同之处时，自己能设法判断孰对孰错，因此我授课时就仅聚焦两篇机器译文里同时出现的错误或不当之处。“译路同行”这一专栏今后也会主要关注怎样审订机器译文，提升译者的笔译水平。

Immigrant3 Experience in Europe

The second major factor in both their backgrounds involves immigrant experience. As young professionals in the academic world， these two left their home culture in the USA to move to Western Europe， thereby exposing themselves to unprecedented experiences. The civilization was basically the same but the cultures quite different from that of the USA. John Blair went to French-speaking Switzerland， Jerusha McCormack to Ireland. Adapting to another culture as immigrants transformed their views of their home culture and， indeed， their perspective on human experience itself.

Leaving ones home culture means leaving a world in which one has a place4， a family， a status， and a sense of belonging. In the immigrants new world， even if one has a desirable job， one cannot feel fully at home5. One encounters a multitude of invisible rules that are easy to violate unknowingly. One learns to become attentive to cultural practices as a matter of urgent necessity. Detecting a cultures values and procedures—even if natives are not conscious of them—is a survival skill. In this situation， one instinctively compares cultures because the first things one notices as an immigrant are the practices that differ from what one left behind6.

Such acute cultural awareness offers a fresh perspective on every experience， even the most painful. Whatever happens can be assessed as an instance of a culture at work7. Prof. Isabel Crook8， who taught English at Beijing Foreign Studies University and its predecessor organizations9 from 1949 till her retirement in the 1980s， put it well when she said of her experiences under arrest during the late 1960s： “It helps to have been trained as an anthropologist.” That is， like other forms of enhanced cultural awareness， anthropology gives an individual a disengaged perspective on personal experience that is not limited to formal study10.

Engagement with China

When John Blair first came to teach at BFSU， in the first semester of 1988-89， it transformed his European career. In 1970， he had been named to the chair11 of American Literature and Civilization at the University of Geneva （in French-speaking Switzerland）. His research and teaching had gradually broadened from American Literature as such12 to focus on literary texts in their broad cultural context. His publications privileged13 trans-Atlantic comparisons， culminating14 in the book entitled Modular America15： Cross-cultural Perspectives on the Emergence of an American Way16， 1988 （winner of the Ralph Henry Gabriel Prize17 of the American Studies Association for interdisciplinary contributions to the field）. But that very same year he experienced China for the first time. Looking at the Western world from what he could grasp of a Chinese perspective was startlingly different and challenging.

In the fall of 1988 Professor DING Wangdao initiated John Blairs Chinese education by allowing him to sit in on a course for senior18 undergraduate English majors： Classic Chinese Texts in English19. Since the course was offered in English， this was a first opportunity to encounter Kongzi and the other venerable20 figures so influential in the Chinese tradition.

This course was offered partly because BFSU had such a distinguished translator and author available on the staff21. But also the leadership was aware of how little the Chinese students of that generation knew of their own cultural heritage. CCCW follows in that22 spirit， dedicating the present volume to the memory of DING Wangdao. In addition， Prof. DING had a decisive influence on CCCW by insisting that Chinese students should not be put in the position of 23reading texts from Chinese origins in a foreign language. CCCW is happy to respect that principle， even24 knowing that giving the original classical Chinese may pose another kind of problem for those unfamiliar with that prestigious stage of the language.

After John Blairs initial exposure to China， his European courses in American Studies evolved away from literature in cultural context to interdisciplinary culture studies as such. These worked25 to highlight the thought patterns that were important backgrounds to cultural understanding26. These courses were also comparative， involving European， Asian and American27 perspectives. The intellectual techniques necessary for CCCW were in the process of development. His knowledge of China was helped along by teaching assignments as Foreign Expert at BFSU in 2001， 2003—2004， 2005—2006， 2007， short courses in 2012 and lectures in 2014.

Dr. Jerusha McCormack joined this project in 2004 as its first version was in urgent need of revision. She came to this project after thirty years of teaching American， British and Anglo-Irish literature in University College， Dublin. In addition， during five years she ran an Irish Studies program28 for American students coming to Dublin. The intercultural skills learned in these contexts and in her previous four books29 were indispensable to her role as co-author and chief editor， responsible for critiques and improvements at all stages of the preparation process30. Equally important， Jerusha McCormack has also now become the chief source of leading ideas. Her own teaching at BFSU as a Foreign Expert in 2004， 2005—2006， 2007， followed by later short courses in Irish Studies， has given her a good sense of how todays Chinese students work31 and how best to frame32 Western ideas and practices33 to make them as comprehensible as possible.

移居欧洲的经历

两位作者背景中的第二个主要因素是其移居经历。他们作为学术界的青年专业人士，离开其在美国的家乡文化，移居西欧，从而让自己获得了前所未有的阅历。虽然文明基本是同一个，在文化上，欧洲与美国却迥然不同。约翰·布莱尔去了瑞士法语区，洁茹莎·默考马克去了爱尔兰。作为移居者，他们得适应另一种文化。这改变了他们对家乡文化的看法，甚至改变了他们对人类经验本身的认识。……