英译中的词义判断

译题一：Wal-Mart Stores is taking another swing at the online movie business with the acquisition of Vudu. The retail giant announced the deal on Monday following widespread speculation that an acquisition would be coming soon. Financial terms were not disclosed.Vudu executive vice president Edward Lichty said Vudu "will give Wal-Mart a powerful new vehicle to offer customers the content they want in a way that expands the frontier of quality, value and convenience."

这段话第一句中的take a swing at 意为to strike or attempt to strike with the fist，笔者建议将此句话翻成中文后顺序稍作调整，避免整句话头重脚轻，因此可处理为“沃尔玛日前宣布收购电影下载网站Vudu，此举为其进军在线电影市场后所出的又一记重拳”，第二句话网友的翻译存在偏差，follow一词在新闻报道中十分常用，表示“在……之后”，比如２月２５日英语点津双语新闻《全日空国际航线将设女士专用卫生间》中的一句话：The spokesman denied that the new service was introduced following complaints about men soiling the bathrooms. 翻译成中文后，表述方式需进行一定的调整，使其更符合中文的表达习惯。所以上述这句话不妨翻译成“该零售业巨头于本周一宣布了这一交易，而此前有关收购在即的猜测流传甚广。”从以上例子可以看出，要想把一篇英文翻得通顺连贯，一要注意信息点的先后顺序，二是要符合汉语的表达习惯。

译题二：Recent research suggests people actually can take charge of their own happiness and boost it through certain practices. "The billion-dollar question is, is it possible to become happier?" said psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky of the University of California, Riverside. "Despite the finding that happiness is partially genetically determined, and despite the finding that life situations have a smaller influence on our happiness than we think they do, we argue that still a large portion of happiness is in our power to change."

从网友对这段话的翻译来看，大家的理解都没有问题。但即便像这种没有晦涩的词语、难懂的句子的文章，想把每个细节都处理得完美也并非容易。第一句话中的practice，有人将其翻译为“练习”，不够妥当。Practice 除了有“练习”的意思外，还可解释为action，意为“行动、实践、执行”。提升幸福感肯定不是通过“练习”，而是“行动”，理解了这一点，这句话可翻译为“日前有研究表明，人们其实可以掌控自己的幸福，并通过一些实际行动来提升自己的幸福感。”引号中的“the billion-dollar question”，字面含义为“价值亿万的问题”，直接将其作为最终的译文显然不妥，那么一个“价值亿万的问题”是个什么样的问题呢？不难理解，它应该是“关键的、重要的问题”。在翻译的过程中，上下文对于单个词的理解十分重要，例如前面提到的practice和the billion-dollar question两处，即便你不太确定它们的准确含义，但只要稍微结合以下语境，做出判断也就不难了。

译题三： American Shaun White was in a league of his own defending his Olympic snowboarding halfpipe title on Wednesday, drawing gasps of astonishment with a gravity-defying new trick when he knew he had gold in the bag. White, roared on by an ecstatic crowd hailing him as 'Shauntastic', had already recorded the highest score of the final on his first run, as he soared several storeys above the halfpipe and launched a sequence of high-flying twisting flip moves.

要翻好这段话，首先别被原文中一堆貌似陌生的词语吓倒，比如in a league of his own, gravity-defying, snowboarding halfpipe title以及甚至造出来的Shauntastic这样的词。很多人觉得体育类文章的阅读和翻译比较困难，问题也在于此，生词多，平时接触的少。纵观诸位网友的翻译，对一句话中in a league of his own都有点“敬而远之”，绕道而行，in a league of one’s own其实是一个固定短语，意为“Far excelling even the closest contender; not having any worthy competition ”，wiseme06对这个短语的处理很好，翻译成“毫无悬念地”，或者是“轻松地”都可以。原文中所用的gravity-defying这个说法形象生动，banchezu 将其翻译为“向地球引力发起挑战”，是充分理解了这个词语的含义，再结合wiseme06的翻译，可处理为“他似乎向地球引力发起了挑战，以一个直上云霄的新技巧赢得观众阵阵惊呼” 。根据新闻背景，第一段说的是肖恩的第二跳，这个new trick指的是他亮出的“空中抓板”绝活。对于when he knew …是否要翻出来的问题，笔者认为不同风格的翻法可以进行不同的处理，可以参考wiseme06和echo echo的翻译。“Shauntastic”似乎是Shaun和fantastic一词的合成，意思是说他不可思议，笔者将其翻成“牛人肖恩”。不过肖恩还有个更酷的外号——“飞翔的番茄”，那是因为他有着一头的红发。