2014年9月高口英译中解析

SECTION 3：TRANSLATION TEST参考答案及解析

原文：

Charles Dickens observed of revolutionary France that it was the best of times and the worst of times, the spring of hope and the winter of despair. More recently, the US National Intelligence Council borrowed from A Tale of Two Cities for the title page in a report about how the world may look in 2030.

You can see why the authors alighted on Dickens’s observation. The tumultuous upheavals in the international system can stir optimism and pessimism in equal measure. The great prosperity that globalization has brought to the east and south sits alongside the risks and insecurities that accompany the passing of an older order.

The first instinct is to celebrate the way globalization lifts hundreds of millions of people out of poverty; the second to fret whether the rebalancing of global power will usher in a new era of might is right in international relations. Even Europeans, who have come to look at the world through normative lenses, are beginning to think that soft power may sometimes need a hard centre.

The cold war had its drawbacks --- not least the threat of nuclear incineration. The big worries now flow from uncertainty. The uncertainty makes it tempting to turn for advice to the looking glass of history. After all, history, is Alexis de Tocqueville’s metaphor, is a picture gallery stocked with a handful of originals and many more copies.

参考译文：

在查尔斯.狄更斯的眼中，革命时期的法国即是最好的时代也是最坏的时代，那是充满希望的春天也是深陷绝望的冬天。近日，美国国家情报委员会在它的一篇有关《2030年的世界看起来会怎样》的预测报告标题页中引用了《双城记》的这一名言。

你能理解为何作者们同意狄更斯的观点。国际局势动荡、形势剧变，有人看好，有人唱衰，两种心态平分秋色。随着新旧秩序的交替，全球化为东西方世界带来巨大经济繁荣的同时也隐藏着风险与不安。

值得称道的一点是，全球化帮助亿万人摆脱了贫困。而另一方面，世界强权格局的重整是否宣告着国际关系中新的权力时代的来临？这种疑问的提出是否符合时宜？这些都令人们忧心忡忡。即便是在欧洲，虽然人们已经用标准化的眼光看待这个世界，但他们也开始意识到，软实力有时候也需要得到充分的关注。

冷战也有负面效应---不仅仅是核废料的威胁。更大的担忧来源于未知。对未来的迷茫使我们很容易去从历史的镜子中寻找建议。但终究，正如阿莱克斯·德·托克维尔说的那样，历史是一座画廊，那里原作寥寥无几，复制品不计其数。

解析：

本题中，原文节选自一篇名为《Power shift from Atlantic to Pacific Rim》的新闻报道，来自gulfnews.com （原文链接：http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/power-shift-from-atlantic-to-pacific-rim-1.1309870）。

本篇英翻中难度适中，但还是比较考验考生文化理解以及处理某些词语的能力。例如，第一段A Tale of Two Cities (双城记)有其约定俗成的译名，不可乱翻。第二段中的一些表达：alight on, tumultuous, upheavals, in equal measure等词和词组，考查考生对一些看似简单的单词是否有充分的掌握，需要大家平时多注意总结和思考。此外，第三段中的who have come to look at the world through normative lenses为典型的非限制性定语从句，翻译起来需要注意。而第四段中的短语make it tempting to do sth.这是英语中很常见的一种结构，可译为：很容易……

注：阿莱克斯·德·托克维尔——法国历史学家，社会学家。