論文發表人:官純婉(亞利桑那州立大學劇場研究碩士班)
http://www.astr.org/index.html
一直以來，湯姆叔叔的小屋在台灣一向是非常熱門的讀物，不僅被廣為翻譯成十種以上不同的中文本，還被改編成各類的兒童讀物，更被行政院及師鐸獎得主選為最佳的兒童課外讀物之一。然而，目前在台灣流通的各式中文譯本，皆無翻譯出英文文本中原有的方言差異，由於方言在湯姆叔叔的小屋的英文原著中，扮演極重要的腳色──族群、種族、文化……等的閱讀指標，本研究將探討台灣中文譯本一而再再而三忽略方言差異的可能原因，進一步將此一現象和台灣特有的族群、政治、語言、歷史背景做連結，並論述如何能藉由顯示方言差異的翻譯本，巧妙地運用此世界名著，喚醒台灣民眾對於多元文化社會建構要素的靈敏度。此外，由於原文文本揭露了種族階級制度和方言使用之間的緊密連結，本研究也將討論台灣該如何發展出屬於台灣特有的湯姆叔叔的小屋翻譯本，並將千禧年後台灣特有的新移民和東南亞移工……等社會現況納入討論範圍，藉由此特製的台灣中文譯本，教育讀者尊重不同文化的重要性，朝成熟的多元文化移民社會邁進。
Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin has long been considered a harbinger that deals with racism and promotes an Abolitionist point of view toward slavery in 19th century USAmerica. It is widely translated into various languages, read, and taught throughout the world. In Taiwan, Uncle Tom's Cabin has more than ten different versions of Chinese translations and has also been adapted as children's literature. It has been nominated by Executive Yuan (equivalent to Congress in a USAmerican context) as one of the best extracurricular readings for students from the age of 5 to 15, and one of its children's literature adaptations has been recommended by a National Excellent Teacher Award receiver to elementary school students. However, within these translations/adaptations, one of the most distinct attributes of this novel—vernacular differences—are lost in translation.
As a child growing up in Taiwan, I read Uncle Tom's Cabin in the third grade and never knew about the vernacular differences nor its connotations regarding racial and social stratum until reading its English original. I intend to investigate the language politics in the repetitive performance of smearing away such dialectical differences in its Chinese translations, especially in Taiwan. As "race" has been a taboo subject in Taiwan due to genocide in the early twentieth century, the ways in which Taiwanese government and educational institutions promote and recommend this novel with racial themes appears quite contradictory to the country's forbiddance of racial subject matter. By looking into such language politics in Taiwan's Chinese translations/adaptations of Uncle Tom's Cabin, I would like to unravel how the compulsory reading of this novel might function as a performative act in blacking up the identity/status of migrant workers in 21-century Taiwan. As Taiwan in recent years has been involved in the traffic of human laborers for its soaring industrial development, I will also urge for a new version of Uncle Tom's Cabin because the sociopolitical state in contemporary Taiwan is much akin to the novel's themes.
Investigating the possible cause of the disappearance of vernacular differences in the Chinese translations/adaptations of Uncle Tom's Cabin in Taiwan, I hope to advocate a possible reform by connecting slavery illustrated in the novel with the traffic of Southeast Asian laborers in Taiwan. By revealing the kinship between the novel and what is happening now in Taiwan, my research will not only serve as an examination of the sociopolitical background for Taiwan's version of Uncle Tom's Cabin, it will also function as a call to re-examine the current social phenomena in Taiwan in the new millennium.
