Is Your Language Really Yours? (Excerpt)你真的了解自己的母語嗎？（節選）

大衛·貝洛斯

Translators traditionally and now almost by iron rule translate from a foreign language into what is called their mother tongue. In translation-studies jargon， this is called L1 translation， as opposed to L2 translation， which is translation out toward a learned or other tongue. But what exactly is a mother tongue？

We all start with a mother and it seems obvious that we first learn language in her arms. The language that your mother speaks to you is therefore what you are “born into”， which is all that can be meant when instead of “mother tongue” we call it a native language.

It is an axiom of language study that to be a native speaker is to have complete possession of a language; reciprocally， complete possession of a language is usually glossed1 as precisely that knowledge of a language that a native speaker has. In spite of the obvious fact that speakers of the same language use it in infinitely varied ways and often have quite different vocabularies and language habits at the levels of register， style， diction， and so forth， we proceed on the assumption that only native speakers of （let us say） English know English completely and that only native speakers of English are in a position to judge whether any other speaker is using the language “natively”.

We also know， from observation and self-observation， too， that native speakers make grammatical and lexical mistakes and find themselves lost for words from time to time. In what is now a conventional view of language use， the slips and stumbles in the speech of a native speaker are themselves part of what it means to possess the language natively. Teachers of foreign languages are expert in distinguishing between mistakes that language learners make and those that are characteristic of native speech; and for a native speaker of any language， there are some kinds of errors made by others that sound not just wrong but not native. But let us put these practical and effective uses of the distinction between “native” and “nonnative” aside. Other， much more difficult issues are involved in using terms such as mother and native to name the way we are more or less at home in the language we call our own.

We acquire our first language from whatever sources are available in our infant environment. But the language that is acquired in those early stages of development may or may not turn out to be the one in which as adults we feel most at home. In many circumstances， formal education replaces the infant language with one that goes on to be used in adult life as the operative means of communication.

From the disappearance of Latin as a spoken language in around the sixth and seventh centuries C.E. until the age of Descartes， Newton， and Leibniz， no mother ever spoke Latin to her child， and no child was ever born into a Latin-speaking home. However， Latin was learned by young males of the higher social classes throughout Christianized Europe for well over a thousand years. Throughout that long period， Latin was the language in which all educated Europeans operated in thought， formal speech， and writing， for purposes as varied as diplomacy， philosophy， mathematics， science， and religion. The language was taught by means of writing， and it was also spoken—in schools， monasteries， churches， chancelleries， and law courts—as the verbalization of a written idiom. All speakers of Latin in the period of its use as the primary form of communication had at least one other mother tongue， but these vernaculars were not used as tools for elaborated thinking or expression. But if a clear distinction can be made between the language learned from your mother and the language in which you operate most effectively for highborn males in Western Europe between 700 and 1700 C.E.， the very concepts of “mother tongue” and “native speaker” need to be looked at again.

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Throughout our lives we retain more or less strong emotions about the language in which we first learned songs， nursery rhymes， games， and playgroup2 or family rituals. These are foundational experiences， and the language in which they were experienced must surely be forever lit by the warm glow of our earliest reminiscences. But it does not automatically follow that the language of our earliest memories has any special importance as a language for what we may go on to become， or for what we take to be our personal identity.

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One problem with using the expression “mother tongue” to name the language in which an adult operates most comfortably is that it confuses the history of an individuals acquisition of linguistic skills with the mystery of what we mean by the “possession” of a language. But it also does something more insidious： it acts as a suggestion that our preferred language is not just the language spoken to us by a mother but is， in some almost mystical sense， the mother of our selfhood—the tongue that made us what we are. It is not a neutral term： it is burdened with a complex set of ideas about the relationship between language and selfhood， and it unloads that burden on us as long as we take the term to be a natural， unproblematic way of naming our linguistic home.

We are not born into any particular language at all： all babies are languageless at the start of life. Yet we use the term native speaker as if the contrary were true—as if the form of language acquired by natural but fairly strenuous effort from our infant environment were a birthright， an inheritance， and the definitive， unalterable location of our linguistic identity. But knowing French or English or Tagalog is not a right of birth， even less an inheritance： it is a personal acquisition. To speak of “native” command of a language is to be just as approximate， and， to a degree， just as misleading as to speak of having a “mother tongue.”

（from Is That a Fish in Your Ear？ Translation and the Meaning of Everything， Penguin Books Ltd.， 2011）

從古至今，譯者要把外語翻譯成自己的母語，這幾乎已經成為一條鐵律。在翻譯術語中，這是L1翻譯。與之相反的L2翻譯，則表示將自己的母語翻譯成其他語言。那么到底什么才是母語？

母親將我們帶到人世，顯然，我們也是在她的臂彎中開始學習語言。因此，母親對你說話時使用的語言就是你“天生”就會的語言，這也就是所謂的“母語”，即“本國語言”。

語言研究的一條公理就是：我們所說的母語人士就是完全掌握了某門語言的人。反之，“完全掌握了某種語言”通常也用于精確形容具備母語人士語言知識的人。顯然，使用同一種語言的人會用多種不同的方式表達自己，會使用不同的詞匯和語言習慣，語域、風格、詞匯等方面也不盡相同。盡管如此，我們還是會假定只有（比如說）英語母語人士完全了解英語，只有他們才能判定其他說英語的人是否在“自然地”使用英語。

此外，通過觀察他人和自我觀察，我們也知道，母語人士在語法和詞匯方面也會犯錯誤，偶爾也會有“話在嘴邊說不出”的情況。現在，從傳統角度看語言的使用，母語人士講話時的疏漏和斷續也成為對其母語“自然”運用的一部分。要想區分一句話是語言學習者所犯的錯誤，還是母語人士使用語言的特點，外語教師才是專家。對于任何語言的母語人士來說，有些人犯的錯誤不僅是聽上去不太對，而且聽上去很不地道。不過，現在我們先不討論實際使用和有效使用之間“地道”或“不地道”的區別。我們多少使用更自如的語言，即我們稱之為自己的那種語言。在其他更難以解決的問題中，有很多都與用“母語”或“本國語言”等術語命名這種語言有關。

我們還是嬰兒時，所處環境中的語言就是我們最初習得語言的資源。但在發展早期習得的語言可能會成為成年后我們使用自如的語言，當然也有可能不會。在很多情況下，正規教育會取代嬰兒時期學會的語言，成為成年之后在生活中與人交流的方式。

從六七世紀左右拉丁語作為口語漸漸淡出舞臺，到笛卡爾、牛頓和萊布尼茨時代，母親們都不會跟自己的孩子說拉丁語，所以當時并沒有哪個孩子是出生在以拉丁語為母語的環境中。然而，在基督教統治歐洲長達一千年左右的時間里，社會地位較高的年輕男子都會主動學習拉丁語。有很長一段時間，拉丁語是所有接受過正規教育的歐洲人在外交、哲學、數學、科學和宗教等領域思考、演講、書寫時所使用的語言。拉丁語的教授通過書寫的方式進行;人們還在學校、修道院、教堂、使館和法院等場所說拉丁語，用口語表達書面習語。在將拉丁語作為基本交流用語的那個時期，所有說拉丁語的人都至少掌握另一種母語，但那種方言并沒有用作專注思考或表達的工具。但是，如果要想清楚地區分公元700年到公元1700年之間，西歐地位較高的男性使用的是從母親那里學到的語言還是之后有效運用最多的語言，我們就得重新審視“母語”和“母語人士”這兩個概念了。

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在我們的生活中，我們對最初學習歌曲、童謠、游戲以及幼兒園或家庭儀式中所使用的語言一直保留有幾分強烈的情感聯系。這些都是非常重要且基礎的經驗，人們小時候體會過的語言肯定會被回憶的溫暖點亮。但這并不能自動表明，我們最早記憶中的語言有任何特殊性，會成為我們之后使用的語言，或成為代表我們個人身份的語言。

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使用“母語”這個詞命名成年時代使用最自如的語言會帶來一個問題：一個人語言技能習得的歷史，與所謂“掌握”一門語言真正的含義，會因此發生混淆。此外，這種做法還有更大的隱患：它暗示著，我們首選的語言不僅是母親對我們說話時使用的語言，從某種近乎神秘的角度看，還是孕育自我的母親般的存在，即塑造我們獨特個性的語言。這并非一個中立的術語：它背負著一系列關于語言與自我之間關系的復雜思想。一旦我們將這一術語當作命名語言家園自然而然、毫無問題的方式，那它背負的內容也就轉移到了我們身上。

我們不會天生就能掌握某種語言，剛出生的嬰兒根本不認識任何語言。然而，我們卻使用了“母語人士”這一看似與實際情況相反的術語——仿佛在嬰兒環境中，通過自然但卻相當艱難的方式獲得的語言形式，是我們生而有之的權利，是對我們語言身份的繼承，有確定而無法動搖的地位。然而，認識法語、英語或塔加拉語并非生而有之的特權，甚至不是一種繼承，而是個人習得的結果。人們所說對一門語言的掌握達到了“母語”水平，這和說自己掌握了一門“母語”一樣是種粗略的描述，從某種程度上看，也跟后者一樣具有誤導性。

（選自《你耳朵里有魚嗎？：翻譯及萬物的意義》，商務印書館，2020）