Is Your Language Really Yours? (Excerpt)你真的了解自己的母语吗？（节选）

大卫·贝洛斯

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）

从古至今，译者要把外语翻译成自己的母语，这几乎已经成为一条铁律。在翻译术语中，这是L1翻译。与之相反的L2翻译，则表示将自己的母语翻译成其他语言。那么到底什么才是母语？

母亲将我们带到人世，显然，我们也是在她的臂弯中开始学习语言。因此，母亲对你说话时使用的语言就是你“天生”就会的语言，这也就是所谓的“母语”，即“本国语言”。

语言研究的一条公理就是：我们所说的母语人士就是完全掌握了某门语言的人。反之，“完全掌握了某种语言”通常也用于精确形容具备母语人士语言知识的人。显然，使用同一种语言的人会用多种不同的方式表达自己，会使用不同的词汇和语言习惯，语域、风格、词汇等方面也不尽相同。尽管如此，我们还是会假定只有（比如说）英语母语人士完全了解英语，只有他们才能判定其他说英语的人是否在“自然地”使用英语。

此外，通过观察他人和自我观察，我们也知道，母语人士在语法和词汇方面也会犯错误，偶尔也会有“话在嘴边说不出”的情况。现在，从传统角度看语言的使用，母语人士讲话时的疏漏和断续也成为对其母语“自然”运用的一部分。要想区分一句话是语言学习者所犯的错误，还是母语人士使用语言的特点，外语教师才是专家。对于任何语言的母语人士来说，有些人犯的错误不仅是听上去不太对，而且听上去很不地道。不过，现在我们先不讨论实际使用和有效使用之间“地道”或“不地道”的区别。我们多少使用更自如的语言，即我们称之为自己的那种语言。在其他更难以解决的问题中，有很多都与用“母语”或“本国语言”等术语命名这种语言有关。

我们还是婴儿时，所处环境中的语言就是我们最初习得语言的资源。但在发展早期习得的语言可能会成为成年后我们使用自如的语言，当然也有可能不会。在很多情况下，正规教育会取代婴儿时期学会的语言，成為成年之后在生活中与人交流的方式。

从六七世纪左右拉丁语作为口语渐渐淡出舞台，到笛卡尔、牛顿和莱布尼茨时代，母亲们都不会跟自己的孩子说拉丁语，所以当时并没有哪个孩子是出生在以拉丁语为母语的环境中。然而，在基督教统治欧洲长达一千年左右的时间里，社会地位较高的年轻男子都会主动学习拉丁语。有很长一段时间，拉丁语是所有接受过正规教育的欧洲人在外交、哲学、数学、科学和宗教等领域思考、演讲、书写时所使用的语言。拉丁语的教授通过书写的方式进行;人们还在学校、修道院、教堂、使馆和法院等场所说拉丁语，用口语表达书面习语。在将拉丁语作为基本交流用语的那个时期，所有说拉丁语的人都至少掌握另一种母语，但那种方言并没有用作专注思考或表达的工具。但是，如果要想清楚地区分公元700年到公元1700年之间，西欧地位较高的男性使用的是从母亲那里学到的语言还是之后有效运用最多的语言，我们就得重新审视“母语”和“母语人士”这两个概念了。

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在我们的生活中，我们对最初学习歌曲、童谣、游戏以及幼儿园或家庭仪式中所使用的语言一直保留有几分强烈的情感联系。这些都是非常重要且基础的经验，人们小时候体会过的语言肯定会被回忆的温暖点亮。但这并不能自动表明，我们最早记忆中的语言有任何特殊性，会成为我们之后使用的语言，或成为代表我们个人身份的语言。

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使用“母语”这个词命名成年时代使用最自如的语言会带来一个问题：一个人语言技能习得的历史，与所谓“掌握”一门语言真正的含义，会因此发生混淆。此外，这种做法还有更大的隐患：它暗示着，我们首选的语言不仅是母亲对我们说话时使用的语言，从某种近乎神秘的角度看，还是孕育自我的母亲般的存在，即塑造我们独特个性的语言。这并非一个中立的术语：它背负着一系列关于语言与自我之间关系的复杂思想。一旦我们将这一术语当作命名语言家园自然而然、毫无问题的方式，那它背负的内容也就转移到了我们身上。

我们不会天生就能掌握某种语言，刚出生的婴儿根本不认识任何语言。然而，我们却使用了“母语人士”这一看似与实际情况相反的术语——仿佛在婴儿环境中，通过自然但却相当艰难的方式获得的语言形式，是我们生而有之的权利，是对我们语言身份的继承，有确定而无法动摇的地位。然而，认识法语、英语或塔加拉语并非生而有之的特权，甚至不是一种继承，而是个人习得的结果。人们所说对一门语言的掌握达到了“母语”水平，这和说自己掌握了一门“母语”一样是种粗略的描述，从某种程度上看，也跟后者一样具有误导性。

（选自《你耳朵里有鱼吗？：翻译及万物的意义》，商务印书馆，2020）