经济学人文艺 || 性暴力中的问题词汇

一天一篇TE 2020-12-08

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Summer（琚儿），女，QE在职，梦想能仗翻译/音乐 /健康走天涯

PS:关于如何获取1843年至今任何一期经济学人的方法，小编将在周末推送，敬请期待。

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Unspeakable things

讳莫如深

英文部分选自经济学人191116science and technology版块

Johnson

Unspeakable things

讳莫如深

The problematic vocabulary of sexual violence

性暴力中的问题词汇

It is a cliché that three topics should stay off-limits in polite company: politics, religion and sex. But there are times for hard conversations, and the language used to talk about sex, and particularly sexual misdeeds, remains wrapped in a gauze of misdirection and euphemism that risks contributing to harm, even when intentions are good.

大家都默认出于礼貌，谈话要排开三个话题：政治、宗教和性。但有时候人们也不得不谈论这些硬核话题。在谈论“性”的时候，特别是用于性犯罪的语言仍然是左右言他，模棱两可。即使是出于好意，也有可能带来伤害。

A recent case in Barcelona illustrates the power of language. Five men who gang-raped an unconscious 14-year-old girl were convicted of mere “sexual abuse”—not the graver “sexual assault”, because technically they had not used violence or intimidation, as required by the statute.

最近巴塞罗那的一起案件说明了语言的力量。5个男子对一位14岁女孩在其无意识的状态下实施了轮奸，而对施暴者的判决却只是“性虐待”-而不是性质更恶劣的“性侵害”，因为在技术层面上，法律规定须在实施暴力和恐吓的情况下才能定义为“性侵”，而这起案件中的施暴者并未使用暴力或进行恐吓。

The furious protesters who turned out in Barcelona and other cities were not angry about the court’s leniency per se: the rapists received fairly long prison sentences. Rather they are demanding that the law be changed so that “sexual assault” reflects the absence of consent, rather than the use of force. In other words, they are asking politicians to redefine that term.

判决出来以后，抗议者涌入巴塞罗那和其他城市的街头，他们的愤怒并不是因为法院对案件本身表现出来的克制：施暴者其实被判了很长的刑期。抗议者要求的是修改法律条例，不论是否出现暴力和强迫，只要未经受害者允许就是“性侵害”。换句话说，他们要求政治家重新定义这个词条。

There is an irony in their protest. Demonstrators shouted “No es abuso, es violación” (it’s not abuse; it’s rape). But the Spanish word “violación” itself clearly displays its etymological link to “violence”, the lack of which was at the heart of the controversy. Other European languages also reflect a historical belief that rape is, by definition, violent: Vergewaltigung in German includes Gewalt, violence, for instance.

抗议本身带有些许讽刺。示威者高呼“No es abuso, es violación”(这不是性虐待，这是强奸)，但是在西班牙语中“violación”一词本身就与“暴力”（violence）一词有明显的词源联系，而这场争论的核心就在于不使用暴力的性虐待是否属于强奸。在其他欧洲语言中也反映出长久以来，人们对于“强奸”的理解就是在暴力作用下的，比如德语中的“强奸”是Vergewaltigung,其中“Gewalt”也有“暴力”的含义。

Or consider the English word. Coming from Latin rapere, its oldest sense involves neither sex nor bodily harm; it means to take something by force (as in the adjective, “rapacious”). This represents the attitude of many centuries in which rape was considered a property crime against a husband or father, robbing them of a woman’s virginity or chastity, which were the father’s to give away to a spouse. It was not something done to the woman herself.

就英语而言，“强奸”rape一词汇来源于拉丁语的rapere，它最古老的含义既不涉及性也不涉及身体伤害，而是指用武力夺取某物（如形容词“rapacious”“贪婪的”）。这反映了许多世纪以来人们对强奸的态度，即把女子的贞洁视作财产，由父亲赠与丈夫，而强奸则是对这一财产的侵犯。而“强奸”并没有被看做是施加于女性的伤害。

Fortunately, feminists long ago succeeded in placing the woman’s experience at the heart of the matter. But “rape” is now such a powerful and painful word that English-speakers have developed a hazier vocabulary to talk about and around it instead. “Sexual assault” rose in prominence in the 1970s. Its adoption reflected the fact that there were many ways to commit, and experience, traumatic sexual violence; the kind that could rob a woman of her virginity was only one, and need not always be privileged over others. Numerous American states and Canada, for example, no longer have a crime called “rape” on the statute books, but rather varying degrees of sexual assault.

幸运的是，女权主义者很久以前就成功地将女性的感受作为“强奸”的核心要素。可到了现在，“强奸”一次由于语气过于强烈、令人痛苦，以至于英语另发展出了一套模糊的词汇来谈论它。“性侵害”这一提法在20世纪70年代逐渐占据了主流地位。它的采用反映了这样一个事实，即实施和经历痛苦的性暴力有许多种途径；而夺走女人贞操只是其中的一种方式，也并不一定是比其他方式更特殊。例如，美国许多州和加拿大的法典中不再有“强奸罪”，而是不同程度的性侵犯罪。

The breadth of the label “sexual assault” has its uses—for example, when statisticians want to aggregate different offences. It can convey the sense of violation that comes with all its manifestations. It gives women who have suffered different kinds of harms an umbrella of solidarity. Finally, victims who use “sexual assault” may themselves not want to be more specific.

“性侵犯”这个词指代广泛，这种广泛性自有其用处。例如，当统计学家在统筹不同程度的攻击时，可以统一归到“性侵犯”义项下。它可以表示各种形式的侵害，让受到不同种类伤害的女性能团结一致。最后，如果受害者不愿意具体表达，他们也可以用“性侵”概括。

But there are unintended consequences. Sexual assault is usually defined (for example, by American and British authorities) as sexual contact without consent. This means that the gamut runs widely, from groping to the most savage rapes. That can make it hard for those not directly involved to understand the gravity of individual cases. It might even let the most vicious rapists take advantage of a perception that perhaps they committed a lesser crime.

但是这种做法也有意料之外的后果。比如在英美的权威机构中，性侵犯常被定义为非意愿的性接触。这种定义非常宽泛，从咸猪手到野蛮强暴都被统一称为性侵，使非当事人很难设身处地地明白事件的严重性。同样，如此宽泛的定义也导致很多邪恶的施暴者借题发挥，以求减刑。

And the old words are often the most powerful. Activists have berated newspapers which reported that Jeffrey Epstein , a disgraced and now-dead financier, “cavorted” with “underage women”; he raped and trafficked teenage girls. Similarly, some want to ditch the term “child pornography”, since it refers to a heinous criminal enterprise, not consenting performances as in the adult kind. It sometimes seems people cannot talk about sexual violence except in terms adapted from consensual relations.

老词儿往往更加有力量。已故的金融家杰弗里·艾普斯坦臭名昭著，他曾强暴并贩卖少女（teenage girls一词是具有法律上的效应的，个人认为“花季少女”不是很贴切），当时却被报道粉饰成“与十来岁少女寻欢作乐”，激起了抗议者们的强烈愤慨。同样的，很多人想丢弃“儿童色情作品”这个词，因为这个词通常指令人发指的犯罪集团，而非成人色情作品中两厢情愿的表演。很多时候，人们似乎不愿意赤裸裸地谈论性暴力，而只是从自愿关系中找适用的词来代替。

Now feminists are saying “we need to talk about rape”, as Deborah Cameron, a linguist, does in a recent post on her blog, “Language: a feminist guide”.Applying the right vocabulary to a crime will not curtail it, but the abstractions and legalese common in the media and politics can drain the task of urgency, by making the scourge seem less acute. Just as “murder” should not be routinely dressed up as “homicide”, nor “torture” consigned to the catch-all bin of “human-rights abuses”, so it is with the vocabulary of sexual abuse. It is hard to tackle a problem you are afraid to name.

当下，语言学家德波拉·卡梅伦最近发了一条博客，题目是“女权主义者用语指南”，其中指出“我们需要讨论强奸”。在犯罪事实中使用适合的词汇或许不会减轻罪行的严重性，但是在媒体和政治常用的抽象描述和法律术语让暴行看上去不那么突兀，从而降低了事件的紧急性。正如“谋杀罪”不能习惯说成“杀人罪”，“折磨”也不能笼统地归为“侵犯人权罪”，性侵害所使用的词汇也应该如此。如果连提起都害怕，那解决就更困难了。

翻译组：

Cindy，女，未来外贸工，TE粉

Helga，女，笔译民工，经济学人爱好者

Lee ，爱骑行的妇女之友，Timberland粉

校核组：

Nikolai，子承父业，蛋糕厂员工，AKB49

Rachel，学理工科，爱跳芭蕾，热爱文艺的非典型翻译

观点|评论|思考

本期感想

Angela，女，double major 哲学数学

我们不大肆谈论性有关的话题，不是因为它肮脏又污秽，而是因为所有关于它的事情都应该专属于自己和自己所爱之人。在我们的道德准则中，性侵违背人的意愿，剥夺人最基本的权利，是不可饶恕的。正是因为它的严重性，我们的言语才更应该准确，更加直接。任何误导性的词汇都是对受害者的不公平，和对违法者的宽容。

很幸运的是我们的社会在进步。我们不再对此类事件避而不谈。读者们知道最多是可能是韩国的素媛案：在20018年12月，赵斗淳对八岁的小女孩进行性暴力，造成其终身残疾。该事件被改编成影片，影片中最让人心痛的地方是，小女孩问：“是我做错了什么么？” 她知道做错事情会遭受惩罚，但她所承受的不能叫做惩罚，而是恶人带来的不幸。为了防止这样的不幸，人们一步一步地推动法案，一次一次地游行，都是对那些受害者说：“那不是你们的错，我们为你发声。” 而现在我们想再进一步引起整个社会对此类事件的重视，我们应注重用词和语气，那些看起来细微，却传递着我们态度的因素。