翻译研究 | 从高铁“霸座男”到“霸座女”，“霸座”英语怎么说？

从高铁“霸座男”到“霸座女”，抢占不属于自己座位的行为近来引发热议。国内英文媒体报道相关事件时，对“霸座”行为的翻译采用的是解释性译法，比如：

A man who took a young woman's seat on a train and refused to vacate it is facing widespread anger and condemnation from netizens

这样翻译没有问题，不过有没有比took someone’s seat and refused to vacate it更简单的说法呢？首先可能会想到seat hogging。与“霸座”相比，这种行为在西方社会更常见一些。一些外媒相关报道：

可见，seat hog就是一个人占了超过一个人的座位。根据《韦氏词典》，hog在这里对应的意思为to take in excess of one’s due，类似于“多吃多占”，来自人们对hog（与使用范围更宽的pig相比，hog特指超过120斤重的家养猪）的印象。

一种关注度较高的seat hogging的行为是manspreading。“维基百科”对其解释如下：

Manspreading or man-sitting or ballrooming is the practice of men sitting in public transport with legs wide apart, thereby covering more than one seat.

Manspreading一例：

看来seat hogging和本文要翻译的“霸座”还不一样。

Seat bullying, seat stealing, seat robbing这些看似“霸座”的表达都找不到英文已有用法支撑。这时考虑查找类似行为的外媒报道。火车上的例子并不好找，再试试飞机上的。以下文字来自《纽约时报》题为《Airplane Seat Swapping Turns Rough-and-Tumble》的文章：

Tim Nickerson has learned just how aggressive the commandeering of seatscan be. When he boarded a small commuter jet, he saw a woman in his spot — a window seat with no aisle seat next to it. “I just tell her that I think she’s in my seat, and she basically says, ‘Yup,’ ” Mr. Nickerson recalled. “She wanted to be on the single-seat side and so did I, obviously.”

“Business Insider”网站一篇文章标题中也出现了commandeer的这种用法：An American woman was dragged off a Korean Air flight after she commandeered a business class seat and went on an incoherent rant（https://www.businessinsider.com/an-american-woman-was-dragged-off-a-korean-air-flight-2018-8）。文章简介中这样描述了这位美国女子的行为：An American woman was dragged off a Korean Air flight bound for San Francisco after she refused to leave a business class seat even though she'd originally booked an economy seat。除了被拖下飞机外，这位女子的行为与高铁“霸座”人们的所作所为如出一辙。

根据《韦氏词典》，commandeer在这里对应的解释为To take arbitrary or forcible possession of，即用不讲道理或强力方式占有某物。本文开头引用的took someone’s seat and refused to vacate it可简化为commandeered someone’s seat——既然是强占，自然不会轻易离开，refused to vacate it没有必要交代了。

不容易想到用commandeer翻译“霸座”的原因可能是这个英文单词常用于警察征用私人汽车的场合：

这篇文章介绍了警察征用市民车辆只是电影里的情节，而在真实生活中，这种情况极少出现。难怪文章导语会这么写：

Taking over a vehicle may make great TV, but it's not usually like that on the street. 'We all laugh' seeing it on the screen, says a real-life agent.

（中国翻译研究院）