Although indirect translation (ITr) has always been commonly accepted and necessary, it is seldom discussed in translation studies. Issues such as the reasons for ITr, the visibility of ITr, the ways of mediating, the agents and other influential factors in ITr, and the its reception have suggested its complex nature, and thus determined that many facets of ITr remain to be studied. The present article will try to encompass the complexity of ITr by looking into the reasons for translating indirectly, the challenge of finding out mediating texts (MTs), indirectness in both translation and interpretation, and the possible influences the two types of indirectness can bring to the translated images of a foreign literary work, as well as the validity of a prevailing and lasting hypothesis about ITr. In the course of the discussion, the ITr(s) in the Chinese translations of Andersen's tales, most of which have been translated and interpreted indirectly through major languages like English, will be employed as examples. Hopefully, this study will offer more insights into the nature of translation as a social activity and raise further interests in studying translation as a complex phenomenon.

中文翻译：

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间接翻译的复杂性

虽然间接翻译（ITr）一直被普遍接受和必要，但在翻译研究中很少讨论。ITR 的产生原因、ITr 的可见性、中介方式、代理人等影响因素以及ITr 的接受程度等问题都表明了其复杂性，从而决定了ITr 的许多方面仍有待研究。本文将通过研究间接翻译的原因、寻找中介文本 (MT) 的挑战、翻译和口译中的间接性以及两种类型的间接性可能带来的影响，试图涵盖 ITr 的复杂性。外国文学作品的翻译图像，以及关于 ITR 的流行和持久假设的有效性。在讨论过程中，以安徒生故事的中文译本中的ITR(s)为例，其中大部分是通过英语等主要语言间接翻译和解释的。希望这项研究能够提供更多关于翻译作为一种社会活动的本质的见解，并进一步激发人们对将翻译作为一种复杂现象进行研究的兴趣。