The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Translation

Chris Shei, Zhao-Ming Gao, Chris Shei, Zhao-Ming Gao

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317383024
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Lingue e linguistica
• Subtopic: Lingue

The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Translation presents expert and new research in analysing and solving translation problems centred on the Chinese language in translation.

The Handbook includes both a review of and a distinctive approach to key themes in Chinese translation, such as translatability and equivalence, extraction of collocation, and translation from parallel and comparable corpora. In doing so, it undertakes to synthesise existing knowledge in Chinese translation, develops new frameworks for analysing Chinese translation problems, and explains translation theory appropriate to the Chinese context.

The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Translation is an essential reference work for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students and scholars actively researching in this area.

Part I

Chinese translation in academic settings

1

The Chinese tradition of translation studies

Review, reconstruction and modernisation

Chunshen Zhu

DOI: 10.4324/9781315675725-2

1.1Introduction: Chinese tradition of translation studies defined

1.1.1The idea of ‘tradition’

To have a reviewable conception of the Chinese tradition of translation studies, or Chinese TS tradition for short, a question we have to answer first is: What is ‘tradition’? Tradition, first of all, is an idea. It is not an object like a family heirloom that can be physically transmitted from generation to generation, although transmittability is a defining factor of traditions. Benjamin has explained ideas with an analogy: ‘[ideas] are to objects as constellations to stars’, in the sense that an idea does not contain phenomena itself but is actualised by a constellation of objects that signify concepts in which phenomena are gathered and arranged (see Benjamin 1998: 34–5). And objects, inasmuch as they are elements of phenomena, cease to be natural objects but are semiotic artefacts of significance to human beings. In this light, ‘tradition of translation studies’ can be seen as an idea of ‘tradition’ specified by ‘translation studies’ to arrange the phenomena related to translation. In the literature, a ‘tradition of translation studies’ tends to be further specified with reference to a particular geographical region or ethnic nation, or a language, before it is delineated by a series of concepts (views and theories) derived from a variety of texts gathered to configure a genealogy of the knowledge in question. Following Benjamin’s analogy, we can say that a TS tradition is to translation-related texts as a constellation to stars. In other words, texts in this sense are not just printed matters but concept-bearing discursive artefacts that are gathered to form a constellation to sustain the intellectual identity of a perceived tradition.

1.1.2‘Translation studies’ and ‘Chinese’ defined

To bring the above conception of tradition to bear upon our review of the Chinese TS tradition, two more questions have to be answered. One of them is: What is ‘translation studies’? Since Holmes’s 1972 seminal paper ‘The Name and Nature of Translation Studies’ (Holmes 1988: 67–80), the term has been used to designate the study of translation as an academic discipline in a broad sense, rather than a specific approach to translation. As an idea, therefore, its constellation should in theory encompass all texts that relate to the phenomenon of translation. The other question is: What is ‘Chinese’? The term, to be sure, has often been used without a clear definition in the literature (Bai 2009: 425). In this chapter, we shall follow Zhu (2004) and adopt a non-exclusive ethnic conception of nationalism that bases its legitimacy on such non-territorial and politically neutral factors as shared (to some extent) language, culture and ritual tradition (see Seymour 1998: e.g., 3). By this definition, Chinese translation studies as a denomination of the discipline similarly encompasses both pure and applied studies of Chinese-related translation beyond national or regional boundaries.

1.1.3Representing the Chinese TS tradition

No matter how the idea of tradition is specified, however, the formulation of a constellation to represent it is inevitably limited by the actual access to historical data and framed by the perspective and ideological agenda of the exercise. A tradition, when actualised via a constellation of artefacts, becomes an ‘established and generally accepted’ institution of beliefs, rules, customs, and practices, or ‘method of procedure[,] having almost the force of a law’ (entry ‘tradition’ in OED). In our case, formulating a constellation of texts to represent the Chinese TS tradition always implies an intention to realise it as an institution of this kind, making it transmittable for later generations’ reference. For that purpose, to convince the target community of the tradition’s historical authenticity and contemporary relevance, every representation entails efforts to reconstruct its foundational constellation, update its formulation and modernise its conception, by taking the tradition into a broader, contemporary discursive space. In this discursive space, each representation interacts and competes with other representations of the same tradition as well as with representations of other traditions in the same discipline. By such interaction and competition, the tradition is renewed with the expansion and modification of its constellation. So in our view, the Chinese TS tradition, or any TS tradition for that matter, is always in the making, denying and defying any ultimate representation. And every representation, such as seen in a historical account or an anthology, will in turn become an artefact itself contributing to updating the tradition’s foundational constellation.

1.2Reconstruction of the Chinese TS tradition

The Chinese may boast a history of translation practice of more than 3,000 years, but Chinese translators and critics did not seem to be fully aware of the intellectual identity of a Chinese TS tradition until the late twentieth century, when, apart from translation textbooks and textbook-like volumes, there was a burst of interest in various issues concerning Chinese-related translation, its history and theorisation in particular. Among publications during that period, the 333-page Ma (1984) presents a concise yet comprehensive account of key translators of different ethnicities and periods and their works and ‘theories and methods’ (Publisher’s note, iii¹), as well as translation agencies from ancient times to 1919, the year of the May Fourth Movement that culturally jostled the nation into its modern era. It was followed by a more detailed 798-page Ma (1999) covering the history up to the end of Imperial China. The project, instead of producing a second volume to succeed the first, grew into a 3,009-page five-volume set (Ma et al. 2006) on the general history of Chinese-related translation from 841 BCE to 2000 CE, with volumes 2 to 5 dedicated to modern and contemporary periods. Enthusiasm about translation history seems unstoppable. Alongside general histories, there have been more focused ones such as the direction-specific Ma and Ren (1997), nation-specific Wang X. (2007), period-specific Fang (2008), and genre-specific Meng and Li (2005). Literary translation especially in the twentieth century is another focus of interest, with Xie and Zha (2004) followed by a two-volume Zha and Xie (2007) before the publication of a multiauthored six-volume series edited by Yang (2009) to chronicle the role translation played in building China into a modern nation during this volatile century.

If projects of this kind represent prima facie efforts of fact-finding to substantiate the Chinese TS tradition with increasingly extended and coherent constellations of texts, their ideological arguments are mostly contained in authors’ and editors’ voiceover-like interpretations and commentaries, or in prefaces and blurbs. Yet there is also a line of studies displaying a more express theoretical orientation. Among them are Chen’s (1992) history of Chinese translatology, Wong’s (1999) revisit to one of the time-honoured concepts fundamental to the Chinese TS tradition, i.e., xin-da-ya (信達雅, commonly translated as fidelity-expressiveness-elegance, but see further discussion below) and Zhu’s (2009) study of Chinese literary translation in the twentieth century from the perspective of domestication vs. foreignisation.

The year 1984 should be a remarkable year in the development of the Chinese TS tradition, for, further to Liu’s (1981) anthology, the year saw the publication of a significant pair of anthologies of essays arising from Chinese translators’ contemplation of their craft and profession over the centuries. One is Luo (1984), a collection of 180 essays prefaced by the anthologist himself (for an excerpt in English see Chan 2004: 230–5). In this collection, 30 essays from ancient times (third–twelfth century) are mostly prefaces to Buddhist sutra translations, seven from pre-modern times (sixteenth–seventeenth century) are mostly prefaces to scientific translations, and 37 from the turn of the twentieth century are mainly prefaces to literary translations. When it comes to the twentieth century, 42 are from the pre-1949 period featuring a greater variety including commentaries, debates, scholarly studies, as well as prefaces. And among the 65 in the section of contemporary period (from 1949 to the early 1980s) there are also a few articles by government-sponsored translators on the rendering of political texts. The other anthology is the two-volume FYLJ (1984), which collects 48 articles in Volume I (1894–1948) and 63 in Volume II (1949–83). The two publications represent a groundbreaking effort to reconstruct the Chinese TS tradition based on their respective collections of selected texts, an effort driven by a palpable ideology explicated in the opening declaration in Luo’s introductory preface to his anthology, which reads: ‘The translation theory of our nation has its own characteristics, it is one of a kind in the field of translation studies. Apparently, it should not be underestimated by our own scholars!’ (Luo 1984). The polemic, with a tone of defensive assertion and proselytisation, was directed at a presumed sense of inferiority to prepare, as it were, Chinese translation scholars for the influx of ‘a dazzling variety of foreign theories into our country’ (Luo 1984: 1; see also Bai 2009: 426) in the wake of the PRC’s opening up since the late 1970s. A partisan ideology is also discernible, among other editorial arrangements, with the chronological divide between the two volumes of FYLJ and between modern and contemporary periods in Luo set at 1949, the year the PRC was founded in the Chinese mainland.

Despite differences in coverage, the two anthologies in their collections share 40 texts from the twentieth century. When Chan, a Hong Kong-based scholar, presents the Chinese translation theory of the same century (Chan 2004: Part II) by selecting 38 essays and having them translated into English by a team of scholarly translator...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Editors’ introduction
• Part I Chinese translation in academic settings
• Part II Linguistic aspects of Chinese translation
• Part III The social context of Chinese translation
• Part IV The process of translation and Chinese interpreting
• Part V Chinese literary translation
• Part VI Specialised Chinese translation
• Part VII Chinese translation and language technology
• Part VIII The future of Chinese translation
• Index