Translation as Actor-Networking

Actors, Agencies, and Networks in the Making of Arthur Waley's English Translation of the Chinese 'Journey to the West'

Wenyan Luo

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000046359
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Langues et linguistique
• Subtopic: Linguistique

This book employs actor-network theory (ANT) to explore the making of the English translation of a work of Chinese canonical fiction, Journey to the West, demonstrating how ANT, as applied to Translation Studies, can contribute to a richer understanding of the translation process.

The volume builds on previous research to apply ANT theory to translation studies by looking in-depth at a single work, highlighting the unique factors underpinning the making of Monkey, Arthur Waley's English translation of the Chinese classic Journey to the West, which make the work an ideal candidate for showing ANT theory in practice in translation. Luo uses an in-depth exploration of the work to examine the ways in which both human and nonhuman translation actors and agents interact in different ways in the publication of this translation, showcasing them as dynamic, changing, and active participants whose roles shifted over the course of the translation process, rather than as fixed entities as traditionally categorized in existing research. The book moves beyond a descriptive account of an ANT-based case study toward offering a systematic theoretical and methodological framework of ANT-based translation studies, using the conclusions drawn from its application to a single work to suggest a way forward for applying ANT in translation production on a wider scale.

This book will be of interest to scholars in translation studies, sociology, and comparative literature, particularly those interested in actor-network theory or network studies and their application to related disciplinary fields.

1
Actor-Network Theory

Instead of giving the overall research context, this book starts with an in-depth presentation of the theoretical framework for the following reasons: first, the theoretical perspective adopted in this study, i.e. the actor-network theory (ANT hereafter), has directly and decisively influenced the choice of the translation and translation project under examination. Second, ANT is, to a large extent, still unfamiliar to scholars in Translation Studies, although there have been more than a dozen studies drawing specifically upon it, including Buzelin, 2006, 2007a, 2007b; Jones, 2009; Kung, 2009; Bogic, 2010; Haddadian-Moghaddam, 2012; Boll, 2016; Munday, 2016b. In other words, it is necessary to introduce the theory that shaped this entire research project before explaining the contextualisation of the present research being undertaken.

This chapter contains a systematic and comprehensive introduction of ANT, the basic theory underpinning this work. While almost all the previous studies on translation adopt an ANT perspective based mainly on Bruno Latour’s theory (either alone or together with theories other than ANT), for example, Kung, 2009; Bogic, 2010; Haddadian-Moghaddam, 2012; Boll, 2016, this study proposes a combination of the core concepts of ANT from Michel Callon, Bruno Latour, and John Law – the three forefathers and major contributors – to the development of the theory. To ensure a better understanding of the theory and the concepts, the basic ideas of ANT are discussed and clarified, before the core concepts, such as (human and nonhuman) actors, actor-networks, and translation^ANT, are introduced in subsequent sections.

A major difficulty when introducing the theory is that ANT is in constant development theoretically, meaning that different researchers may have given different definitions of some of the concepts in various scales of application. The ways to present the ideas and concepts, therefore, include choosing or adopting the most suitable definition as, for example, when Latour’s definition of the obligatory passage point is chosen instead of Callon’s restrictive one (see Section 1.6), and integrating the existing meanings to make the definitions more precise or comprehensive as, for example, when the concept of (nonhuman) actor is under discussion (see Section 1.2). These ideas and concepts are further adapted, proved, or extended, as demonstrated in the discussions and analyses in the following chapters. This constitutes one of the distinct contributions that this research makes to the application of ANT to translation.

1.1 Basic Clarifications of the Name and Nature of Actor-Network Theory

ANT has developed since the 1980s, with a number of sociologists undertaking social studies in the disciplines of science and technology, among whom, Michel Callon (e.g. 1986a, 1986b, 1999), Bruno Latour (e.g. 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988a¹, 1988b, 1999, [2005] 2007) and John Law (e.g. 1986a, 1986b, 1992, 1999) are the most prominent figures, in the sense that they are the founding fathers of the theory.

Different to the proponents of macro-sociology, who see society as being imposed on individuals, ANT researchers consider social causality in a similar way to micro-sociologists, who consider individuals as constantly acting to remodel society. More specifically, ANT proponents argue that actors constantly (re)negotiate their relationships, and their identities (Callon, 1986a), and thereby weave the very fabric of society. If society is considered from a macro-sociological perspective, for example, as systems, this is referred to by Latour as the ‘sociology of the social’, while ANT is regarded as the ‘sociology of associations’, as it considers society as consisting of various associations formed by actors (Latour, 2007).

Proponents of ANT disagree with social reductionism, and with prioritising systems or structures over individual actors, as such simplifications ignore how uncertainties, innovations and various heterogeneous facts converge to make a ‘society’. Instead of believing that society can be generalised, and in turn explained and predicted by those generalisations, as suggested by the ‘sociology of the social’, ANT practitioners seek to discover how different actors interact, sometimes unpredictably, to build heterogeneous associations that constitute a changing ‘society’, or a ‘society’ in formation (ibid.). In brief, ANT scholars regard ‘society’ as growing out of, or, as a result (effect) of actors’ interactions.

Interestingly, in addition to the most popular name for the theory the ‘actor-network theory’, ANT is sometimes referred to as the ‘sociology of associations’, and at other times referred to as the ‘sociology of translation’ (e.g. Callon, 1986a; Law, 1992) or the ‘translation model’ (e.g. Latour, 1984, 1987). It could be argued that ‘translation’ is not the only concept of ANT and that the label ‘sociology of translation’ by no means covers the whole theory. ‘Translation’ is, however, the key concept in understanding how power relationships between actors build networks and transform objects, artefacts, and facts.² Callon, Latour, and Law all use this concept to represent the whole theory (e.g. Callon, 1986a; Latour, 1984; Law, 1992). For example, Callon’s seminal article on the ‘sociology of translation’ (1986a) presents a systematic study and applies a whole range of innovative ideas and concepts in ANT: besides the concept of ‘translation’, three principles of conducting ANT research are proposed in the article, and the concepts of human and nonhuman actors and ‘obligatory passage point’³ are systematically integrated in discussion. More importantly, from Callon’s perspective, ‘translation’ is a process which, in practice, involves the networking activities of a variety of actors. It is therefore no exaggeration to say that the ‘sociology of translation’ represents the spirit of ANT. This chapter presents a systematic integration of almost the whole range of ideas and concepts within ANT.

It should be noted that the word ‘translation’ in ANT has a different meaning from the ‘translation’ in Translation Studies. In order to distinguish between the two, hereafter ‘translation^ANT’ will be used to indicate the meaning specific to ANT. The concept of translation^ANT used in this book designates the process during which some inputs, including people and materials, are displaced, re-assembled, and transformed into very different output(s). In other words, ANT is a theory that studies the process of transforming inputs, in terms of people and objects, figurations and non-figurations, into thing(s) or fact(s) that are very different. This definition might be seen as having been developed from a summary of Callon’s and Latour’s definitions of translation^ANT. Those people, or objects, that conduct translations^ANT and those that are translated^ANT are called actors, and to complete the process, actors form networks. The terms ‘actor’ and ‘network’, however, return people’s attention to the most commonly known and used name for the theory – the ‘actor-network theory’.

While some might think that the very name of the theory is quite revealing, and that ANT is a theory that studies the network of actors, Latour argues that if one just considers the terms ‘actor’, ‘network’, and ‘theory’ superficially, and without deeper reflection on what the terms actually mean in ANT, the name is just as misleading as it is convenient (Latour, 1999). Concerned that the terms might easily be misunderstood due to their widespread stereotypes, he paradoxically claims that the name ‘actor-network theory’ does not necessarily fit ANT as for example, people not familiar with ANT would readily associate ‘actor’ with human agency, and the word ‘network’ is commonly associated with the widespread use of the Internet and information technology aiming to spread or transport knowledge and information ‘faithfully’ and without change (ibid.). A deeper understanding of ‘actor’ and ‘network/association’ is thus crucial to a deeper understanding of the theory.

There are, moreover, some disputes concerning whether it is either suitable or accurate to define ANT as a theory, for some ANT scholars (light-heartedly referred to as ‘ants’) would prefer the word ‘ontology’ to ‘theory’ (e.g. Latour, 1999; Callon, 1999). They believe that ANT should be aimed not at compressing heterogeneous social phenomena into one homogeneous structured system of society, but at scrutinizing the heterogeneity as it is, and at observing what the actors really do and how they themselves interpret their doings. ANT can therefore be regarded as “another way of being faithful to the insights of ethnomethodology” (Latour, 1999: 19), and as a method to “learn from the actors without imposing on them an a priori definition of their world-building capacities” (20). The ANT scholars’ resolution to develop a philosophy or to build a framework is underscored by their refusal to claim ANT as a theory, with the traditional connotation of a theory that it should aim to prescribe or predict; whereas they aim to provide a completely new outlook of what constitutes a ‘society’, and how actors work to develop that ‘society’.

ANT encourages ‘describing’ rather than defining and predicting (Latour, 2007). Latour insists that ‘society’ is much more complex and unpredictable in terms of its components, the components’ agencies, and their ways of making connections and that only through close examination and detailed descriptions of the process of making ‘the social’ could one understand ‘the social’ (ibid.). ANT scholars follow principles or rules in their observations and descriptions to facilitate ANT-guided research, including the three principles promoted by Callon (1986a), and the ‘rules of method’ proposed by Latour (1987). All these rules and principles are devised to address the difficulties in the sociological study of science and technology, and are in essence alike. Compared to Latour’s rules of method, which contain practical guidelines and are hence more methodological, Callon’s principles are, however, more generalised and more theoretical. The following section introduces Callon’s three principles, and aims to provide general guidance for ANT-based research. Chapter 2 then outlines and introduces the methodological rules relevant to the current study which are devised on the basis of both Callon’s three principles and Latour’s rules of method.

Callon (1986a: 198–199) identifies three major difficulties in the sociological study of science and technology: 1) under the name of ‘professional’ censorship, sociologists tend to exclude the actor’s understanding of ‘the social’, which results in the reductionist or generalising style of research; 2) as society was “no more obvious or less controversial than Nature” (199), the solidity (the theoretical nature) of ‘sociological explanation’ was questionable; and finally 3) the identity and the position of actors are not predetermined or fixed forever but are susceptible to change, which gives crucial impetus to network development. From a methodological standpoint, therefore, it is important to consider actors as variables, and to seriously study how their identities change, and how these changes affect the networking process.

These three difficulties are interlocked and can influence one another. For example, over-emphasis on the professional censorship of sociologists would enhance the solidity of ‘social explanation’, and when the style and nature of a theory are compromised, this will affect the methodology. If for example the identity of the actors is conceived of as predetermined invariables by sociologists, then the actors’ explanation of the social construct is disregarded.

Three principles are, as a result, proposed by Callon to guide and regulate studies carried out by applying the sociology of translation^ANT, namely, the principle of agnosticism, the principle of generalised symmetry, and the principle of free association (Callon, 1986a). The three principles do not correspond specifically to any one of the difficulties; instead, they either have their own focus, or they may aim to solve two or more problems at the same time.

The first principle of agnosticism, that something is unknown and unknowable and used in this context, “extends the agnosticism of the observer to include the social sciences” (Callon, 1986a: 200). This principle requires both sociologists and sociology to stay ‘ignorant’, and to focus on observed or measurable facts that occur during any social process, instead of presuming that they can give ‘sociological explanation’, i.e. explanations that often over-generalise and impose ‘the social’ on individuals, to things that have happened, or can predict things that are going to happen. Specifically, the principle of agnosticism contains two main points. First, what the actors say about their social network should be respected. Sociologists should not assume the superiority of their own ‘professionalism’ and relegate actors’ comments on their social network to the unprofessional and inappropriate. In other words, ANT proponents should reject ‘sociological explanation’; should not presume anything about the actors studied or any of their actions; and should not censor any of the actors’ descriptions of their working experience, the actors’ comments on social matters in general or on their actions in a particular situation. This point aims to resolve the first and second difficul-ties. The second point is that the identity of the actors, and the roles they play, may be subject to negotiation, and re-negotiation, at any point in the network development and, therefore, should not be pre-determined (Callon, 1986a). This all leads to the third methodological difficulty.

It should be further clarified here that the principle of agnosticism restricts a researcher from presuming, over-generalising, imposing, and predicting, which in fact largely expanded actor-networking possibilities. Nevertheless, constraining researchers does not equal prohibiting them from perceiving, recognising, distinguishing, and analysing, etc. False, extreme, and rigid application of this principle – for example, insisting that researchers should know nothing about and ignore existing differences between actors and actions – annihilates a researcher’s observation ability and critical understanding, and tends to reduce ANT research to mere description. An ANT researcher’s task is to, first, discern and accept the state of existing things, facts, knowledge, objects, and people, and based on that, explore how this state induces or helps to generate a variety of actor-networking possibilities. The key to abiding by this principle is simply not to presume, suppose, or predict, and it remains crucial to keep knowing and exploring.

The second principle is that of generalised symmetry. The key point is that ANT researchers are required to abide by one “single repertoire” (Callon, 1986a: 200) when describing society ...