Topics and Concepts in Literary Translation

Roberto A. Valdeón

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367353414
• eBook ISBN: 9781000651492
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This book explores literary translation in a variety of contexts. The chapters showcase the research into literary translation in North America, Europe, and Asia.

Written by a group of experienced researchers and young academics, the contributors study a variety of languages (including English, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, French, Japanese, Dutch, German, and Swedish), use a wide range of approaches (including quantitative review of literary translations; transfictional approaches to translation; and a review of concepts such as paratexts, intralingual translation, intertextuality, and retranslation), and aim to expand on existing debates on translation and translation studies as a discipline. The chapters aim to provide a panorama of the variety of topics and interests of contemporary translation studies, as well as problematize some of the concepts and approaches that seem to have become the only accepted/acceptable model in some academic quarters.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Perspectives Studies in Translation Theory and Practice.

Voices from the periphery: further reflections on relativism in translation studies

Nam Fung Chang

ABSTRACT

This paper critiques the relativist and post-colonialist view that blames the under-representation from peripheral cultures in international translation studies on Eurocentric biases. Western scholars who propound such a view underestimate the difficulties faced by scholars working in peripheral cultures, where freedom of information and of speech is often limited, non-conformity is discouraged, and the Western academic repertoire is not entirely available or acceptable. Their accusation that non-Western scholars who accept Western repertoires have drifted away from their cultural predecessors shows a lack of understanding of peripheral cultures. While Western relativists think that they are speaking on behalf of peripheral cultures, many scholars in peripheral cultures reject cultural relativism as a selfish, reactionary theory that justifies the refusal to help the weak, and see it as their duty to become cultural and academic dissidents striving to create new traditions. Radical relativists and post-colonialists in Western translation studies are Eurocentric in their criticisms of non-Western scholars. They are also guilty of ‘discipline-centrism’, by borrowing theories simplistically from central disciplines to edge out theories indigenous to translation studies itself, thus leading the discipline back to normativism and perpetuating its peripheral position in the humanities.

1. Introduction

Translation Studies opened a forum on ‘universalism in translation studies’ in 2014 (Vol. 7, Nos 1 and 3), in which eight scholars responded to Andrew Chesterman’s position piece (2014). While Chesterman leans towards universalism, all the respondents take positions near the relativist pole, denying the possibility that there may be universal theories. Most of the participants in the forum are working in central cultures (that is, cultures that typically export cultural repertoires), and many of them seemed to show a lack of understanding of peripheral cultures (that is, cultures that typically import cultural repertoires), especially the peripheries of such cultures. As some of them called for ‘greater representation from “minor” cultures’ (Wakabayashi, 2014, p. 102), and expressed a wish to hear voices from the periphery (Batchelor, 2014, p. 339), I think I have a contribution to make, by sharing the experience and perspective of a scholar who grew up in a peripheral culture and is presently situated at its border.¹ I will also quote from some mainland Chinese scholars who publish mostly in Chinese, to make up for their ‘semi-silence’ – as Wakabayashi (2014, p. 102) calls it – in the English language. This article may have come rather late, but this is the first opportunity I have had to respond to what has been said in the forum.²

2. Difficulties faced by scholars in some peripheral cultures

I agree with the view that voices and data from peripheral cultures are badly needed, and that ‘[t]he problem has been one of both production […] and reception’ (Tymoczko, 2014, p. 106). I will discuss the difficulties at the production end in this section, and will turn to problems at the reception end after further analysis of how the issue of universalism versus relativism has been viewed from a peripheral culture. The case I am referring to is China, but I believe some of the phenomena discussed are not untypical of peripheral cultures in general.

While it is true that

scholars from outside Europe have been less active in international circles of translation studies, in part because of funding issues and in part because in some cases specific scholars have become the “token” voices recognized for representing the views of whole nations (Tymoczko, 2014, p. 106),

I think the problem is much more serious and complicated. Besides the obvious language barrier, a great difficulty that scholars in the People’s Republic of China may have in writing research papers for the international audience is the lack of academic freedom. This problem is three-fold. First, they may not have access to accurate and full information about the history and the current affairs of their own country and of the outside world because nearly all the mass media are controlled by the state, a lot of data are classified, and many internationally popular websites (such as Facebook, Google and YouTube) are banned.

Second, they may not be free to study any academically worthwhile topics they like, since the absolute majority of the universities and research institutes in China are controlled by the ruling party. As Guo Yangsheng, a scholar working in China, observed:

Research on politically sensitive issues—or just political issues—is avoided; official sponsorship of research projects is limited to ‘mainstream’ topics prescribed by the government or its representatives in the academic world. Research results of studies not officially endorsed do not stand much chance of getting published, let alone winning academic awards. (Guo, 2009, p. 245)

A recent example is that researchers in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), the top research centre of China in the fields of philosophy and social sciences, are reportedly asked to criticize Western ideas such as democracy, liberty, freedom of the press and civil society. (Zhong, 2016)

Third, they may have limited freedom of expression inside and outside their country. In 2013, the Chinese Communist Party issued a gag order to university teachers, forbidding them to discuss seven politically sensitive topics in the classroom, including universal values, press freedom, civil rights, judicial independence and the past mistakes of the Chinese Communist Party (Li, 2013). In their academic writing, Chinese scholars are required to toe the party line, as Guo (2009, p. 250) pointed out:

[A]ny theorization in sociology and the humanities is subject to the control of the hidden theory (of Marxism, Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, and Deng Xiaoping theory), understood as an all-inclusive system that is constantly expanding and developing. Consequently, all theorization has to begin from and end in that master framework of the hidden theory.

Pre-publication political censorship is exercised by academic journals and presses in the country,³ and scholars may not be entirely free to air their views outside the country either. In the CASS, for example, researchers must obtain prior approval from their unit heads for ‘publishing any books overseas, or publishing any articles or opinions in any foreign media or publications’, according to a statement by Zhang Boshu (張博樹) (2009), an assistant research fellow dismissed by CASS.⁴ There are scholars who step into forbidden areas, but they run many risks. (cf. Guo, 2009, p. 245) Some have lost their job,⁵ and some have received long prison terms.⁶

It can be seen that, in the case of China, what discourages people from speaking up is the official culture, not colonialism as Maria Tymoczko suggested:

[T]he situation is also in part a consequence of the intellectual and cultural habits resulting from centuries of European colonialism in which those who were physically and culturally dominated […] were not encouraged to speak up or write back. (Tymoczko, 2014, p. 105)

It should be noted that this official culture is not entirely a product of communist rule. As a Hong Kong educationalist remarked, in East Asian societies ‘individuals are under enormous social pressure to adapt themselves to the system’, because in the educational systems of these societies ‘there is still the traditional cultural press toward uniformity and conformity’ (Cheng, 1998, p. 18). To see speaking up or talking back as a virtue to be encouraged is in fact a view guided by values of Western origin.

Another closely related major difficulty faced by scholars in non-Western cultures such as that of China who wish to produce products acceptable to the international academic market is that, in polysystemic terms, large parts of the academic repertoire may not be accessible to them ‘due to lack of knowledge or competence’ (Even-Zohar, 2010, p. 18). The reason is that, the academic polysystem originating in the West, parts of its repertoire are alien to non-Western cultures or even in conflict with the values of the latter. Dictionary definitions of the English word ‘academic’ usually include ‘theoretical’ and ‘not practical or directly useful’ (such as The Random House Dictionary of the English Language), which indicates that ‘pure academic research’ is part of the Western tradition, but Eastern scholarship traditionally prioritizes application. That is why, in the field of translation studies, ‘pure translation theories’ such as polysystem theory and descriptive translation studies have been misunderstood and resisted by some Chinese scholars (see Chang, 2009, pp. 313–316), and the first (and only) pure translation theory of Chinese origin appeared only in the 1990s, in the form of ‘medio-translatology’ (Xie, 1999), which focuses on the study of translation in the context of literary exchange.

Many academic norms governing research attitudes and methods, such as neutrality, detachment, objectivity, rationality and substantiation, are also specific to Western scholarship to a certain extent, whereas in Chinese academic writings value judgements vis-à-vis the object of study, patriotism, etc. are allowed or preferred, or even required – especially, or at least, where matters such as politics and national interests are involved (see examples provided in Chang, 2010, in press).

Even approaches to knowledge (see Anderson, 1998, pp. 3–4) can be culture-specific. Take, for example, a legendary debate between two Chinese philosophers:

Kao Tzu said, ‘[…] Human nature does not show any preference for either good or bad just as water does not show any preference for either east or west.’

[Mencius said,] ‘[…] Human nature is good just as water seeks low ground. There is no man who is not good; there is no water that does not flow downwards.’ (Mencius, 1970, p. 160)

Mencius (孟子, 372–289 BC), generally acknowledged to be the second greatest philosopher of ancient China after Confucius (孔子, 551–479 BC), is regarded to have won the debate. Mencius, a collection of Mencius’ conversations including this debate, continues to be one of the key Confucianist texts influencing generation after generation of Chinese intellectuals, and Mencius’ theory and his canonized status have largely been unchallenged in the official culture of today’s Chinese-speaking communities, including mainland China, Taiwan, Hong K...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction: Topics and concepts in literary translation
• 1 Voices from the periphery: further reflections on relativism in translation studies
• 2 Reterritorialization and aesthetic transformations: the case of Tony Harrison’s Phaedra Britannica and The Misanthrope
• 3 Translation space in nineteenth-century Belgium: rethinking translation and transfer directions
• 4 Separated by the same language: Intralingual translation between Dutch and Dutch
• 5 From Nuoro to Nobel: the impact of multiple mediatorship on Grazia Deledda’s movement within the literary semi-periphery
• 6 The tacit influence of the copy-editor in literary translation
• 7 The beginnings of literary translation in Japan: an overview
• 8 Intertextuality in retranslation
• 9 Reconstructing cultural identity via paratexts: A case study on Lionel Giles’ translation of The Art of War
• 10 Who said what? Translated messages and language interpreters in three texts by Javier Marías and Almudena Grandes
• Index