Translation Studies Commons^™

Children’S Gothic In The Chinese Context: The Untranslatability And Cross-Cultural Readability Of A Literary Genre, Chengcheng You

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

As an emerging literary subgenre in the twenty-first century, Children’s Gothic challenges and blends the norms of both children’s literature and Gothic literature, featuring child characters’ self-empowerment in the face of fears and dark impulses. The foreignness and strangeness that pertain to the genre haunt the border of its translatability. Daniel Handler’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (1999­–2006), written under the pseudonym Lemony Snicket, poses a chain of translational challenges due to its linguistic creativity, paratextual art, and mixed style of horror and dark humor intended for a child readership. To investigate the interplay between Children’s Gothic and its (un)translatability …

Ecopoetry As Method: Reading Gary Snyder As A Cultural Mediator Between China And The World, Winnie L M Yee

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Ecocriticism is a field that is inherently cross-cultural, and poetry is an art form that creates bonds across cultural communities. This paper focuses on Gary Snyder, a prominent poet in his own right, who is famous for his translation of the works by Chinese poet Han Shan. His attraction to Chinese classical poetry and Eastern civilization offers an alternative to the Western developmental paradigm, and the ecopoetry he espouses is pertinent to today’s environmental debates. His references to nature do not function merely as reminders that nature should be respected but as an impetus to reflect on the coexistence of …

Problems With Perceptual And Cognitive Idiosyncrasies In Li Wenjun’S Translation Of The Benjy Section Of Faulkner's The Sound And The Fury, Aaron L. Moore

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article “Problems with Perceptual and Cognitive Idiosyncrasies in Li Wenjun’s Translation of the Benjy Section of Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury,” Aaron Lee Moore conducts a close explication of a 2014 English-Chinese edition of part of The Sound and the Fury. Li Wenjun’s translation of the Benjy section of The Sound and the Fury is certainly admirable in its graceful rendering of Faulkner’s complex, idiosyncratic prose style into accessible Chinese—and particularly laudable in its meticulous tracking of the a-chronological sequence of Benjy’s stream of consciousness narrative. However, problems arise in the translation due to an …

China Question Of Us-American Imagism, Qingben Li

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This paper investigates first the influences of ancient Chinese culture on Ezra Pound, and then Pound’s influence on the New Culture Movement of modern China (1917). It is a kind of circular journey of literary texts and theories from ancient China to the West and then back to China. This journey, or “circle model,” involves textual appropriation, variation, transformation and misunderstanding in every stage.

The Chuanyue (Traversing) Of Western Cultural Industry Theories In China, Hui Li, Naihai Zhai

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This paper discusses the reception and transformation of western theories of Culture Industry in China during the Reform Era (1978-present). It proposes the term 穿越 (chuanyue, traverse), rather than communication or traveling theory, in order to probe into the complexity of the interaction, modification and transformation of western theories of Culture Industry and creative industries in China. The paper focuses on 1) issues of time lag or disjunction, in that it took more than half a century for the critique of Culture Industry to enter China; 2) divergent interpretations of Culture Industry with a strong critical edge of …

China Question Of Western Postcolonial Translation Theory, Zhijie Wu, Yuping Wang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

“China Question of Western Postcolonial Translation Theory” deals with how western postcolonial translation theory is read, interpreted and applied in China, as well as how the reception in China influences revision and development of the theory. Western postcolonial translation theory, though frequently quoted and highly influential in China, is sometimes incapable of effectively explaining Chinese translation practice and convincing Chinese readers. Based on the analysis of the encounter between postcolonial translation theory and China, three suggestions are proposed to revise translation theory so as to build a “greener,” healthier hetero-generative ecology of languages and cultures.

Nimble Tongues: Studies In Literary Translingualism, Steven G. Kellman

Comparative Cultural Studies

Nimble Tongues is a collection of essays that continues Steven G. Kellman's work in the fertile field of translingualism, focusing on the phenomenon of switching languages. A series of investigations and reflections rather than a single thesis, the collection is perhaps more akin in its aims—if not accomplishment—to George Steiner’s Extraterritorial: Papers on Literature and the Language Revolution or Umberto Eco’s Travels in Hyperreality.

Topics covered include the significance of translingualism; translation and its challenges; immigrant memoirs; the autobiographies that Ariel Dorfman wrote in English and Spanish, respectively; the only feature film ever made in Esperanto; Francesca Marciano, an …

Salam Neighbor: Syrian Refugees Through The Camera Lens, Lava Asaad

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This paper examines the documentary Salam Neighbor (2015), which celebrates the will of Syrian refugee women who are displaced in Jordan. The collective experience of the refugees portrayed in the documentary solicits a reaction from the Western viewer. To counteract the images of refugees in the media, documentaries can be a good alternative for mass media, which has been perpetuating a binary of the West and the Rest. The argument tackles the issue of this new representation of refugees in documentaries within a postcolonial paradigm of how we represent or speak to/with the Other in our technological age, as well …

Introduction To A Critical Response To Neocolonialism, Guoqiang Qiao

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Neocolonialism In Translating China, Guoqiang Qiao

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Neocolonialism in Translating China" Guoqiang Qiao analyzes the neocolonial phenomenon that occurs in the process of Chinese literature's "walking-out." Taking examples from Howard Goldblatt's translation and neocolonial ideas that Goldblatt advanced in his essays, interviews and speeches and those Chinese writers, critics and professors who practice self-colonization, he analyzes their neocolonialism with the challenging concepts of neocolonialism and self-colonization and thus aims to cope with the phenomenon of colonization and self-colonization in the area of Chinese literature's "walking-out."

Hardship And Healing Through The Lens Of Cultural Translation In Peter Hessler’S Travel Memoir River Town, Shang Wu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

The article “Hardship and Healing through the Lens of Cultural Translation in Peter Hessler’s Travel Memoir River Town” looks into the autobiographical dimension of Hessler’s account of his two-year stay as a Peace Corps teacher in Fuling, a remote town in southwestern China. Taking the two senses of cultural translation, one in anthropology and one in cultural studies, as two descriptive aspects, it illustrates the hardship Hessler confronted and his healing strategies. Faced with etiquette and language issues as well as the power relation between China and America and its consequent stereotypes in cross-cultural encounters, Hessler gazed back to …

Conflicting Neo-Colonialist Narratives In The Representation Of Africa In Ngugi And Naipaul's Novels, Weiping Li, Xiuli Zhang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article "Conflicting Neo-colonialist Narratives in the Representation of Africa in Ngugi and Naipaul's Novels" Weiping Li and Xiuli Zhang analyze the conflicting neo-colonialist narratives by comparing the different representations of the post-independent Africa between Ngugi's Petals of Blood and Naipaul's A Bend in the River. The multiple narrators in Petals of Blood expose imperialists' continuing domination of Africa, while the limited third person narrator in A Bend in the River blames the African people for the deterioration and chaos of the African society. One from an insider's perspective, the other from the outsider's, Ngugi and Naipaul thus form …

Terminology Translation And The "Rebirth" Of Comparative Literature In, Peina Zhuang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article "Terminology Translation and the 'Rebirth' of Comparative Literature in China" Peina Zhuang and Huan Pi discuss terminology translation during the rise of Comparative Literature in China. They argue that, while great headway has been made in Comparative Literature here, it is not free from the challenges inherent in terminology translation, an important part in inter-cultural dialogue. Analyzing the status quo in terminology translation from three aspects, namely, the lack of unity, standardization, and accuracy, they argue that more attention should be given to this aspect in the scholarship. In particular, they advocate more concrete empirical research, such …

Rebirth Of Comparative Literature In China From The Perspective Of Medio-Translatology, Wei Guo

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Rebirth of Comparative Literature in China from the Perspective of Medio-translatology," Wei Guo discusses the "rebirth" of Comparative Literature in China from the development of medio-translatology. He argues that, though translation has received wide attention in Comparative Literature, both domestic and foreign, especially in today's globalized world, the proposition of medio-translatology and systematic investigation by Xie Tianzhen and other Chinese scholars constitute an important way forward for translation in Comparative Literature. It makes translation an independent branch in this discipline, which is conducive to ending the longstanding confusions in translation under medio-translatology and translation studies on the …

The Theoretical Basis And Framework Of Variation Theory, Shunqing Cao, Zhoukun Han

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article "The Theoretical Basis and Framework of Variation Theory" Shunqing Cao and Zhoukun Han re-examine the conclusions on variation theory drawn from Cao's The Variation Theory of Comparative Literature. Drawing on the past three decades of Chinese comparatist practice, the proposal of variation theory in that book is a scientific endeavor from China. China's comparative literature has sustained a focus on comparison of literatures Eastern and Western. And Chinese scholars have long been aware of the heterogeneity of civilizations and the variability in literature exchanges. By demonstrating uses and potentials of variation theory, this thesis attempts to …

Agency And Political Engagement In Gide And Barrault's Post-War Theatrical Adaptation Of Kafka's The Trial, Yevgenya Strakovsky

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article, "Agency and Political Engagement in Gide and Barrault's Post-war Theatrical Adaptation of Kafka's The Trial" Yevgenya Strakovsky considers the political themes of André Gide and Jean-Louis Barrault's Le Procès (The Trial, 1947), the first theatrical adaptation of Franz Kafka's Der Prozess (The Trial, 1914). Strakovsky demonstrates that Le Procès, written and staged in the immediate aftermath of World War II, levels a critique against the passive complicity of citizens in unjust persecution in both its script and its staging. The paper also considers the elements of Kafka's prose that lend themselves to …

China And The Politics Of Cross–Cultural Representation In Interwar European Fiction, Carles Prado-Fonts

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "China and the Politics of Cross–Cultural Representation in Interwar European Fiction" Carles Prado-Fonts analyzes Joan Crespi's La ciutat de la por (The City of Fear, 1930) to illustrate the varied representations of China in interwar Europe. In the 1920s and 1930s, a plurality of views on China and the Chinese people became widespread across different parts of Europe, mainly shaped by English, French, and German representations. Contradictory images of China coexisted in literature, thought, and popular culture. Crespi's work exemplifies these contradictions: China appears as both an attainable reality and an unreachable fantasy, two tropes that prevailed …

Colombian Readings Of Paradise Lost: Gabriel García Márquez’S Literary Conversation With John Milton, Daniela M. Maestre, Angelica Duran

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Englishman John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost has twenty European Spanish translations. Despite the high number of translations, three Latin American writers, one Mexican and two Colombians published three more versions. Our project seeks to discover what motivated the Colombian translators to publish more versions of Paradise Lost, as part of the influence of Milton’s works in Colombian literature in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There is little information about Colombian readings of this epic poem: we do not yet know how Colombians read the epic poem and why. To get a better sense of Colombian reception of Paradise Lost, …

Authorship In Burroughs's Red Night Trilogy And Bowles's Translation Of Moroccan Storytellers, Benjamin J. Heal

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Authorship in Burroughs's Red Night Trilogy and Bowles's Translation of Moroccan Storytellers" Benjamin J. Heal discusses Paul Bowles's and William S. Burroughs's varying interrogation of the constructed nature of authorship. In his study Heal focuses on the publication history of Burroughs's Cities of the Red Night (1981), which was written with considerable collaborative influence and Bowles's translation of illiterate Moroccan storytellers, where his influence over the production and editing of the texts is blurred as are the roles of author and translator. Through an examination of Bowles's and Burroughs's authorship strategies in parallel with an explication of …

Literary Creolization In Layachi's A Life Full Of Holes, Maarten Van Gageldonk

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Literary Creolization in Layachi's A Life Full of Holes" Maarten van Gageldonk discusses the publication of Larbi Layachi's 1964 book by Grove Press based on a transcription and translation by Paul Bowles. Both Bowles and the editors at Grove Press made numerous alterations to the content and form of Layachi's tales in order to make them more accessible for readers. In the process, Layachi's book became a "cultural creole" (Hannerz). Drawing on archival materials from the Grove Press Records housed at Syracuse University, van Gageldonk examines how in its published form A Life Full of Holes …

Ginsberg's Translations Of Apollinaire And Genet In The Development Of His Poetics Of "Open Secrecy", Véronique Lane

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Ginsberg's Translations of Apollinaire and Genet in the Development of his Poetics of 'Open Secrecy'" Véronique Lane analyzes the extent to which the journals, letters and poems of Allen Ginsberg are marked by constant reference to literary models that give just as much weight to French as to American writers. Focusing on his long involvement with Guillaume Apollinaire and Jean Genet's works, Lane argues that Ginsberg meticulously constructed the genealogy of his poetry through a threefold strategy of literary quotation, translation and encryption. Uncovering this strategy through analysis of "Howl," "At Apollinaire's Grave," and "Death to Van …

Variation Theory And The Reception Of Chinese Literature In The English-Speaking World, Shunqing Cao

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Variation Theory and Reception of Chinese Literature in the English-Speaking World" Shunqing Cao introduces "variation theory" he developed and suggests that the framework can be applied in studying the dissemination and reception of Chinese literature in the English-speaking world. Cao argues that cultural and literary differences produce variations in literary exchanges among different cultures and variation theory concentrates on these variations. With unique perspectives on variation in translation, cultural misreading, and domestication, variation theory is a useful theoretical framework and methodology for the study of the reception of Chinese literature in the English-speaking world.