Translation Seminar Series (Since 2001)

Abstract:

In this seminar, I will compare the concept of Translation Competence with a concept that I have called Translator Competence and which is more closely associable with (though very far from alignable with) the notion of competence which we find at play in theoretical linguistics. I will explore the cognitive foundations of this phenomenon, the more conscious text processing elements of it insofar as we have any grasp of what they may be, and finally I will touch on less systematisable, socio-cultural elements, which are blatantly obviously conscious, willed, strategic translator behaviour.

About the Speaker:

Kirsten Malmkjær is Professor in Translation Studies and Director of Translation Studies Programme at the University of Leicester. Her research interests include translation theory, translation studies, translation and language, translation and philosophy, and Hans Christian Andersen’s language and literary production in Danish and in translations into English. She is the author of Linguistics and the Language of Translation (Edinburgh 2005) and editor of The Linguistics Encyclopedia (London 1991; second edition 2002; third edition 2010), Translation in Undergraduate Degree Programmes (Amsterdam and Philadelphia 2004), Translation in Language Teaching (Manchester 1998), and, with Kevin Windle of the Australian National University, of The Oxford Handbook of Translation Studies (2011). Forthcoming books are on translation and on Hans Christian Andersen’s language.

Abstract:

Adaptation Studies have become very popular in recent years in many university departments, especially those of English Literature and Film Studies, with a growing number of books, conferences and journals in the area. This talk begins by examining the interface (or lack of interface) between Translation Studies and Adaptation Studies, also introducing the concept of appropriation, and examples will be given from adaptations and appropriations of the works of William Shakespeare, particularly Othello. The talk then introduces the ideas of the Brazilian translation poet, translator and translation theorist, Haroldo de Campos (1929-2003), especially his notion of recreation and his use of the Brazilian modernist concept of anthropophagy.

About the Speaker:

John Milton is Associate Professor of English Literature and Translation Studies at the University of São Paulo in Brazil. His main interests are the History, Sociology and Politics of Translation and has also recently been working with Adaptation Studies. Amongst his publications are Agents of Translation, (John Benjamins), which he edited together with Paul Bandia.

Abstract:

Chinese-English dictionaries typically offer as the closest English equivalents of rén 仁 “benevolent/-ce, kind/ness, humane/ness,” and Mencius’s English translators by and large stick to those translations as well. Following the lead of James Legge, for example, D. C. Lau and the translators of the Shandong Friendship Press edition meticulously translate it in almost every case as “benevolent” or “benevolence,” and most Mencius scholars writing in English, whether Chinese or non-Chinese, also translate it as “benevolent/-ce”; David Hinton uses “humane” and “humanity.” This talk will examine those translations in specific Mencian contexts, asking whether they are adequate to the complexity of Mencius’s concept—and, if not, what other options there might be.

About the Speaker:

Douglas Robinson is Tong Tin Sun Chair Professor of English and head of the English Department at Lingnan University. He is author of many books on translation, including The Translator’s Turn, Translation and Taboo, Becoming a Translator, Western Translation Theory From Herodotus to Nietzsche, Translation and Empire, and the forthcoming Translation and the Problem of Sway. He is currently working on a book comparing conceptions of rhetoric in Mencius and Aristotle.

Abstract:

By the nineteenth century, “culture” and “civilization” had been translated into different languages in Europe and beyond, and both came to be regarded in the West as “international” concepts. A careful study of the translation history of these two terms, however, would reveal that European internationalism was not only deeply implicated in colonialism, but also heavily fraught with nationalism inside Europe. This seminar will trace the splitting of a European identity into different national identities by concentrating on the translation history of the two terms “civilization” and “culture” in relation to European power politics, focusing in particular on Germany, France, and Britain.
Please note that the captioned lecture will draw upon Part I of a much longer manuscript entitled “Translations of ‘Culture’ and ‘Civilization,’ European Power Politics, and China’s Response to Colonial Challenges since the Opium Wars.” One objective of the project is to demonstrate the important role of translation for international relations, politics, world history, and anthropology. I will deepen the complexity of the relationships among translation, nationalism, and internationalism discussed in Part I by considering in Part II an alternative understanding of these three concepts in the context of China’s response to colonial challenges. Drawing insight from Koselleck’s Begriffsgeschichte approach, I will pay special attention to the semantic changes in the two terms “wenming” and “wenhua” as a result of China’s attempts to effect a translation imperii in reverse via a translatio studii.

About the Speaker:

Sinkwan Cheng is the editor of Law, Justice, and Power: Between Reason and Will (Stanford University Press). The volume consists primarily of fresh contributions from Julia Kristeva, Slavoj Žižek, J. Hillis Miller, Alain Badiou, Nancy Fraser, and Ernesto Laclau. Prior to joining the Translation Department at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Professor Cheng was an Associate Professor of British Literature in New York. She also had experience teaching European intellectual history in Berlin (specializing in Continental philosophy and political history.)
Professor Cheng has given faculty seminars and lectures in England, Germany, the United States (including Columbia University), South Korea, China, and Hong Kong. In addition to her Stanford volume, she has published in MLN, Cardozo Law Review, American Journal of Semiotics, Law and Literature, and Literature and Psychology. Along with Fredric Jameson, Russell Grigg, and Parveen Adams, she served on the Advisory Board of American-Lacanian-Link.
Professor Cheng was the recipient of an Excellence in Teaching Award in a campus-wide competition at SUNY Buffalo. During the past decade, she has been awarded four prestigious fellowships and grants for her scholarly work (including a Rockefeller Fellowship and a DAAD Fellowship.)

Abstract:

The foundational narrative of the life and deeds of the Buddha (c. 557- 483 BC) is the Sanskrit epic Buddhacharitam by Ashvaghosha (1st century AD). As part of the great enterprise of translating Buddhist texts from Sanskrit, this work too was translated into Chinese as Fo-Sho-Hing-Tsan-King by Dharmaraksha (420 AD). This was followed by a translation from Sanskrit into Tibetan probably in the eighth century.
Both the Chinese and the Sanskrit versions were included separately (in 1883 and 1894 respectively) in Max Mueller’s monumental 19th century series of translations into English in 50 volumes, the Sacred Books of the East. This duplication came about because the Sanskrit original had meanwhile been lost and subsequently, only the first half of the text was found, while the Chinese translation preserved the whole text. (This may seem to constitute an empirical demonstration of Derrida’s theoretical formulation that the original begs to be translated and is not complete without it.)
Already in 1879, the Sanskrit epic had formed a major source for a long poem, The Light of Asia by Sir Edwin Arnold, which was in its 50th reprint by 1889 and was translated into Hindi by Ramachandra Shukla in 1922. In 1936, E. H. Johnston translated the whole of the Sanskrit epic into English, reconstructing the missing second half through a collation of the freer Chinese version with the closer Tibetan version. This composite English version was in turn translated into Hindi (1942, 1944), and this has recently inspired a pious enthusiast in India to compose afresh, or translate back, in Sanskrit verse the missing second half of the epic (2002), with the explicitly stated objective of finally bringing this wandering text home.
In this paper, I track this text through its successive reincarnations in many lands and languages over the last two thousand years, a journey which seems to have ended where it began, in Sanskrit in India, and thus represents a circularity of circulation. I then seek to address some issues relating to the history of cultural contacts between India and China as well as between India and the West. Besides, I discuss the formation of the canon of Indian literature in ancient India, its Western Orientalist reconstitution in the 19th century, and eventually its postcolonial Indian recovery and restitution. I also glance at the appropriation of Buddhism in China, and the even greater appropriation of Buddhism in India. For while Buddhism flourishes as a distinct and attractive religion in many parts of the world, it has been almost wholly absorbed back into Hinduism in its land of origin and has thus been ‘translated’ back — like the Buddhacharitam.

About the Speaker:

Harish Trivedi, Professor of English at the University of Delhi, has been visiting professor at the universities of Chicago and London, and was the CETRA Chair Professor of Translation Studies for 2006. He has translated into English a wide range of poetry and short fiction from Hindi, and a literary biography, Premchand: A Life (1982; reprint Oxford U.P., 1991). He has co-edited Post-colonial Translation: Theory and Practice (with Susan Bassnett, Routledge London, 1999) and a special issue of Wasafiri with ‘Focus on Translation’ (with Theo Hermans, Winter 2003).
He has published several essays and encyclopedia articles on various aspects of translation in India, which he plans to collect in a volume under the title, ‘Translation in India: India in Translation.’ He is currently editing an anthology of Indian Literature in English Translation, 1500 B.C. to 2000 A.D.

Abstract:

A key mechanism in the process of understanding a text involves the recognition and/or building of connections between the signs within the text and the systems of signs without. It can be said that because of the infinite possibilities for making such connections, a reader can interpret in myriad ways, though always within the parameters set by the text as well as by what Stanley Fish has termed the “interpretive community.” Beginning with the literal meanings – or the dictionary meaning – conveyed by each and every word of the text, the reader can proceed to hierarchically higher levels of textual configuration, utilizing the reading strategies at his disposal and integrating the individual elements into ever-expanding textual realms. In determining the exact significance of the parts, he relates them to various systems – which may be the entire text, systems of other literary texts, and semiotic systems located in the “world out there.”
What happens if these systems are to be completely relocated in an adaptive translation, or as recent theorists would have it, a “tradaptation”? The present paper attempts to study Wang Dahong’s 1977 Chinese translation of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, in which all the references to Victorian culture of the mid-nineteenth century are replaced with those to late twentieth-century Taipei. While following huge chunks of the original text word-for-word, Wang deletes portions that cannot be incorporated into the new Chinese context, and randomly adds elements that he considers relevant to the theme. Yet Du Liankui fails to become thoroughly Sinicized; it becomes immersed in a web of intertextual echoes, revealing to the sensitive reader its inextricable links to two cultures instead of one. The partial recontextualization gives rise to complications when the reader attempts to construct meaning out of the text, one quite distinct from Wilde’s 1891 novel.

About the Speaker:

Leo Tak-hung CHAN is Professor of Translation and Head of the Department of Translation, Lingnan University. Besides articles in journals like Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Comparative Literature Studies, TTR and The Translator, Professor Chan has published three (Chinese) annotated bibliographies on translated twentieth-century fiction, drama and poetry. His recent scholarly books include: The Discourse on Foxes and Ghosts (University of Hawaii Press, 1998), Masterpieces in Western Translation Theory (co-edited; City University of HK Press, 2000), One into Many: Translation and the Dissemination of Classical Chinese Literature (Rodopi Editions, 2003); Twentieth-Century Chinese Translation Theory: Modes, Issues and Debates (John Benjamins, 2004) and Readers, Reading and Reception of Translated Prose Fiction in Chinese: Novel Encounters (St. Jerome Publishing, 2010). Three co-edited anthologies are forthcoming in 2011: Confluences: Translation Research in Chinese and Asian Contexts, Transformations: New Translation Research in China (in Chinese) and Globalization and Cultural Identity/Translation.

Abstract:

Spanning over more than forty years, Eileen Chang’s Chinese-English translation (1920-1995) constitutes an extremely important part of all of her translation activities. Her Chinese-English translation began in 1952, right after she had arrived in Hong Kong as an exile from the Chinese mainland. After three years’ sojourn in Hong Kong, she emigrated to the United States of America, and her Chinese-English translations there afterwards could be seen as part of her endeavours to become a successful English writer. Changing residence from one place to another, Chang led a migratory life in America. This exerted a profound influence on her translational undertakings ¬– her Chinese-English translations produced during different periods of time and in different places display markedly different characteristics, and readers will find from her translations that she kept on reflecting on and searching for her own cultural identity, especially in her later days. Hence, Chang’s Chinese-English translation activities should be regarded as a vital reflection of her life. An in-depth study of Chang’s Chinese-English translations is, therefore, indispensable if a comprehensive picture of this writer-translator is to be pursued. However, compared with researches on Chang’s creative writing and her English-Chinese translation, the study of her Chinese-English translation has been regrettably scarce and inadequate. The present research project seeks to remedy the situation. Here, the researcher sees Chang as a diasporic translator and aims to interpret her Chinese-English translations from a postcolonial feminist perspective.

About the Speaker:

Julia, Wang Xiaoying is a PhD graduate in Translation at Hong Kong Baptist University. She has published extensively on Postcolonialism and translation studies. Her research interests include Chinese Discourse on Translation, Postcolonial Studies, Gender and Translation.

Abstract:

This is an anatomy of the process that led to five translations of Chinese poems written in traditional modes – three jueju, one wuyan lüshi, and one qiyan lüshi — by the poet Wann Ai-jen (poems and translations to appear in the November issue of Renditions: A Chinese-English Translation Magazine). In the give and take between translator and poet, a dialectic of the critical and creative is achieved, with the critical and the creative coming from both quarters. The dialogue shows that, whereas the critical might be regarded as an obstacle to creation, and creation may be seen as antithetical to a critical perspective, there are instances where the two are complementary and co-productive. Sometimes the conflicts were not so much between poet and translator as between fundamental worldviews in the source and target cultures.

About the Speaker:

Eugene Chen EOYANG is a practicing translator and a theorist of translation – some of his most recent translations appear in Renditions: A Chinese-English Magazine in the May issue and in the November issue (forthcoming). Among his studies of translation theory are The Transparent Eye (1993) and ‘Borrowed Plumage’ (2003). He is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature and of East Asian Languages & Cultures at Indiana University, and Professor Emeritus of English, Translation, Humanities, and General Education at Lingnan University.

Abstract:

American writer Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973) is a significant figure in 20th century Sino-American interaction. Buck was “mentally bifocal”. Her nearly forty-year stay in China and the second half of her life back in America, put her in a unique position in Sino-American conflict. Buck’s masterpiece, The Good Earth describes family life in Chinese village in early 20th century. The novel was one of the most influential western books on China in 1930s and it was also an influential factor in Buck winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938. This presentation is part of the author’s PhD dissertation. The present study takes the Imagological approach to address how Chinese translations of The Good Earth have re-presented the image of China depicted by Pearl Buck, and how this re-presented image of China has helped to construct Chinese national identity of the translators and their target readers. In the analysis, the author will mainly take ideas of how images can be used to construct national identities from Imagology and what crucial role translation could play in the formation of national identity from Translation Studies.

About the Speaker:

Liang Zhifang, PhD candidate in translation, Hong Kong Baptist University.

Abstract:

This presentation tries to analyze cultural genes involved in understanding and translating Yellow Emperor’s Canon of Medicine, a great and large Chinese classic, conceived in antiquity, developed in Warring States and compiled in the Qin and Hand Dynasties, characterized by elegant language, abstruse concepts, excellent theories and detailed discussions. Since its theory was established on the basis of traditional Chinese culture and studies of various schools, information tends to change in its translation. To reveal the causes responsible for information change, the author has applied the theory of cultural gene, entropy and dissipation to the study of English translation of Yellow Emperor’s Canon of Medicine, trying to analyze the reality of information change and its possible cultural significance in intercultural communication.

About the Speaker:

Li Zhaoguo, Master of Arts (English), Ph. D on traditional Chinese medicine and Professor of English in Shanghai Normal University, has devoted himself to the study, practice and translation of traditional Chinese culture and traditional Chinese medicine in the past 26 years. His publications include 23 books on Chinese culture and translation (including Entropy, Dissipation and Reconstruction: A New Approach to the Theory and Practice of Chinese-English Translation) and 25 versions of traditional Chinese medical canons and classics (including Yellow Emperor’s Canon of Medicine). He is now General Secretary of Translation Specialty Committee of World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies, Vice Director of TCM English Committee of China Association of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, and WHO expert on international standardization of traditional medicine terminologies.

Abstract:

Interpreting research has generally been thought of as being too abstract, brain breaking and boring by interpreting trainees. This is true when compared with interpreting practice, which enables interpreters to make a fortune, meet interesting people, and travel to different parts of the world. But probably we can make things less technical and intimidating by visualizing a research process as a flow chart in which a series of tasks are presented in a sequence: choosing a research topic/developing research questions → defining research purpose→reading literature → selecting research design → collecting data → analyzing data→ finding research result/writing up a thesis/paper. Even if an actual research project does not always take place in this chronological order, interpreting students are suggested to follow the sequence in their initial research work so that they are clearer about when to do what and how. A sample research project will be provided to illustrate how this 7-step strategy can be adopted to help kick off, design and carry out the research work.

About the Speaker:

Prof. Dr. REN Wen is the vice dean of the College of Foreign Languages and Cultures, Sichuan University. She was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Wisconsin, Madison between 2001 and 2002, and a visiting scholar at Peking University between 2007 and 2008. She is the team leader of English/Chinese Interpreting Course at Sichuan University which has been rated as a national-level Excellence Course by the Ministry of Education since 2008. In 2009 she was invited by the SIM University in Singapore to be the external assessor of the English/Chinese Simultaneous Interpretation courses for its B.A. degree program. In the past few years she has also been the trainer of the Interpreting practice/teaching/research workshops organized by the Chinese Translators Association.
For many years, she has been teaching interpreting at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and has rich consecutive as well as simultaneous interpreting experience. The senior foreign politicians and dignitaries for whom she had interpreted include former Prime Minister of Australia Robert Hawke, former Prime Minister of New Zealand Mike Moore, former UN under Secretary-General Jeffrey Sachs, former USTR Robert Zoellick, former US ambassador to China Joseph Prueher, former Prime Minister of Pakistan Shaukat Aziz, Prime Minister of Sri Lanca Ratnasiri Wickramanayaka, etc. She has been invited to be the judge at the English speaking competitions and English interpreting competitions at the provincial, regional and national levels. She also coached students who won champions at the national English speaking and English interpreting competitions.
Her major areas of research include interpreting studies, translation studies and EFL public speaking. She has published about 30 papers, one monograph, two translated works and 5 textbooks, with two more being compiled.

Abstract:

After the U.S. forced the opening of Japan in 1854, the Japanese government was in desperate need of knowledge of Western countries, particularly their system of international law, which was the basis of the treaties that Japan was being forced to sign. Thus they began to send young Japanese scholars abroad who had been trained in Dutch learning and thus knew the Dutch language, hitherto Japan’s only window on the West. Enrolled in the best Dutch universities, the students soon found that there was a sophisticated philosophical foundation for the system of international law, and that by studying that foundation they could come to understand the political and economic philosophy that lay behind the strength of modern European nation-states as well as the their systems of academic learning. On returning to Japan, these scholars and their students set to work translating the whole world of modern European academic concepts into Chinese character-compounds, making it possible for young students educated in Confucianism to quickly delve deeply into the world of Western political and scientific theory. The achievements of Japanese scholars in translating Western concepts into Chinese were soon picked up by the tens of thousands of Chinese students in Japan, and in turn they became the basis for establishing modern academic disciplines in China.

About the Speaker:

Dr Barry Steben majored in Chinese language, thought and literature at the University of Toronto, then after an honours B.A. and M.A., he studied as a foreign student at Peking University. Subsequently while pursuing a doctorate in Chinese thought, he also completed the full Japanese language program. This led him to work in Japan for three years to learn the language. Upon returning to his alma mater, he wrote a thesis comparing the Wang Yangming school of Confucianism in China and Japan, discovering how complicated it can be to translate a system of ideas into a country with a radically different cultural milieu and social-political system.
Required to teach courses on the modernization of East Asia after graduation, Dr Steben became interested in the process by which European ideas were translated into Sino-Japanese and Chinese in the 19th and early 20th centuries, transforming Japan and China into modern nation states with Western-style higher education systems, but also in the process transforming the European ideas that were imported as they became naturalized to the different cultural traditions of East Asia.

Abstract:

Most of the previous researches on translator’s notes were conducted from a prescriptive perspective, such as stipulating the situations under which the notes should be added or specifying the elements of notes, etc. Contrary to these studies, the present research will look into the early translation annotations of Zhou Shoujuan—a novelist and translator during the late Qing and early Republican period in China—from a descriptive approach. By surveying the types, forms and subjects of Zhou’s translation notes from 1911 to 1919, the study attempts to reconstruct Zhou’s views on the function and purpose of translation notes and reveal his attitudes towards foreign fiction translation at the beginning of the 20th century in China.

About the Speaker:

Dr Dechao Li, assistant professor of Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Abstract:

In our complex world of migration, war, and globalization, translation among languages and cultures is everywhere. As citizens of the twenty-first century, we inevitably think in and through translation. Yet we have only begun to explore its contemporary modes of operation, its challenges and its promise for study in an international and interdisciplinary context. In my paper, I hope to outline some of these challenges as well as its promise. Looking to some current views of translation, I will discuss ways in which it might be rethought in terms of relation, dialogue and analogy. I will discuss the promise of this way of ‘thinking translation’ by focusing on a few contemporary ideas about language and literary dissemination. In order to consider these issues more concretely, I will also consider the recent translation history of Dante Alighieri’s Commedia.

About the Speaker:

Sandra Bermann, Cotsen Professor of the Humanities, currently serves as Chair of the Department of Comparative Literature at Princeton University. In addition to articles and reviews in scholarly journals, she is author of The Sonnet Over Time: Studies in the Sonnets of Petrarch, Shakespeare, and Baudelaire, translator of Manzoni’s On the Historical Novel and co-editor with Michael Wood of Nation, Language, and the Ethics of Translation. Her current projects focus on lyric poetry, translation, the intersections between twentieth-century historiography and literary theory, and new directions in the field of comparative literature. A recipient of Whiting and Fulbright Fellowships, she has been a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and the Columbia University Institute for Scholars at Reid Hall in Paris. At Princeton University, she was Master of Stevenson Hall for eight years and has been involved in numerous curricular innovations, including the Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication and the Bridge Year Program. She recently completed a term as President of the American Comparative Literature Association.

Abstract:

In his edition and translation of the 三字經 Sanzijing as a textbook for learning to read Chinese, Herbert A. Giles glossed each word’s etymology, semantics and connotations. When he glossed 家 jia as a pig beneath a roof, he parenthetically remarked to his intended British readership that “our” Irish neighbours would certainly understand this. Giles was posted to China in the British imperial consular service from 1867-1892. His condescension toward the Irish, a rebellious nation that Great Britain had already (apparently) colonised, is a counterpart to his attitude toward the Chinese, an empire that Great Britain wanted to colonise. The combination of imperial service and Sinology is not innocent in this case, and Giles’ discourse demonstrates the effects of attempting to master the colonised “abroad” on his attitudes toward the colonised “at home”, an effect that has been clearly analysed and explained by Frantz Fanon. Another consular official, Robert Hart, who was a Northern Irish Protestant Unionist, took charge of the Chinese customs bureau, to satisfy imperial designs, and hired Catholics from the West of Ireland to control the customs service. The “Ever Victorious Army” under the command of “Chinese” Gordon had to resort to the services of an Irishman who had become a Chinese pirate and Taiping mercenary in order to get firsthand information about the Taiping defenders. The Treaty of Tianjin, imposed as a result of the second Opium War, restricted the semantic freedom of Chinese officials in their own language and imposed an English meaning on the Chinese term夷 yi. Giles and Hart and other colonial administrators represented the colonisers – at home and abroad – and both “translated” China from a British imperial perspective, in action in both cases, and also in words in the case of Giles and the treaty of Tianjin. The anonymous Irish informant was but one representative of the colonisers’ underclass, but one who also “translated” China. Postcolonial studies tend to concentrate on the experience of the colonised before, during and after the processes of colonisation, but seldom analyse the impact of imperialism on the colonisers themselves, and even less so, on the underclasses created in the Metropolis by the very same process of colonisation that affected (and affects) the colonised. Ireland suffered the full effects of colonisation, but the Irish were also integrated into the imperial service, the landlord class as “masters” and the peasants as soldiers and workers. The movement for Irish independence at the turn of the 20th century involved the creation of a new discourse that could deconstruct the dominant imperial discourse. Chinese reformers took note and translated many Irish literary and political texts into Chinese in the early decades of the century. William Howard Russell, an Irish journalist who became the first “war correspondent” for The Times during the Crimean War, used his writings to deconstruct the imperialist discourse that had provoked and justified that war and turned public opinion against it, as did the writers of the “Irish Revival”. Oscar Wilde used irony and parody de deconstruct British classism and found in Herbert Giles’s translation of Zhuangzi a parallel to his own method. Tracing the history of the history of the construction and deconstruction of colonial discourse in China and in Ireland, and its effect on the construction of new “modern” identities in both cases, is complicated, but case studies of these processes, such as those offered here, will add a new dimension to postcolonialist considerations of the construction of a British colonial discourse in China and in Ireland.

About the Speaker:

GOLDEN, Seán. Full Professor of East Asian Studies, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Spain; former Dean, Faculty of Translation & Interpreting (UAB); Director, Centre for International & Intercultural Studies (UAB); Director, Asia Programme, CIDOB Foundation, Barcelona; Member of the Board of Advisers, Casa Asia (Asia House), Barcelona; Member of the Board, Venice International University. Ph.D. in English Literature, Universitat de Connecticut (USA). Research projects: edition, commentary & translation of the classical Chinese texts Sunzi bingfa & Laozi daodejing; study of the sociolinguistic profile of the Chinese-speaking community in Catalonia (Spain); non-European translation studies; Chinese-European & Arabic-European cross-cultural transfer. Director, Asia Seminar, Menéndez-Pelayo International University in Barceloan: Asia Today. Postcolonialism and the New World Order (2002), Multilateralism versus Unilteralism in Asia; the International Weight of “Asian Values” (2003); Development and Transition in Asia (2004); Regionalism and Develoment in Asia: Models, Tendencies & Processes (2005). Co-organiser, 7th ASEF University, Barcelona, November 2002.

Abstract:

I shall present a simple, flexible and highly relativistic approach to the vexed question in Translation Studies of how to define and circumscribe ‘translation’. My main argument is that in our scholarly models we have to make a radical distinction between three dimensions of texts and discourses: their status (what a text is claimed or believed to be in a given cultural community), their origin (the real history of the text’s genesis, as revealed by a diachronically oriented reconstruction) and their features (as revealed by a synchronic analysis, possibly involving comparisons). These three dimensions tend to be collapsed in static definitions which determine if a label such as ‘translation’ may ‘legitimately’ be attributed to a text on the basis of its origins and its textual features. But in different cultural contexts ‘status’, ‘origin’ and ‘features’ will be made to interlock in quite different ways, and that is what makes it necessary to construe these three levels as forming discrete continua. Many examples – ranging from Shakespeare translations to the experience of taking the train in a multilingual country such as Belgium – will be offered to explain the three levels and the variable relationships between them. Quite importantly, this model enables and encourages us to take the ‘international turn’ in Translations Studies. It also forces us to take a radically fresh look at the relations between Translation Studies and its various neighbouring disciplines.

About the Speaker:

Dirk Delabastita is professor of English literature and literary theory at the FUNDP Namur (University of Namur, soon to be integrated into the Université Catholique de Louvain). He wrote his PhD on Shakespeare’s wordplay in Hamlet and the problems of translating it (There’s a Double Tongue, 1990, published in 1993). He edited two further volumes on the translation of wordplay: Wordplay and Translation (1996, special issue of The Translator) and Traductio. Essays on Punning and Translation (1997). Dirk Delabastita also co-authored a Dutch-language dictionary of literary terms (Lexicon van Literaire Termen, with Hendrik van Gorp and Rita Ghesquiere, seventh edition, 2007), which has been translated into French (Dictionnaire des termes littéraires, 2001) and of which a new free online edition is being planned for 2011. His other books include European Shakespeares (edited with Lieven D’hulst, 1993), Fictionalizing Translation and Multilingualism (special issue of Linguistica Antverpiensia, edited with Rainier Grutman, 2005) and Shakespeare and European Politics (edited with Jozef de Vos and Paul Franssen, 2008). He is one of the series editors of Approaches to Translation Studies (Rodopi), is involved in the CETRA Translation Studies PhD School at K.U. Leuven, and belongs to the editorial board of The Translator. His main research interests include literary studies and its interface with linguistics and translation studies; narratology; wordplay, ambiguity and verbal humour; the translation and international reception of Shakespeare.

Abstract:

The article attempts to re-perceive, re-think and hence re-define the category ‘traditional Chinese discourse on translation’ in the light of prototype theory. Arguing that ‘traditional Chinese discourse on translation’ is a prototype category with two defining prototypical features, i.e., fuzzy boundary and graded membership, the author holds that the statuses of different members in the category of ‘traditional Chinese discourse on translation’ range from center to periphery: those drawn heavily from classical Chinese aesthetics and poetics are in the center of the category, and other members such as those involving in the discussion of what makes a translation in the periphery.

About the Speaker:

王曉鶯，中國江西省人，現為香港浸會大學翻譯學博士研究生。論文曾發表於《中國翻譯》、《外國語文》（原《四川外國語學院學報》）等。主要研究興趣為：傳統譯論、後殖民文論、性別與翻譯。

Abstract:

喬治三世致乾隆皇帝的國書，是英使馬戛爾尼訪華事件（1792-1794）中的重要文獻。這份文獻的翻譯過程曲折而耐人尋味，保存在清宮檔案中的中文副本顯示，英方以對等的姿態表達友好交往意願的國書，經由翻譯，變成了向中方輸誠納貢的英吉利國表文。本次講座引領大家追溯馬戛爾尼使華過程中的翻譯問題，並從話語的角度，對英王國書及其譯文進行解讀，以揭示從國書到表文的奇特變化，其實是天朝朝貢話語運作的必然結果。

About the Speaker:

王輝，湖北鄖西人。華中師範大學文學學士（1993）、碩士（1996），香港浸會大學博士（2007）。深圳大學外國語學院教授。主要從事傳教士漢學、儒家經典英譯以及晚清翻譯研究。獨立主持國家社會科學基金項目 “四書英譯史論” 以及廣東省哲學社會科學 “十一五” 規劃項目 “基督教傳教士儒經英譯研究”。在《中國翻譯》、《世界宗教研究》、《孔子研究》、《中國文化研究所學報》、《外語研究》、《解放軍外國語學院學報》、《翻譯季刊》等期刊發表學術論文二十餘篇，出版英文專著一部（Translating Chinese Classics in a Colonial Context, Bern: Peter Lang, 2008）。

Abstract:

近30年來，中國的翻譯研究蓬勃發展，已經成爲一門獨立的學科，但與西方的翻譯研究並未完全接軌。西方的主流學術思想和規範，例如區分研究和研究對象、區分純研究和應用研究、超然獨立、嚴謹論證等等，在中國尚未得到廣泛的認同。造成這種差異的原因，不單是中國的翻譯研究起步較晚，而且是東西方的學術系統，都植根于自身的文化土壤之中。中華文化強調集體的凝聚多於個人的自由﹐形成了民族主義、權力主義的核心價值觀，而這種價值觀與”西學”的傳統是有所衝突的。

About the Speaker:

張南峰，香港嶺南大學翻譯系教授。翻譯作品有《王爾德喜劇選》和《好的首相》﹐學術專著有Yes Prime Manipulator: How a Chinese Translation of British Political Humour Came into Being和《中西譯論批評》，論文見於Target、The Translator、Babel、Perspectives、《外國語》、《中國翻譯》等刊物，曾四次獲得宋淇翻譯研究論文紀念獎﹐並曾獲得嶺南大學優異研究獎。

Abstract:

For most of his life Brewitt-Taylor (1857-1938) worked for the Imperial Chinese Customs Service; he also achieved distinction as a Chinese scholar. His masterly translation, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, was the first of the major traditional Chinese novels to be fully translated into English, the first draft of which being destroyed during the Boxer turmoil. Reference will also be made to his other writings. He lived through a fascinating period of Chinese history, and occupied a number of senior positions in the Customs Service as Commissioner of Customs and first Director of the important Customs College. However, his public success was marked by much personal grief: his beloved first wife died following childbirth, his second wife spent many years in mental asylums, two of his homes in China were destroyed, several babies died, and experienced the loss of both his surviving sons.

About the Speaker:

Following fifteen years in the printing industry Dr. Cyril Cannon did his undergraduate and doctorate degrees at the London School of Economics. He was founding Head of Department of Humanities and Social Studies at what is now South Bank University, London, before being appointed Deputy Director responsible for academic affairs at the forerunner to Plymouth University. He then worked in Hong Kong for nearly ten years helping to set up the precursor to City University as the member of senior management responsible for academic planning. Following retirement he was appointed Academic Consultant to Lingnan College on its path to university status.

Abstract:

In the light of the descriptive and poststructuralist translation theories propounded by contemporary western translation scholars with regard to the reception of translation in the recipient culture, this paper attempts to explain an inexplicable phenomenon in Chinese Bible translation, which is considered irrelevant or simply being ignored in the prevailing approaches to Bible translation. It points out that while it is generally assumed that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and that the respectability of a biblical translation is directly related to the reliability of its source, the Chinese Union Version of 1919 occupies a canonical position in the Chinese Bible polysystem throughout the twentieth century despite the fact that it is based on the text underlying the English Revised Version of 1885, and that competing translations derived from more prestigious sources have emerged since 1970s. A plausible explanation for the phenomenon is therefore proposed through a descriptive understanding of the relatively insignificant role played by the source text in the reception of the Chinese Union Version, and a poststructuralist interpretation of the supremacy of the Chinese Union Version in relation to how the translation enacts the survival of the original through its mutation and transformation.

About the Speaker:

Chong Yau Yuk is Associate Professor at the Department of Translation, Lingnan University, Hong Kong. She has taught, researched and published on translation theory, Bible translation, literary translation, interpretation, and translation of popular cultural texts. She is the author of several Chinese books including Translation Studies: From Polysystem Theory to Deconstruction (2008), A Study of the Phenomenon of Authoritativeness in the Chinese Translations of the Protestant Bible (2000), and Mad Pursuit: The Menglong Poetry of China (1993) and the co-editor of a special issue of Chung Wai Literary Monthly on “Polysystem Studies” (Oct 2001). She has translated into Chinese Orthodoxy (1908) by G. K. Chesterton, Markings (1964) by Dag Hammarskjöld (translated from the Swedish by Leif Sjöberg and W. H. Auden), and a number of books and articles in the areas of literature, religion, philosophy, and social sciences.

Abstract:

第一部分：結緣翻譯三十年簡述
第二部分：文學翻譯：重寫與競賽

1. 文學翻譯的特性使重寫與競賽具有必要性
2. 豐繁的翻譯理論使重寫與競賽具有可能性
3. 文學譯者綜合素質的提升使重寫與競賽具有可行性
4. 重寫與競賽翻譯實例舉隅和點評

About the Speaker:

鄭延國，湖南長沙人。教授，碩士生導師。長沙理工大學英漢語比較與翻譯研究所所長，湖南省翻譯學會常務理事，中國英漢語比較研究學會理事。曾擔任長沙理工大學外語系系主任，中南大學客座碩士生導師，湖南省高校高級職稱評委，湖南省大學外語學會常務理事，湖南省研究生教學研究會常務理事；湖南省普通高校英語教學研究會副會長。
先後在北外《外語教學與研究》、上外《外國語》、廣外《現代外語》、大外《外語與外語教學》、西外《外語教學》、《解放軍外語學院學報》、《中國翻譯》、《上海翻譯》、香港中文大學《翻譯學報》、《中國外語》、《福建外語》、中南大學《外語與翻譯》、江西師範大學《外語論壇》、《人民日報》、《光明日報》、香港《大公報》、《上海社會科學報》、《名作欣賞》、《譯林》、《散文》、《錢鍾書研究集刊》以及《長沙交通學院學報》、《長沙電力師範學院學報》、《長沙理工大學學報》、《交通高教研究》等刊物上發表文章（含譯文）百餘篇。另有專著兩種、譯著一種行世。第三部著作《翻譯方圓》即將由復旦大學出版社出版。

Abstract:

This talk will address specifically the attitude of the censoring institutions to translation as a force that may undermine the interpretation of reality which the oppressive regimes hold as the official one and as the only one the oppressed populations are allowed to accept as true. The long term cases of political censorship should not only help us to understand how censorship functions in a technical sense; they give an opportunity to assess its long-term effects, as well as its often ambiguous impact on the societies where it operates. Looking at such cases we may be in a position to re-examine the common belief that the blame for censorship can be conveniently apportioned to a small group of policy makers and the actual censors. We may also be able to find out whether the lifting of censorship commonly leads to a cultural and intellectual revival, or rather to commercialization and the trivialization of social discourse.

About the Speaker:

Piotr Kuhiwczak is Associate Professor, co-founder of the Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Warwick, England, and an Honorary Professor at Guandong University of Foreign Studies. He is also Chair of the Editorial Board of The Linguist, a journal published by the Chartered Institute of Linguists. He has published extensively in the fields of comparative literature and translation studies in The Cambridge Quarterly, Translation Studies and Forum for Modern Language Studies. His most recent major publication is a co-edited volume A Companion to Translation Studies published in 2007 by Multilingual Matters. His current research project is about the mediating role of translation in autobiographical writing.

Abstract:

西洋詩歌觀念最初傳入漢語文學圈，有賴於來華的傳教士的譯介。在那眾多的西洋宣教士中，早先是歐洲各國的天主教士，繼而是那些新教傳教士，他們在歷時一千餘年間分四批先後來到中國，這其中又以近代時期英美新教傳教士的人數為最多。就在他們來華傳播宗教活動的同時，又將那些適合於吟唱的西洋宗教詩歌（其中包括英語聖詩）作為一種文化副產品介紹過來，而且從這些作品的生成方式來看，它們最初是譯者在服務於「求善」的宣教目的，而採用詩體形式傳譯過來的西洋聖詩，由此賦予了這些譯作若干「美」的內涵。本次報告將以基督教東傳的第四階段即清朝末年在華傳教士及其中國助手譯介英語聖詩的情況為考察物件，通過一些現存譯本的比照和相關譯本序言與譯詩評注文字的互文解讀，剖析眾譯家在翻譯過程中採取的若干策略，以及在沿用主體詩學中固有的形式規範重寫西洋聖詩時流露出的文化心理。同時還將從接受文化的角度體察眾人在翻譯中所做出的詩藝決策，以及譯詩所具有的藝術效果；進而討論這些譯詩對後來白話文學運動尤其是漢語新詩的誕生在形式和觀念上可能產生的影響。

About the Speaker:

張旭，中南大學外國語學院教授，香港浸會大學翻譯學博士。現任中國英漢語比較研究會副秘書長，中國比較文學翻譯研究會理事，湖南省比較文學與外國文學學會常務理事，等等。研究方向為翻譯研究、比較文學。目前主要從事中國英詩漢譯批評史、中國翻譯史、比較文學等研究。主持國家社會科學基金專案1項：「中國英詩漢譯史論」，主持教育部人文社會專案1專案，主持和參加其他省部級以上項目10餘項目。主要論著有：《視界的融合——朱湘譯詩新探》（清華大學出版社，2008）、《外國文學翻譯在中國》（2003）、《跨越邊界——從比較文學到翻譯研究》（北京大學出版社，即出）等；發表學術論文50餘篇，分別刊載於《外語教學與研究》、《外語研究》、《中國翻譯》、《中國比較文學》、《翻譯季刊》（香港）、《翻譯學報》（香港）、《中外文學》（臺灣）、《翻譯學研究集刊》（臺灣）、《世界文學》（臺灣）等學刊上。2007年度獲 「香港翻譯學會獅球教育基金會翻譯翻譯研究獎學金」。

Abstract:

本文透過分析兩個當代翻譯的個案，反思：

1. 今時今日「所謂」翻譯工作及「正式的」翻譯工作之間的矛盾與互動；
2. 翻譯工作的本質/角色/使命/責任/地位、翻譯與雙語撰稿如何你中有我我中有你；
3. 翻譯工作如何在專業性、生活維度存在性、文化性、實用性之間尋找平衡；
4. 翻譯工作尊嚴之建立。

About the Speaker:

周博士早年在蘇格蘭愛丁堡大學研究應用語言學，由1970年開始投入翻譯工作陣營，邊做邊教邊研究，編著譯的書籍出版了超過160本，曾在香港4所大學任教翻譯及文學；現任英國Chartered Institute of Linguists 翻譯試中文科主考、特約傳譯員、翻譯社顧問、專欄作家，並在香港中文大學開翻譯研究課。

Abstract:

History-writing has received a great boost in Translation Studies research in the past decade. However, for many translation histories, reception is conceived largely in terms of how a translator reads a foreign text, not how the ordinary reader “receives” the products of translation. The sidelining of the reader is evident from a cursory look at the histories of translated modern English fiction in China. As things stand, we are more knowledgeable about: (a) official attitudes concerning what is publishable, (b) publishers’ views on what is commercially viable, and (c) literary scholars’ judgments on the value of specific translations. Where is the general – as opposed to the special – reader? No history of translation reception can be written without a consideration of the phalanx of ideological determinations in the background; it is crucial that the reader is not only textually constructed (as the “implied” reader), but also situated in relation to extra-textual, circumstantial reality (as the “actual” reader). With reference to Robert Darnton’s concept of “the communication circuit”, the present paper discusses the translation reader as a crucial link in the network of circuits in which writers, publishers, printers, distributors, and reviewers all participate because of their involvement in the production, promotion and proliferation of translated fiction. An analysis of representative British novelists in Chinese translation – from John Galsworthy to Agatha Christie to D.H. Lawrence – reveals the extent to which reader reception can be said to have been heavily mediated, for it was embedded in the power structures that governed the importation of foreign literary works into China through much of the twentieth century.

About the Speaker:

Leo Tak-hung CHAN is Professor of Translation and former Head of the Department of Translation, Lingnan University. He began his career as Assistant Inspector of Schools in Hong Kong in the 1980s, and later taught at the City Polytechnic of Hong Kong, Indiana University, Georgetown University and the University of Maryland. In 1991-92 he was awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship to undertake sinological research at the Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, His articles have appeared in journals in the United States, Europe, Canada, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong, including Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Translation Studies in the New Millennium, Perspectives, Comparative Literature Studies, TTR, The Translator, Babel, META, Across Languages and Cultures, Quaderns: Revista de Traduccio, Journal of Oriental Studies, Linguistica Antverpiensia and Asian Folklore Studies. Among the scholarly works he has published are: The Discourse on Foxes and Ghosts (University of Hawaii Press, 1998), Masterpieces in Western Translation Theory (co-edited; City University of HK Press, 2000), One into Many: Translation and the Dissemination of Classical Chinese Literature (edited; Rodopi Editions, 2003) and Twentieth-Century Chinese Translation Theory: Modes, Issues and Debates (John Benjamins, 2004). He is Founding Editor (1997-2002) of Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese; Executive Council Member of the Translators’ Association of China; Advisory Board Member of TTR; Chief Editor of Translation Quarterly; Editorial Board Member of Chinese Literature and Cultural Studies and Journal of Sinological Research; Vice-President of the Hong Kong Translation Society; First Vice-President of the Asian Studies Association of Hong Kong; and Chief Moderator of the FDEC (Translation) Examinations of the Institute of Linguists, United Kingdom (2000-2004).

Abstract:

Precision in language is relative and conditional, while fuzziness an absolute and universal predicate. Based on this understanding, the seminar talk will focus on how the notion of ‘fuzziness’ functions in translation and translation research. It contends that on both the operational level of translation practice and the abstract level of translation theory, there is this feature of ‘fuzziness’: On the one hand, the translator is faced with fuzzy language in the translation process; and on the other, there is the problem of a theoretical fuzziness when the translator tries to decide or discuss what approaches to take in solving the problems of fuzzy utterances and texts.
The research project uses the American bestseller The Da Vinci Code and its two Chinese translations for a case study. Analyses of the data from the chosen novel show that (1) there are three kinds of fuzziness: extratextual (or background) fuzziness, textual (or internal) fuzziness and mixed fuzziness; and (2) when these features of fuzziness are realised in language form three dimensions of fuzziness may be distinguished, fuzziness on the temporal and spatial dimension of language, fuzziness on the dimension of culture and fuzziness on the dimension of rhetorical features – each dimension is then further divided into two aspects: one involving the denotative and connotative meanings of the language used while the other its pragmatic significance.

About the Speaker:

Shao Lu obtained her B.A. and Master’s degrees from the Sichuan International Studies University, and her doctoral degree from Hong Kong Baptist University. She is specialised in Translation Studies.
Shao Lu is the author of more than 30 papers on a wide range of topics in language and translation studies. Her major publications include “Towards a fuzzy logic-based approach to translation” (2008), “Information entropy and the measurement of fuzzy language in literary translation” (2008), “The gains and losses of fuzzy language in inter-cultural communication” (2007), “The cognitive dimensions of fuzzy language and translation” (2007) and “Translation studies: Towards a constructivist methodology” (2007). Of these, 2 papers are carried in Arts and Humanities Citation Index listed journals, 10 in Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index listed journals and 11 in other core Foreign Language and Translation Studies journals in China. She has also published translations in newspapers and journals in Malaysia, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Her translation of Greg Bear’s Darwin’s Radio (pp.190-249) was published by the Sichuan Science and Technology Press in Chengdu.
Shao Lu has been winner of various important prizes including: First Prize of the Contemporary Education Forum sponsored by the People’s Daily Publishing House (2003), Third Prize of the First SISU “Language-Bridge Cup” E-C Translation Competition Award for Excellence in Translating (2004), SISU Scientific and Academic Creativity Award (2005) and Research Postgranduate Student Incentive Award of the Arts Faculty, HKBU (won twice: 2007; 2008). Her research interests are in literary translation, fuzzy language in literature and translation, and translation theory.

Abstract:

As a consequence of the dominant sense of centralizing government and management and power, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) had only one periodical that was officially circulated during her initial 29 years (1949-1977) for publication of literary works in Chinese translation. Based upon his inquiry into the published works in periodical as well as the political history of China in the 3 decades, this author attempts to discuss briefly the issues as follows: 1) Why only one periodical on Mainland China within nearly 3 decades? 2) What fundamental roles was it supposed to play and what roles did it play then? 3) Any significant changes during the 30 years, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s? 4) What major works did it publish? 5) What chief modes did she operate in choosing the works or writers to translate? What significant changes in the course of bringing the chosen writers to its readers?

About the Speaker:

王友貴，中國四川省成都人，復旦大學中文系比較文學博士，現任廣東外語外貿大學英語語言文化學院教授，英語語言文學博士項目負責人，廣東省人文社科基地”外國文學文化研究中心”研究員，廣東外語外貿大學”外國語言文學”一級學科博士後站導師。曾先後赴美國康奈爾大學（Cornell University, USA）、英國蘭開斯特大學（Lancaster University, UK）、英國劍橋大學（Cambridge University, UK）學習。目前從事20世紀中國翻譯文學史、中國翻譯史、翻譯家研究、英國文學研究。教學方面，先後擔任”英語散文閱讀欣賞”、”喬伊斯專題”、”文學翻譯”等課程；學術研究方面，主要論文有《從數位出發看中外關係、中外文學關係裏的翻譯關係》、《中國翻譯的贊助問題》、《意識形態與20世紀中國翻譯文學史：1899-1979》、《中國翻譯傳統研究：從轉譯到從原文譯（1949-1999）》、《為芬尼根守靈：語言碎片裏的政治》、《喬伊斯小說裏的聲音》、”Translations of the Century: A Close Reading of the Two Chinese Versions of Ulysses”, in James Joyce Quarterly（vol.36, No.2, 1999, USA）等50餘篇；主要學術著作有《翻譯家周作人》、《翻譯家魯迅》、《翻譯西方與東方》、《喬伊斯評論》等，新著《中國20世紀翻譯文學史論稿：1949-1999》已完成初稿，正在對其作進一步修改；主要譯著有劇作《流亡者》（喬伊斯著）、《掌權者》（The Power That Be, 合譯）、《歐‧亨利短篇小說精選》（合譯）等6種。在已出版的專著中，《喬伊斯評論》獲”全國第六屆優秀外國文學圖書獎”三等獎（2003年9月）；在已發表的論文中，翻譯研究論文《意識形態與20世紀中國翻譯文學史：1899-1979》2004年獲香港”宋淇翻譯研究獎提名獎”。

Abstract:

Two-Way Mirrors: Cross-Cultural Studies in Glocalization posits a model of knowledge that stresses the dialectics of knowing, where any view of an object also provides (if one looks for it) a reflection of the subject. All knowing is, in this sense, positional, and deictic: where one is “placed” affects what and how one sees. For translators, this means that the work rendered must embody both the perspective of the source and the target culture. The seminar is an exploration of some of the major themes of Two-Way Mirrors, and outlines a dialectic of the global and local in the phenomenon now familiar as “glocalization,” where a global and a local perspective are synergistically combined.

About the Speaker:

Eugene Chen EOYANG is Chair Professor of Humanities and Director of General Education at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. He is also Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature and of East Asian Languages & Cultures at Indiana University in the U. S. He was a co-founder of the journal, Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR), and numbers among his publications, The Transparent Eye: Reflections on Translation, Chinese Literature, and Comparative Poetics (Hawaii, 1993); Coat of Many Colors: Reflections on Diversity by a Minority of One (Beacon, 1995); ‘Borrowed Plumage’: Polemical Essays on Translation (Rodopi, 2003); and Two-Way Mirrors: Cross-Cultural Studies on Glocalization (Lexington Books, 2007). His translations have appeared in Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry (Anchor Books, 1975), edited by Irving Lo and Wu-chi Liu, and The Selected Poems of Ai Qing (Foreign Languages Press, Indiana University Press, 1982). He has also published a childrens book, The Smile of a Crocodile: Rhymes for Chloe (and Kyle) (BookSurge, 2008). He has been President of the American Comparative Literature Association (1995-97), a member of the Executive Board of the International Comparative Literature Association (2000-2007), and Vice President, Fédération Internationale des Langues et Littératures Modernes (1999-2005). He was inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of the arts, merchandise, and commerce in 2001.

Abstract:

What is the nature of poetry, especially Chinese Poetry, and what is the nature of translation. Both are rooted in the tool humans use to understand one another called ‘language’. But in the realm of poetry, what happens when we go from one language to another?

About the Speaker:

Bill Porter completed his undergraduate studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara with a major in anthropology. He developed an extensive interest in and knowledge of Chinese after he moved to Taiwan in the early 1970s, and started translating poetry including that of Han-shan (Cold Mountain) and various Zen Buddhist writers in the decade that followed. In the early 1990s he moved to Hong Kong and joined the local radio station Metro Broadcast as an Asia Features Editor. He is the translator of such award-winning translations as Guide to Capturing a Plum Blossom , Lao-tzu’s Taoteching and The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain . He also published translations of numerous Buddhist texts, among which include The Zen Works of Stonehouse (Shih-wu), Diamond Sutra , Poems of the Masters, Heart Sutra and Platform Sutra. He is currently working on a translation of the poems of the T’ang-dynasty poet Wei Ying-wu. His latest work, Zen Baggage, a record of a pilgrimage he made in 2006 to sites in China associated with the early history of Zen, is scheduled for publication in the Fall of 2008.

Abstract:

From the rendition of the sacred Hebrew text of Judaism into Greek about twenty-two centuries ago, to the translation of the Christian holy book into minority languages such as Tahitian and Gilbertese in recent decades, the enterprise of Bible translation continues to generate as much interest as passion among both non-believers and believers of the Judeo-Christian faith. No wonder the Bible is coined “Book of a Thousand Tongues”.
The PowerPoint presentation outlines the challenges faced by Bible translators – to bridge the linguistic and cultural gaps that separate today’s readers from those of the ancient world, and to distinguish nuances in certain terms of abstract theological concepts. The Bible Society movement, since its inception in 1804, has played a vital role in the exponential growth of Bible translation efforts during the past two centuries, and as a corollary, in the preservation of a significant number of minority languages threatened by extinction.

About the Speaker:

Dr Joseph Hong holds a doctorate in theology from the University of Strasbourg (France) and a D.E.A. from Ecole Superieure d’Interpretes et de Traducteurs (Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris). He has been working as a translation consultant for the United Bible Societies for over twenty years. He travels often to different parts of the world to supervise and provide consultancy to Bible translation projects, and has helped with over thirty language projects, including the common-language Khmer, Northern Thailand’s Hmong and Mien, Myanmar’s Chin and Karen, and in the Pacific Ocean – Fijian, Bislama in Vanuatu, Gilbertese in Kiribati, and Tahitian and Marquesan in French Polynesia. He currently supervises the revision of the “Chinese Union Version” for Hong Kong Bible Society.

Abstract:

Growing awareness of the responsibility of the translator and interpreter in shaping geopolitical relations led to a surge of interest in the subject among translation scholars in the nineties and the early years of this century. Scholars engaging with issues of power and ideology in this context however tend on the whole to draw on historical examples which, while still highly relevant, have largely lost their political ‘sting’ – in other words, they are largely non-controversial, at least in scholarly circles: Irish history; British colonization of India; Spanish and Portuguese colonization of South America; gender and sexuality. More contemporary conflicts, especially those close to home, are likely to be more ‘divisive’ and contentious. These are generally avoided, despite their urgency and growing evidence of the central role that translation and interpreting play in shaping them. Examples include the involvement of translators and interpreters in Guantanamo Bay, the Palestine/Israel conflict, Iraq, Chechnya, the ‘security’ agenda and the so-called War on Terror. There are however strong indications that the next stage of development in the discipline will feature a focus on research that engages with sensitive and potentially risky research topics, that seeks a nuanced understanding of ethics, and that is able to articulate a role for translation as a positive force for change in a highly troubled political environment – albeit a non-consensual and at times even conflictual force.

About the Speaker:

Mona Baker is Professor of Translation Studies at the Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies, University of Manchester, UK. She is author of In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation (Routledge, 1992) and Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account (Routledge, 2006), Editor of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies (1998, 2001), Founding Editor of The Translator: Studies in Intercultural Communication (St. Jerome Publishing, 1995- ), Editor of the forthcoming Critical Concepts: Translation Studies (Routledge, 4 Volumes) and Editorial Director of St. Jerome Publishing. She is also Vice-President of IATIS (International Association of Translation & Intercultural Studies – www.iatis.org).

Abstract:

雖然對社會文化語境中真實口譯活動的研究已初現端倪，但這種研究趨勢目前仍未進入口譯研究的主流視野。正如Pöchhacker（1995）指出的那樣，過去一直處於口譯研究中心地位的對口譯認知處理機制的研究並不能完全代表整體的口譯研究，而對社會文化語境中真實口譯行為和活動及其所涉及的諸多因素以及諸因素之間的互動關係，至今仍未有深入的研究。
本研究的目標是，中國語境下職業譯員現場口譯活動規範的描寫研究，將採用國家總理朱鎔基和溫家寶1999、2000、2004、2005、2006年記者會連續傳譯的現場錄音為研究語料。主要研究問題包括：1）會議口譯活動中存在哪些主要的口譯規範？2）口譯元語篇中的認定規範（perceived norms）與口譯現場的實際規範（actual norms）之間是否有差異？如果有，存在哪些差異？3）以職業譯員的現場口譯規範為參照，學生譯員需要習得哪些口譯規範以完成從口譯能力到譯員能力的進步？

About the Speaker:

廣東外語外貿大學高級翻譯學院口譯系講師，翻譯學在讀博士生，師從穆雷老師及朱志瑜老師。研究方向為口譯研究。長期教授各類口譯課程，同時從事國際會議傳譯實務，出版書籍《口譯：理論•技巧•實踐》（武漢大學出版社，2006），在《中國翻譯》、《外語界》等期刊上發表論文多篇。

Abstract:

A new Penguin Classics Book of Changes 易經 presents some interesting challenges. Which book? For which reader? Prof Minford will discuss some of the preliminary moves he is contemplating in this new endeavour.

About the Speaker:

John Minford is currently Professor of Chinese and Head of the China Centre at the Australian National University. He was previously Acting Dean of the School of Arts and Social Sciences at the Open University of Hong Kong. His translations include the last 40 chapters of The Story of the Stone 紅樓夢, Sunzi’s The Art of War 孫子兵法, and Pu Songling’s Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio 聊齋誌異, all with Penguin Classics. He has also edited, with Joseph S. M. Lau, Classical Chinese Literature: An Anthology of Translations (vol 1: to the end of the Tang dynasty), published by the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Columbia University.

Abstract:

Social concepts (such as translation, ethics, religion, theory) are widely variable across culture and language. How can academic disciplines be constituted without simplifying this variability and without becoming hegemonic? How can scholars avoid being trapped in the prison-house of their own language? How can scholarship break the confines of what has already been defined and developed? Juxtaposing contemporary research on memory in neurophysiology and insights on cognition from translation studies, Professor Tymoczko will address these fundamental questions. The broadest implications will be considered, but the talk with also address specifics relevant to the history and practice of translation in China.

About the Speaker:

Maria Tymoczko is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her research and publications have earned her an international reputation in three fields: Translation Studies; Celtic medieval literature; and Irish Studies, with a specialty in literature in both Irish and English, including James Joyce. She is one of the leading theorists in Translation Studies, setting new directions for the field.
Her critical studies The Irish “Ulysses” (University of California Press, 1994) and Translation in a Postcolonial Context (St. Jerome Publishing, 1999) both won prizes and commendations, the former co-winner of the 1995 Book Award for Literary and Cultural Criticism from the American Conference for Irish Studies and the latter receiving the Michael J. Durkan Prize for the best book published in Irish language and cultural studfies from the American Conference for Irish Studies and selected by Choice magazine as one of the most important books published in 2000. Professor Tymoczko has edited several volumes including Born into a World at War (with Nancy Blackmun, 2000), Translation and Power (with Edwin Gentzler, 2002), Language and Tradition in Ireland (with Colin Ireland, 2003), Language and Identity in Twentieth-Century Irish Culture (with Colin Ireland, 2003; special issue of Éire-Ireland), and Translation as Resistance (2006, special section in the Massachusetts Review). Her most recent book is Enlarging Translation, Empowering Translators (St. Jerome Publishing, 2007), a major reconceptualization of translation theory.
Articles by Professor Tymoczko have appeared in Target, The Translator, Babel, Meta, TTR, Éire-Ireland, Studia Celtica, Irish University Review, James Joyce Quarterly, Yeats Annual, Studia Celtica, Comparative Literature, and Harvard Magazine, among others. She has contributed chapters to recent anthologies including Translating Others (2007), Similarity and Difference in Translation (2004), Apropos of Ideology: Translation Studies on Ideology (2003), The Languages of Ireland (2003), Irish and Postcolonial Writing (2002), Crosscultural Transgressions: Research Models in Translation Studies (2002), Re-Organizing Knowledge, Transforming Institutions (2001), Changing the Terms: Translating in the Postcolonial Era (2000), and Post-colonial Translation (1999), as well as classics such as Translation, History and Culture (1990) and The Manipulation of Literature (1985). Her translations of early Irish literature are published in Two Death Tales from the Ulster Cycle (Dolmen Press, 1981).

Abstract:

This paper aims to explore the possibility of using ‘passing’, a concept developed in cultural studies, as a new metaphor for translation. A brief discussion of the general importance of metaphors as a way of breaking out of old frameworks of thought will be followed by an outline of how different types of translation may usefully be mapped onto various forms of passing (straight passing, blackface, whiteface, slumming, drag, mimicry), and how this new metaphor encourages the reformulation of notions of what the translation process involves, what the role of the translator is, and what some of its social effects might be. The main examples will be drawn from Chinese-English and Chinese-French translation and pseudo-translation of the 18th-20th centuries.

About the Speaker:

James St. André was awarded a PhD in comparative literature in 1998 from the University of Chicago, after which he spent a year as postdoctoral fellow at the Graduate Institute of Translation and Interpreting Studies at NTNU in Taiwan before joining the Chinese department at NUS in Singapore, where he taught translation and intercultural studies for six years. In 2006 he moved to the University of Manchester, where he is director of the new undergraduate programme in Chinese Studies, as well as teaching and supervising MA and PhD students in translation studies. He has published several articles on the history and theory of Chinese-English translation in such journals as META, The Translator, and Target, and is currently working on a book manuscript on the topic of passing and translation.

Abstract:

Originally and etymologically, “translation” may have meant carrying across, but subsequently and metaphorically, the primary meaning of the term has come to be the transfer of literary and discursive texts from one language to another. Translation has thus formed a vital medium of communication and exchange across different cultures for over two millennia. But now, in our current climate of postmodernist/postcolonial theory and economic and linguistic globalization, “translation” appears to be reduced to its earlier literal meaning of migration or transportation, especially with the rise of the new collocation “cultural translation. ” I argue that such monolingual subversion of translation represents a pernicious and possibly terminal threat to the very idea and practice of translation as we have always known and cherished it.

About the Speaker:

Harish Trivedi is Professor of English, University of Delhi, and has been visiting professor at the universities of Chicago and London. He is the author of Colonial Transactions: English Literature and India (Calcutta 1993; Manchester 1995), and has co-edited The Nation across the World: Postcolonial Literary Representations (New Delhi 2007), Literature and Nation: Britain and India 1800-1990 (London 2000), Post-colonial Translation: Theory and Practice (London 1999), and Interrogating Post-colonialism: Theory, Text and Context (Shimla 1996; rpt. 2000). He guest-edited a special issue of New Comparison (U.K.) on “Comparative Literature in India” (Spring 1997), and co-edited an issue of the postcolonial journal Wasafiri with “Focus on Translation” (London Winter 2003).

Abstract:

The development of Translation Studies in the 1990s was the natural outcome of an increasing fluid and globalizing world. But that development was preceded by one that was much more political, much more resistant and yet one in which the spirit of translation figured strongly. This was the emergence of post-colonial studies at the end of the 1980s. Arising from literature departments in the formerly colonized world, post-colonial theory very quickly demonstrated that the appropriation of language by post-colonial writers provided a model for the operation of the ‘local’ in a globalized world. A central argument, perhaps the central argument in this developing field circulated around the use of a colonial language by decolonizing writers. Does the use of a colonial language continue to ‘colonize the mind’? Does it marginalize local languages? Does it fail to capture the essence of the writer’s culture? This paper addresses some of these questions at the point at which Translation Studies and Post-Colonial Studies meet: the point at which post-colonial writers transformed the language – English – with acts of literary production, acts of inner translation, acts that transformed the field of English literature and created a world audience. This meeting point suggests questions about the future relationship between these two fields.

About the Speaker:

Bill Ashcroft is a founding exponent of post-colonial theory. The Empire Writes Back co-authored with Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin, was the first text to examine systematically a field that is now universally referred to as “post-colonial studies.” This volume is the standard text in the field, now in its tenth printing and translated into Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Arabic. Other publication and research interests include Australian literature, Australian cultural studies, critical theory and post-colonial literatures and theory, African literature and Indian literature. Representative publications include: The Empire Writes Back (London: Routledge 1989); The Post-colonial Studies Reader (London: Routledge 1995): The Gimbals of Unease: the Poetry of Francis Webb (Perth: CASAL 1997): Key Concepts in Post-colonial Studies (London: Routledge 1998); Edward Said: the Paradox of Identity (London: Routledge 1999); Edward Said (London: Routledge 2001); Post-colonial Transformation (London:Routledge 2001); On Post-colonial Futures (London: Continuum 2001).

Abstract:

The translation discourse in the Republican Era consisted largely of articles and paratexts written by intellectuals in the literary field. Many of them had translated works in different genres from foreign languages into Chinese, motivated by the urge to bring in western knowledge as well as innovative rhetorical devices to enrich the vernacular language. Their intentions were never as pure as they claimed, however. Some worked with a political agenda; some wanted to advocate a certain form or style of writing and find examples in the West through translation. The discussions might appear in the form of prefaces or postscripts, more were articles in newspaper supplements and literary journals. The topics ranged from the standard and methodology of translation to ruthless criticism of translated texts. They accumulated to shed light on the conception of the flourishing activity called translation at the time. But what about the numerous translators who did not contribute to that dialogue? In what ways can the behaviour of these practitioners be accounted for in view of the translation theories and, indeed, the social space in which they operated? In my research project, I start with the product, i.e. the translation, and examine the forms of mediation found in the translated text. I want to study the translator as an agent and explore how he or she is shaped by, in turn generates and/or reinforces the set of values governing the practice of translation in the larger social structure.

About the Speaker:

Gloria Kwok-kan LEE (利幗勤) holds a B.A. and an M.Phil at the University of Hong Kong, the latter on a thesis entitled ‘Chinese Translations of Oscar Wilde’s Plays and Fairy Tales: a Reappraisal’. She had taught in the translation programmes in HKU and Lingnan University before moving on to start a doctoral research in Translation Studies at University College London, UK under the joint supervision of Prof. Theo Hermans (UCL) and Prof. Michel Hockx (SOAS). The research project, tentatively named ‘Power and the Translator: Joseph Conrad in Chinese Translations during the Republican Era 1912-1949’, aims to examine the translator as an agent within the social structure he or she works. The thesis is based on the findings of a case study of the Chinese translations of Conrad’s sea stories published in 1928-1937.

Abstract:

We mostly think of translation as endeavouring to render an original text in another language without addition, omission, distortion or bias. But what happens when translators find some of the things they are meant to translate objectionable? What if the scene of translation involves a clash of values?
In this paper I offer a model that can help us deal with such conflicts. I begin by presenting a few examples, from Adolf Hitler to Boccaccio, in which the value conflict is very marked. I then set out a theoretical framework based on the idea of translation as reported speech and on a definition of irony as ‘echoic utterance’ as understood in Relevance theory. I suggest that while strong forms of translator irony may be relatively rare, we can trace irony in many translations. I conclude by claiming that ‘echoic’ translation, or translating with a dissociative attitude, is only a special case of translating with an attitude.

About the Speaker:

Theo Hermans is Professor of Dutch and Comparative Literature at University College London. He is editor of The Manipulation of Literature (1985), Crosscultural Transgressions (2002) and Translating Others (2005), and series editor of ‘Translation Theories Explored’ (St Jerome Publishing, Manchester). His monographs include The Structure of Modernist Poetry (1982) and Translation in Systems (1999). The Conference of the Tongues is forthcoming. His main research interests are in theories and histories of translation.

Abstract:

英國著名女作家簡•奧斯丁的《傲慢與偏見》在中國大陸流傳甚廣，譯本繁多，本研究運用女性主義理論與“重寫”理論，研究《傲慢與偏見》在中國大陸出版的全譯本與簡寫本，比較分析譯本與源文的異同，探討通過譯本在中國大陸傳播女性主義的新途徑。

About the Speaker:

邵毅，華中師範大學英語語言文學系學士、碩士，並留校任教，曾赴美任訪問學者，現為香港浸會大學翻譯學博士研究生，曾發表文學翻譯、翻譯教學研究等方面論文，並合著《新編大學英譯漢教程》（上海外語教育出版社，2004）等作品。主要研究方向為翻譯理論、文學翻譯與應用文體翻譯、女性主義與翻譯等。

Abstract:

The present study strives to provide a general framework of translatological dictionary studies from the perspective of text linguistics by discussing the intimate relationship between translatological dictionary studies and text linguistics studies, the characteristics of translatological dictionary, the theoretical basis of translatological dictionary as text, and the seven textual criteria and translatological dictionary as text so as to investigate translatological dictionary comprehensively and systematically and further promote translation studies as a whole. In this paper, this author mainly points out the following points: (1) translatological dictionary can be considered as text; (2) this type of specialized dictionary has its own characteristics; (3) translatological dictionary as text is different from other types of texts; (4) text linguistics perspective can act as a platform, on which insights from other disciplines can be drawn in.

About the Speaker:

Fan Min, a Ph.D student in Shandong University in China, is currently doing research at the Centre for Translation of the Hong Kong Baptist University for her research topic sponsored by Shandong University. She has published some articles in both English and Chinese on translation criticism, poetry translation and translatological dictionary studies. She has also published translations of translation theory and translatological dictionary studies. Her research areas mainly include translation studies, translatological dictionary studies and text linguistics studies.

Abstract:

巴赫金在《長篇小說的話語》中提出了”雜語”這個概念，並且具體分析了長篇小說引進和組織雜語的幾種形式。本文回顧了近年來翻譯研究領域內對巴赫金的”雜語”這個概念的挪用，特別是”雜語”與多語文本、方言之間的關係及其在文學作品中的作用。這些社會雜語的方式，在翻譯過程中是否應該得到重視呢？在譯文中又是如何得到處理的呢？本文結合臺灣作家王禎和的長篇小說《玫瑰玫瑰我愛你》及其英譯本，對以上問題進行深入的探討。

About the Speaker:

李波，香港嶺南大學翻譯系博士研究生，論文曾經發表於Norwich Papers: Studies in Translation (UK)、《上海翻譯》（原《上海科技翻譯》）等學術期刊，主要研究興趣為翻譯理論、文學翻譯、性別與翻譯等。

Abstract:

Love-letters are a rare example of a truly universal phenomenon. They can be found among all literate civilisations, although literacy is not a prerequisite for sending or receiving them. They are among our most treasured possessions, although the materials are often commonplace and pass through others’ hands. While we may wish to hide ours from others’ eyes, we read others’ letters with shameless pleasure. The real or imagined love-letter has exerted an enduring fascination across the ages, but our understanding has lagged behind our practice; for all their moment in our intimate lives, love-letters have seldom been analysed or theorised in any systematic way. Even their history is obscure: we have no way of telling when the first love-letters were written. Chinese and European love-letters both have long indigenous traditions; yet when we compare their writers and readers, frequency and duration, topics and themes, media and materials, and functions and values in both traditions, we find infinite combinations of writing and desire occupying a common space.

About the Speaker:

Bonnie S. McDougall is Research Professor in Translation and Acting Director of the Research Centre for Translation at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Professor Emeritus of Chinese at The University of Edinburgh. Her recent work on this topic includes Love-Letters and Privacy in Modern China: The Intimate Lives of Lu Xun and Xu Guangping (Oxford University Press, 2002) and the translation of the published correspondence between Lu Xun and Xu Guangping, Letters Between Two (Foreign Languages Press, 2000). Other translations from modern Chinese literature include poetry by Bei Dao and He Qifang, fiction by Ah Cheng and Wang Anyi, and films by Chen Kaige. More recently she has translated works by Hong Kong writers such as Xi Xi, Dung Kai-cheung and Ye Si.

Abstract:

“Why Study Literature” is an exploration of the heuristic benefits of studying literature, which includes the disciplined development of the following faculties: (1) creative imagination; (2) vicarious sympathy; (3) capacious intuition. Creative imagination is to construct a reality out of nothing, to evoke real feelings and real emotions by constructive compelling and convincing fictions; vicarious sympathy is the ability to project one’s subjectivity into someone else’s subjectivity, to see things from someone else’s perspective; and (3) capacious intuition involves a generosity of spirit that borders on the mystical. Illustrative poems in each of these categories will serve to deepen and to enhance the heuristic values of poetry in general. The paper ends with a consideration of the pleasures of literature, and the aesthetics of an imaginative response to literature.
This is what I call a “template” paper, one that argues an exposition which, if valid, can be applied to different poems from different cultures. Previous versions of the paper have cited Korean poems, U. S.. poems, Hong Kong poems. For the presentation at Hong Kong Baptist University, poems written or translated by Baptists students and staff will be cited.

About the Speaker:

Eugene Chen EOYANG is currently Chair Professor of Humanities, Head of the English Department, and Director of General Education at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. He is also Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature and of East Asian Languages & Cultures at Indiana University in the U. S. With a B. A. from Harvard College and an M. A. from Columbia University in English literature, he earned his Ph.D in comparative literature from Indiana University. He was a co-founder of the journal, Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR) , and numbers among his publications, The Transparent Eye: Reflections on Translation, Chinese Literature, and Comparative Poetics (Hawaii, 1993) Coat of Many Colors: Reflections on Diversity by a Minority of One (Beacon, 1995) ‘Borrowed Plumage’: Polemical Essays on Translation (Rodopi, 2003); and Two-Way Mirrors: Cross-Cultural Studies on Glocalization (Lexington Books, in press). His translations have appeared in Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry (Anchor Books,1975), edited by Irving Lo and Wu-chi Liu, and The Selected Poems of Ai Qing (Foreign Languages Press, Indiana University Press, 1982). He was elected President of the American Comparative Literature Association (1995–1997) and has served as chair of the Intercultural Studies Committee of the International Comparative Literature Association (1997–2004), and he has been a Vice President (1999–2005) of the Fedération Internationale des Langues and Littératures Modernes (FILLM). In 2000, he was admitted as a Fellow to the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Commerce, and Merchandise.

Abstract:

Itamar Even-Zohar has left translation scholars with two hypotheses: that the “normal” position assumed by translated literature in the literary polysystem tends to be a peripheral one, and that translation tends towards acceptability when it is at the periphery. He has not explained the basis of these hypotheses, but the answers may be found in his culture theory.
According to Even-Zohar, social entities are not natural objects. For such an entity to be formed and maintained, a culture repertoire must be invented to enable cohesion within the entity and differentiation from other entities. And from this repertoire certain items, including texts and writers, are chosen as symbols to create a collective identity.
Such symbols have to be indigenously produced or claimed to be so. Translated works can seldom hope to serve as cultural symbols until they have undergone a process of naturalization or their foreign origin has been forgotten. That is why translated literature usually assumes a peripheral position.
Items can be imported to enrich or change a repertoire, but they usually meet with greater resistance than new items that are indigenously produced because they may be interpreted as threats to the collective identity, especially by vested interests. In order to be accepted by a stable and self-sufficient culture, imported items may have to be presented as or at least made compatible with indigenous ones. That is why translation tends towards acceptability when it is at the periphery.

About the Speaker:

Chang Nam Fung is a professor at the Department of Translation, Lingnan University, Hong Kong. He has translated into Chinese Oscar Wilde’s four comedies, and Jonathan Lynn and Antony Jay’s Yes Prime Minister. His academic works includes Yes Prime Manipulator: How a Chinese Translation of British Political Humour Came into Being, Criticism of Chinese and Western Translation Theories (in Chinese), and a number of journal papers, which have won him the Stephen C. Soong Translation Studies Memorial Award four times. He has a special interest in the theory and practice of polysystem research.

Abstract:

辜鴻銘的儒經英譯，打破了由傳教士、漢學家壟斷中學西漸、製造中國形象的局面，具有反對殖民主義，尤其是文化殖民的初衷與色彩。本文以《中庸》爲例，分析辜氏譯經的特色與策略，指出後殖民翻譯研究中的一些誤區。

About the Speaker:

王輝，深圳大學外國語學院副教授，華中師範大學英語系學士、碩士，香港浸會大學翻譯學博士候選人，從事《四書》英譯（史）研究，發表相關論文15篇。

Abstract:

“規範” 概念是翻譯研究發展中出現的現象，是二十世紀末的八九十年代的重要課題之一，它標誌著翻譯研究的一個新的轉折點。這裡討論翻譯研究中的幾個重要概念的演進和 “規範” 概念產生的背景，分析它從何而來，會將翻譯研究引向何處，討論與 “規範” 相關的另一個重要概念 “對等” 的演進與發展，以及幾個代表人物（圖里，赫曼斯，切斯特曼等）的共同點與分歧。

About the Speaker:

朱志瑜，畢業於中國天津外國語學院，並於香港大學獲得比較文學博士學位。曾於香港中文大學翻譯研究中心出任助理編輯，現於香港理工大學教授翻譯。

Abstract:

A profusion of new terminologies poses a daunting challenge to translators/interpreters in China today. It is a test of their command of two languages and cultures as well as their mental versatility.
While reflecting present realities, many of the newly-coined terms are deeply rooted in China’s history and culture. The more the translator understands the historical and cultural background of these terms, the better he or she can appreciate the trend of thought of the term’s initiator and user. Additionally, the mentality and cultural inclinations of the recipient should be taken into consideration when rendering these terms into English. The attempt to meet both these demands can sometimes be truly baffling. However, a successful solution provides immense joy and satisfaction.
Chinese translators often pool their collective wisdom to handle these arduous tasks. Some of the translations are real gems, others are middling jobs, still others unsatisfactory. Help from compatriots and international friends are welcome.

About the Speaker:

Lin Wusun is a writer and translator with cross-cultural background, having received his education in China, India and the United States.
He began his journalistic career in 1950. Between 1958 and 1966, he was an international affairs columnist for the weekly magazine Peking Review. He became the journal’s deputy editor-in-chief in the early 80s and, in 1987, its acting director. In these capacities, he wrote and edited many articles and books on a wide variety of subjects, both in Chinese and English. Between 1988 and 1994, he was director of the Foreign Languages Publishing and Distribution Bureau of China and president of the China International Publishing Group. One of his responsibilities was to finalize translation of some official statements.
Since his retirement from his administrative post in 1994, he has spent his time writing, translating and lecturing. He is an adjunct professor of Tsinghua University’s Center for International Communications and taught for three years Chicago University’s Institute for International Studies program in Beijing. He has devoted much of his time to the work of the Translators Association of China, being its executive vice-president, editor of Translators of China and chair of the committees on translation teaching and translation theory and on media translation.
Among his translated works in English are: Sun Zi and Sun Bin’s The Art of War, The Analects (Confucius), The Silk Road and Lest We Forget: Nanjing Massacre 1937. More recently, his translation of Gen. Xiong Guangkai’s International Strategy and Revolution in Military Affairs and International Situation and Security Strategy and Riverside Talks, a dialogue between Minister Zhao Qingzheng and Rev. Lius Palau won widespread acclaim.
Lin Wusun is currently advisor to the Translators Association of China, Chairman of the Chinese National Committee for Accreditation of Senior Translators and council member of the Chinese Association for the Study of International Friends and the Western Returned Scholars Association of China.

Abstract:

翻譯在基督教的興起中發揮了至關重要的作用。沒有翻譯，就沒有文化的融合，就沒有《聖經》，就沒有深刻影響了西方文明的基督教本身。本報告將探討基督教興起的歷史背景，基督教經典產生過程中從希伯來語書面語到希臘語的筆頭翻譯，從阿拉米語口頭語到希臘語的口頭翻譯；一些希伯來語和阿拉米語詞匯乃至句子之音譯為希臘語；以及翻譯過程中不可避免的價值理念的衝突和融通。

About the Speaker:

阮煒，男，生於四川省巴中市。1982年9月至1986年10月由教育部派遣赴英國攻讀博士學位。1983年10月獲曼徹斯特大學語言學系碩士學位；1986年10月獲愛丁堡大學英語文學博士學位。1986年11月至1989年8月任教於四川師範大學。1989年8月至今任教於深圳大學。2002年至今任深圳大學文學院和外國語學院外國語言文化研究所所長。1995年7月至9月訪學愛丁堡大學東亞系，1998年10月至1999年10月訪學哈佛－燕京學社。2000年6月至2001年6月任北京外國語大學英語學院兼職教授。2002年9月至2003年1月在北京大學英語系工作。出版了《文明的表現》（北京大學出版社2001年）、《20世紀英國小說評論》（中國社會科學出版社2001年）、《地緣文明》（上海三聯書店2006年）等六部著作，《宗教與科學》、《神學的科學》等學術譯著五部，在《外國文學評論》、《國外文學》、《讀書》等刊物上發表了〈巴恩斯與他的《福樓拜的鸚鵡》〉、〈嚴肅的艾米斯與「噁心的快樂」〉、〈「歷史」化內的敘利亞文明〉等論文八十來篇。