Translation Seminar Series

How do text, translation and technology intersect and interact in contemporary poetics? This project attempts an answer to this question through a case study of the avant-garde Taiwanese poet Chen Li (b.1954). In Chen’s oeuvre, translation as a concept is instantiated in a number of different ways: as translingual signification where different languages encounter within a text; as the displacement of a printed book by its electronic version (media translation); and as the creative transposition (intersemiotic translation) of a poem into a musical performance complete with vocals and piano accompaniment.

Socio-cultural context is an important aspect in the study of language and translation, because the three, namely, context, language and translation are inextricably linked. This paper attempts to discuss the translation of different text types which are functioning in the social contexts of Macao and other areas of China.

English-language and German-language cultures both claim the same shared classical Greek tradition. Even though knowledge of classical Greek is hardly wide spread, the Iliad and Odyssey are familiar to a wide audience through translations and other rewritings across different genres and media, from fiction to non-fiction, prose and poetry to film, stage, and the internet.

傳統翻譯研究主要集中在技術層面，強調與實踐的關係；這一點在中國尤其顯著。其中譯名問題的研究最為突出。本研討會試討論中國譯名方法的原則，並總結機構為統一科學譯名做出的努力。

The Chuci 楚辭 (Songs of the South or Incantations of Chu) is one of the two oldest and most influential anthologies of Chinese poetry. Its poems depict the enduring tension of loyalty and dissent for the scholar-official of traditional China. The anthology is also notable for its regional elements, representing the culture of the ancient state of Chu (centered in the area of modern Hubei and Hunan provinces).

This talk examines the translator-author relationship against the backdrop of governmental and non-governmental (publishing, editorial, and the translator's own) censorship in present-day China. I distinguish three types of translator-author relationship affected by censorship and/or self-censorship, resulting in three categories of translations, i.e. full translations, partial translations and non-translations.

Belated interest in the aesthetics of the event (variously from Badiou) has brought renewed attention to the performative nature of translation. Part of this might be attached to the technologies that now favour groups of volunteer translators, who are at once the producers and consumers of translations (hence “prosumers”).

Schleiermacher's German translation of Plato's philosophical dialogues, the first five volumes of which appeared between 1805 and 1809, has received little attention from students of translation. Yet it embodies Schleiermacher’s understanding of Plato, which he further elaborated in the introductions he wrote to each of the dialogues and in his general introduction to Plato’s work as a whole.

What constitutes the relationship between world literature and Chineseness? How has translation shaped Chinese poetry, and can translation be understood as at the foundation not only of world literature, but of Chineseness, as well? This talk will begin to answer these questions by demonstrating how Chineseness as an aspect of the Chinese poetic tradition is itself a result of translation.

Those with an interest in Ainu oral narratives will soon come across the name of Mashiho Chiri (1909 - 1961), who today would be called a 'native anthropologist'. Mashiho's translation style is strongly influenced by the work of his well-known sister, Yukie Chiri (1903 - 1922). Regrettably, most translations of Mashiho appeared only with the Japanese text.