Asian Translation Traditions

Eva Hung and Judy Wakabayashi (Ed)

No. of Pages: 296pp

Cover: Paperback

Published: 2005

Price: 22.50 Sterling Pound, inclusive of postage and packing

            This book brings together eleven scholars with expertise in different Asian translation traditions who highlight language and cultural environments as well as perceptions and modes of operation often different from those in the Western tradition. Their contributions enhance our understanding of the various elements that influence the transfer of knowledge across cultures and provide invaluable data for the study of translation as a force for cultural development and cultural planning.
 

The book begins with an Introduction, by the editors Eva Hung & Judy Wakabayashi.

The first paper Translation in the East Asian Cultural Sphere: Shared Roots, Divergent Paths? by Judy Wakabayashi, examines the historical similarities and differences that shaped translation norms in Japan, Korea and Vietnam, which all adopted Chinese characters as their written script and were greatly influenced by Chinese culture. Other aspects examined include attitudes towards the introduction of Western ideas and towards translation as a means of national survival, the role of foreign translators, government and private sponsorship, and the professionalization of translation, as well as its theorizing and academic study.

The following article Translation in China – An Analytical Survey: First Century B.C.E. to Early Twentieth Century, by Eva Hung, surveys the Chinese translation activities, which spans two millennia, is based on an extensive study of primary sources. The author identifies two categories into which translation activities fell: cultural translation that aimed at bringing change to the host culture, and government translation that aimed at strengthening the ruler’s prestige and effectiveness. The paper delineates the major differences between cultural and career translators, ranging from linguistic ability and mode of operation to their sense of loyalty and purpose. It then gives an account of both categories of translation work done in China, as well as the drastic changes in the early twentieth centuries that have obfuscated the true historical picture.

The third article by Lawrence Wang-Chi Wong, is titled From ‘Controlling the Barbarians’ to ‘Wholesale Westernization’: Translation and Politics in Late Imperial and Early Republican China, 1840–1919, and  traces the development of translation activities in late Imperial and Early Republican China, focusing on the intellectuals’ change of attitude towards translating Western Learning. A number of major issues are discussed in this article.

The fourth article has a Japanese Background, titled Amalgamation of Literariness: Translations as a Means of Introducing European Literary Techniques to Modern Japan, written by Ohsawa Yoshihiro. This focuses on the Source-oriented attitudes formed through early contacts with Classical Chinese texts led to an acceptance of ‘translationese’ in Japan and continued to shape translators’ attitudes throughout subsequent contacts with texts in European languages. The great differences between the indigenous literary tradition and European texts, the innovative effect of the resulting languages are also discussed. The paper concludes by contrasting the situation in Japan with the typically target-oriented English translations of Japanese literature.

The next article is The Lover’s Silence, The People’s Voice: Translating Nationalist Poetics in the Colonial Period in Korea, by Theresa Hyun.An examination of literary translations in the colonial period in Korea yields insights into the relationship of translation to changes in gender and national identities.

   
The sixth article by Keith W. Taylor, Sino–Vietnamese Translation from Classical to Vernacular is an essay offering a brief survey of translation practices among Vietnamese speakers and, as an example, analyzes a seventeenth-century translation of a Buddhist text from Classical Chinese into vernacular Vietnamese that survives in an eighteenth-century reprinting. Analyses of places in the text where a discernible divergence appears between the source text and the target text offer opportunities to examine choices made by the translator and to explore the cultural context that might have plausibly conditioned those choices.

William Cummings’ article Rethinking the Translation in Translation Studies: Questions from Makassar, Indonesia. The Indonesian region of Makassar has long been a crossroads for trade and a contact zone in which speakers of diverse languages interacted. This essay uses the example of Makassar to rethink the motivations and meanings that can be attached to translation. Translation must be viewed as part of a spectrum of possible relationships to foreign languages and foreign texts, all of which are means of gaining access to another culture through language.

Doris Jedamski, through her article Translation in the Malay World: Different Communities, Different Agendas discusses the translations in Malay languages. For many centuries in the Malay world active and questioning use has been made of Arabic, Chinese, Indian and European source texts of all kinds. They were translated into Malay as well as into regional languages. This article outlines indigenous translation activities and colonial translation policy during the 19th and 20th centuries as they affected Malay literature. This paper depicts the momentum that these concepts and strategies created in the Malay world.

Translation and the Korido: Negotiating Identity in Philippine Metrical Romances, an article by Raniela Barbaza, examines the korido metrical romance as a literary product borne out of the contact between the cultures of the Philippines and Spain. It investigates how the korido, as a form of rewriting, reveals the Filipinos’ response towards Spanish domination. The paper indicates how the Filipinos employed translation for their own purposes even as it was used in reconstructing their culture to suit the purposes of the conquering culture. The paper focuses on the korido Historia Famosa ni Bernardo Carpio sa Reinong España na Anac ni Don Sancho at ni Doña Jimena as a specific illustration of how the Tagalog concept of translation is revealed in the rewriting of the koridos.

The final article The Fiction of Translation, is by Rita Kothari and analyses our understanding of translation and its attendant norms such as faithfulness and accuracy are premised upon fixed textuality, a legacy of print capitalism. Even after the firm establishment of the print media in India, however, everyday practices of translation continue to escape the awareness of a fixed text – examples of uninstitutionalized, unselfconcious, unauthorized translations point to continuation of pre-colonial traditions. The denial of the text’s fixity manifests itself in practices ranging from creative re-invention to blatant plagiarism.

Now, as a brand new world order named Globalisation is in the ascendant, Michael Cronin brings us Translation and Globalisation, a work that examines threats to modern languages and the role of  translation in protecting the world’s diverse tongues.

Cronin argues that “new technology, machine translation and the emergence of a worldwide, multi-million dollar translation industry have dramatically altered the complex relationship between translators, language and power,” and offers “new ways of understanding the role of translators in globalised societies.” In this, the reader is presented with a world having a worrying rate of language loss as students hasten to learn English – the perceived ‘language of globalisation’, and
by implication, the path towards globalisation’s rewards – at the expense of foreign language learning, already declining in Ireland, Britain and America. Unchecked, Cronin argues, such global trends make real the potential for most of the globe’s leading languages to be ‘downgraded’ to the status of minority language.

Described in one recent review as “the most exciting writer today in the field of translation”, Cronin has a proven track record in his area; Translation follows two other acclaimed publications, Translating Ireland: Translation, Languages, Culture, and Across the Lines: Travel, Language, Translation, which earned him the CATS Vinay-Darbelnet Prize.

Translation and Globalisation is presented in five sections, dealing in the first four with the effect of modern societies and economies on translation, and leads the reader to a consideration in section five of the dangers presented to minority languages by the rush towards Globalisation. Chapter Three will be of special interest to the Irish reader as he brings his theories back home to look at the effects of Globalisation on Translation in the Republic and the reasons for this country’s emergence as one of the most important centres in the world for the translation of computer materials. Where better for the translation specialist or globalisation activist to look for historic examples of the downgrading of a culture through its language?

by Maeve Olohan

London & New York, Routledge, 2004.

ISBN 0-415-26885-0 (pbk)

ISBN 0-415-26884-2 (hbk)

Finally! A consolidated and well-crafted resource explaining the basics (and beyond) of corpus-based translation studies. The comprehensive and critical analysis of work carried out in this area is combined with fascinating case studies and presented in an easy-to-follow manner. The overall package is a must-read for anyone who wants to learn more about the use of corpora in translation. (Lynne Bowker, University of Ottawa, Canada)

We have been waiting for a book of this kind; a very readable text and a state-of-the-art account of what many would see as the future of empirical studies of translating. It will be of interest not just to those intending to work with corpora but to those who are curious about what such studies can show us about translator behaviour. (Ian Mason, Heriot-Watt University, UK)

The use of corpora in translation studies, both as a too for translators and as a way of analysing the process of translation, is growing. This book provides a much-needed assessment of how the analysis of corpus data can make a contribution to the study of translation.

The book begins by tracing the introduction and development of corpus methods in translation studies and defining different types of corpora for translation research. Corpus design issues are then addressed and the use of corpora in researching aspects of the translation process is discussed. Tools for data extraction and analysis are introduced and some uses of corpora by translators and in translator training are also considered.

Featuring research questions, case studies, discussion points, methodological issues and assessment of research potential and limitations, the book provides a practical guide to using corpora in translation studies.

Offering a comprehensive account of the use of corpora by today's translators and researchers, Introducing Corpora in Translation Studies is the definitive guide to a fast-developing area of study.

Maeve Olohan is Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Translation & Intercultural Studies in th School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures, University of Manchester, UK, where she is Programme Director for the MA in Translation Studies. She is editor of Intercultural Faultlines: Research Models in Translation Studies I (2000) and of four volumes of Translation Studies Abstracts (1999-2002).

The University of Massachusetts Press has announced the publication of "Translation and Power", edited by Maria Tymoczko and Edwin Gentzler. The anthology is available for $ 18.95 in paperback and $ 50.00 in a library cloth edition.

The contributors to this volume see translation as an activity that takes place not in an ideal neutral site but in real social and political situations, with parties who have vested interests in the production and reception of texts across linguistic and cultural boundaries. Translation is not simply a process of faithful reproduction but invariably involves deliberate acts of selection, construction, and omission. It is inextricably linked to issues of cultural dominance, assertion, and resistance - in short, to power.

Although governments, churches, publishing firms, and other powerful institutions may influence the translation process, many translators have found ways to resist that influence and have used translation to introduce new ideas and modes of expression. They range from case studies of historical episodes in which translation has played a role in the assertion of political and military power, such as an 1840 treaty between the British and Maori that continues to be a source of conflict in present-day New Zealand, to analyze the work of specific translators, such as Germaine de Staël and Gayatri Spivak. Along with examining how translation contributes to ideological negotiations and cultural struggles, the essays reveal the dimensions of power inherent in the translation process itself - in the relationship of translator to author, source text, and translated text.

Marilyn Gaddis Rose, author of "Translation and Literary Criticism", praised the book by writing, "these essays deftly attack unthinking cultural imperialism with information, insight, and argument. Readers are unlikely to come away from the essays with their own opinions unchallenged or unchanged."

Douglas Robinson, author of "The Translator's Turn" and "Becoming a Translator", also expressed enthusiasm for the volume, commenting that "the scholarship in each author's individual field of study is top-notch…. This is an excellent book that will be received extremely positively."

Media review copies and requests for printed catalogs should be directed to: ralphk@umpress.umass.edu

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  Ms Nairrita Bhattacharya is into translating this opus into Bangla. She has till now translated 300 sutras with illustrative examples and necessary explanations

Though these sutras are based on Paninian sutras, they are constructed differently. Vyapadeva has combined several Paninian sutras (sometimes as many as 16 sutras) into one and some of the Paninian sutras are not taken into consideration at all. But Vyapadeva has constructed some new sutras also, some of which are based on Katyayana's Varttika. A new designation for each of the grammatical components is given here e.g. sva for a short vowel, da for adhikarana Karaka, pri for first case-affix, long vowel, etc., which makes the sutras sometimes very long and complicated to pronounce. The arrangement of sutras is according to the topic: beginning from Sandhi or conjunct which is easier for students to follow.

For this work, Ms Bhattacharya is taking the help of the Bengali translation of the text by Syamacharan Kaviratna Vidyabaridhi, the English translation of siddhanta Kaumudi by S.C. Vasu, the English translation of Astadhyayi and the Dictionary of Panini (in 3 vols.) by S.M. Katre.

INTRODUCING INTERPRETING STUDIES