February 2014

1.
Translation as a tool of the state (Don’t shoot the translator!)
2. Belle versus fidèle
3. Devotional translation: decisions on style and terminology
4. Translation as an instrument of scientific advances & social change
5.
Really “invisible” translation – when a translated work becomes part of the national culture
6. Translation and artistic freedom

Zhou Dynasty 1045 –256 BC
Qin Dynasty 221 BC –206 BC
Han Dynasty 206 BC –220 AD
Tang Dynasty 618 –907
Song Dynasty 960 –1279
Yuan Dynasty (Mongols) 1271 –1368
Ming Dynasty 1368 –1644
Qing Dynasty 1644 –1911
Republic of China 1911 –1949
People ’ s Republic of China 1949 –

• Regulated relations between Chinese government and neighbouring peoples
• Thus translation + interpretation not differentiated, and translation and interpreting Chinese→other languages and vice versa.
• Status of translator commensurately low

译
The character 译
[simplified form] 譯
[traditional form] was used in Zhou Dynasty
Book of Rites and is still 譯 used today.

Translation/interpreting in and out of Chinese
Book of Rites 礼记 , Describes Chinese religious practices from the 8th to the 5th century B.C. It was first written down about 200 B.C.
The people of [China], and of those Man, Zung, and Tî, all had their dwellings, where they lived at ease; their flavours which they preferred; the clothes suitable for them; their proper implements for use; and their vessels which they prepared in abundance. …The languages of the people were not mutually intelligible, and their likings and desires were different. To make what was in their minds apprehended, and to communicate their likings and desires, [there were officers… called] interpreters[
译 / 譯 ].
Extract from Book of Rites translated James Legge, 1885

• Buddha 563-483 B.C. Buddhism remains confined to India until
• Around 50 B.C. brought to China
• Buddhist texts were written in Sanskrit, a lingua franca in India in much the same way as Latin in medieval Europe….

• First notable translator into Chinese, An Shigao
安世高 Parthian prince (exact dates unknown) from what is now Iran, arrives China 148AD.
• He translates from Sanskrit (not his native language) into Chinese (also not his native language.
• Proclaiming and translating simultaneously, partly to spread the word, partly because many sutras in oral form.
• To introduce these new concepts, Taoist (Daoist) terms were used. Example: the “Tao/Dao” was used for “Wisdom” in the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra.

THE GREAT TRANSLATION
DEBATE c 230 AD/CE
• Should a translation be unhewn
( 质 ) and direct ( 直 ) or elegant
( 雅 ) ?
• Buddhist translators quote
Laozi, Daoist philosopher, who:
‘ cautioned that beautiful 美 words are not 信 trustworthy and trustworthy words are not beautiful.
’

• Dao An 道安 (312 –385 AD). Chinese monk, from
Hebei province.
• Did not know Sanskrit, worked by comparing existing translations.
• Possible because of the large quantity of translations already in existence
• Eminent figure in the Buddhist establishment, as well as holding government posts eg. President of Translation Assembly 379 –385 AD

• Kumarajiva/Luoshi 鸠 摩 罗 什 (344 –409 AD)
– Thorough grasp of the source language and the target language
– “ [Translation] “ is like giving someone rice that you have chewed; s/he will find it not just tasteless but downright disgusting ”
– A new take on translating terminology, from domestication (adopting Taoist terms) to transliteration of the Sanksrit
– Possible because Buddhist is by now well accepted in
Chinese culture.

The Diamond Sutra… “ its teaching will cut like a diamond blade through worldly illusion to illuminate what is real and everlasting ” .
Translated into Chinese round 400 AD, by Kumarajiva

• Tripitaka/Xuan Zang 玄奘 , 600 –664 AD, born
Henan province, China
• Goes back to the source, spending 17 years travelling in India, debating with eminent
Buddhist scholars, translating sutras and bringing them to China
• Becomes a figure of folklore, “ Journey to the
West ” (also called “ Monkey ” )
• Revitalises Buddhist studies, revered by Tang
Dynasty rulers

Technical translation – Yuan (Mongol) and Ming dynasties (1271 –1644) – 1
• New dynasties – new types of translation, primarily scientific
• At the start of this period, Chinese civilisation was far more developed than Europe, had made great strides in science during the preceding
Song dynasty
• Translated works (many from Arabic) only a small addition to the sum of scientific knowledge in China
• The relationship between the Chinese and the non –Chinese = equality/host–guest

• By the 17 th century, European nations were beginning to push outwards
• The translators: European missionaries
(eg the ItalianJesuit Matteo Ricci1552 –
1610 ) with Chinese collaborators, scholars or government officials
• Solar eclipses/dictionaries/Euclid maths
• Ultimate aim: religious conversion

(1644 –1911 AD) – 1
• Jesuits expelled 1723 AD
• No translation until 1840, and the beginning of dominance by the imperialist Western states over the weaker Chinese state
• Direction, largely English → Chinese
• Aim, transmission of western knowledge and religion
• Translators – missionaries dominated (Bible texts)

(1644 –1911 AD) – 2
• WHY?
• Political reasons
– An attempt by the rulers to shore up the state by strengthening it ( “ use Western
[knowledge] to control Western[ers] ” )
• Religious reasons
– An attempt to gain influence by Christian missionaries

Great Chinese modern translators – 1
• Yan Fu 严 复 (1853 – 1921), born in Fujian province on south –eastern seaboard, an area where foreign influence was strong
• Attended naval college, travelled abroad
• Especially England where he read and absorbed scientific texts
• Nationalist motivation (strengthen China)

Great Chinese modern translators – 2
• Yan Fu
– What did he translate? Political and social theory (TH Huxley, Adam Smith) and science
(Darwin)
– How did he translate it? In classical Chinese, the “ high ” language of government/educated discourse, and by adapting the ST to TT expectations
– Three principles faithfulness, fluency and elegance 信、达、雅

th
th
• Chinese to English
• No political agenda at all
• Nonetheless, influential in 20 th modernist circles eg Bloomsbury group
• The Book of Rites James Legge (a scholarly tome)
• Classical Chinese poetry, Arthur Waley
(Penguin) and Ezra Pound, Cathay

The beginnings of Chinese>English literary translation
Book of Rites 礼记 , Describes Chinese religious practices from the 8th to the 5th century B.C. It was first written down about 200 B.C.
The people of [China], and of those Man, Zung, and Tî, all had their dwellings, where they lived at ease; their flavours which they preferred; the clothes suitable for them; their proper implements for use; and their vessels which they prepared in abundance. …The languages of the people were not mutually intelligible, and their likings and desires were different. To make what was in their minds apprehended, and to communicate their likings and desires, [there were officers… called] interpreters[ 译 / 譯 ].
Extract from Book of Rites translated James Legge, 1885

th
th
• English → Chinese
• Seen as a way of introducing political/social thought, manipulated ST to that end
• Translation into classical, not vernacular,
Chinese
• Lin Shu 林紓 , the most famous and prolific late
19 th century literary translator, knew no foreign languages!
• La Dame aux Camelias, Uncle Tom ’ s Cabin,
Hamlet, David Copperfield

• Translator, Lin Shu.
• Uses Confucian concepts and terms to impose propriety on the story, to make it acceptable and appealing to late 19 th century Chinese elite, still steeped in Confucianism
• Turns the heroine into a proper Confucian heroine, even though she is actually a courtesan (a high – class prostitute) and her lover’s sister into a proper
Confucian maiden.
• “ The translator ’ s desire to bridge …cultural gaps ” ,
(Hu Ying, Tales of Translation, 2000:82)
• La Dame aux Camelias becomes a Chinese classic
- 《茶花女》

• The courtesan heroine/Marguerite/the lady of the camelias is loved by an idealistic young man,
Armant. Armant ’ s sister is in love, but her lover ’ s family will reject her if her brother associates with a courtesan. So Armant and
Marguerite have to separate.
• Armant ’ s sister has contravened Confucian ethics simply falling in love and freely choosing her marriage.
• SO Lin Shu translated love as “ desire to have a family of her own ” and the marriage as “ an arrangement [by the parents] ”

• Collaborative translation, 对译
• From the earliest Buddhist translations
• Through Lin Shu’s literary translations
• To Ezra Pound’s Cathay

• Between 1906 and establishment of
People ’ s Republic of China (1949), almost all of Marx and Engels was translated into
Chinese by Chinese translators
• Between 1953 and 1984, CCP Translation
Bureau continued to translate
Marx/Engels, as well as Lenin and Stalin
• Cf Yan Fu ’ s translation of ideas for a political purpose

• Jack London goes one way, The Red
Chamber Dream and the Thoughts of
Chairman Mao go the other
– Work of the Foreign Languages Publishing
House, Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang
• Severely constrained by government/Communist Party policy
– Mao ’ s Yenan Talks on Art and Literature
– Serve the People

th
• Chinese → English
– The Story of the Stone/Red Chamber Dream,
David Hawkes/John Minford
– Takes place in Hong Kong
• English → Chinese
– James Joyce ’ s Ulysses – two versions appear around 1995, Jin Di and Xiao
Qian/Wen Jieruo
– Takes place in China/America

• Bulk of translation from/into Chinese in scientific and business domains (vastly more than ever before)
• Much nearer the basis of equal relations that prevailed in 17 th century
• Literary translation
– End of the Cultural Revolution 1978
– Shorn of ideological or political imperatives, (almost) anything can be translated.
– Literature for the love of literature

From a lecture given at Edinburgh University, April 2009, by HAN Dong, poet, novelist and blogger:
In the literary domain [in the 1980s], an enormous numbers of books by Western authors flooded into China in translation. A new generation of writers fell on them and devoured them.
…The same Chinese writer would accord the same value and stature to two Western writers who had a completely different outlook and style, just so long as the Westerners could be turned into nutrients to be stirred into the soup that was
Chinese literature re-born. 1980s writing was filled with enthusiasm and excitement, forming an eclectic, crude mixture. …it was an amazing time to live through. I miss the atmosphere of the literary world of the 1980s even though I don ’ t rate its achievements very highly.
(Translation, NH)