Translating Early Modern China

Translating Early Modern China PDF Author: Carla Nappi
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019263626X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
The history of China, as any history, is a story of and in translation. Translating Early Modern China tells the story of translation in China to and from non-European languages and Latin between the fourteenth and the nineteenth centuries, and primarily in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Each chapter finds a particular translator resurrected from the past to tell the story of a text that helped shape the history of translation in China. In Chinese, Mongolian, Manchu, Latin, and more, these texts helped to make the Chinese language what it was at different points in its history. This volume explores what the form of an academic history book might look like by playing with fictioning as part of the historian's craft. The book's many stories—of glossaries and official Ming translation bureaus, of bilingual Ming Chinese-Mongolian language primers, of the first Latin grammar of Manchu, of a Qing Manchu conversation manual, of a collection of Manchu poems by a Qing translator—serve as case studies that open out into questions of language and translation in China's past, of the use of fiction as a historian's tool, and of the ways that translation creates language.

Translating Early Modern China

Translating Early Modern China PDF Author: Carla Nappi
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019263626X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
The history of China, as any history, is a story of and in translation. Translating Early Modern China tells the story of translation in China to and from non-European languages and Latin between the fourteenth and the nineteenth centuries, and primarily in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Each chapter finds a particular translator resurrected from the past to tell the story of a text that helped shape the history of translation in China. In Chinese, Mongolian, Manchu, Latin, and more, these texts helped to make the Chinese language what it was at different points in its history. This volume explores what the form of an academic history book might look like by playing with fictioning as part of the historian's craft. The book's many stories—of glossaries and official Ming translation bureaus, of bilingual Ming Chinese-Mongolian language primers, of the first Latin grammar of Manchu, of a Qing Manchu conversation manual, of a collection of Manchu poems by a Qing translator—serve as case studies that open out into questions of language and translation in China's past, of the use of fiction as a historian's tool, and of the ways that translation creates language.

Translating Early Modern China

Translating Early Modern China PDF Author: Carla Nappi
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198866399
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
The history of China, as any history, is a story of and in translation. Translating Early Modern China tells the story of translation in China to and from non-European languages and Latin between the fourteenth and the nineteenth centuries, and primarily in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Each chapter finds a particular translator resurrected from the past to tell the story of a text that helped shape the history of translation in China. In Chinese, Mongolian, Manchu, Latin, and more, these texts helped to make the Chinese language what it was at different points in its history. This volume explores what the form of an academic history book might look like by playing with fictioning as part of the historian's craft. The book's many stories--of glossaries and official Ming translation bureaus, of bilingual Ming Chinese-Mongolian language primers, of the first Latin grammar of Manchu, of a Qing Manchu conversation manual, of a collection of Manchu poems by a Qing translator--serve as case studies that open out into questions of language and translation in China's past, of the use of fiction as a historian's tool, and of the ways that translation creates language.

Translation and Creation

Translation and Creation PDF Author: David E. Pollard
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027216282
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
In the late Qing period, from the Opium War to the 1911 revolution, China absorbed the initial impact of Western arms, manufactures, science and culture, in that order. This volume of essays deals with the reception of Western literature, on the evidence of translations made. Having to overcome Chinese assumptions of cultural superiority, the perception that the West had a literature worth notice grew only gradually. It was not until the very end of the 19th century that a translation of a Western novel ("La dame aux camelias") achieved popular acclaim. But this opened the floodgates: in the first decade of the 20th century, more translated fiction was published than original fiction.The core essays in this collection deal with aspects of this influx according to division of territory. Some take key works (e.g. Stowe s "Uncle Tom s Cabin, " Byron s The Isles of Greece ), some sample genres (science fiction, detective fiction, fables, political novels), the common attention being to the adjustments made by translators to suit the prevailing aesthetic, cultural and social norms, and/or the current needs and preoccupations of the receiving public. A broad overview of translation activities is given in the introduction.To present the subject in its true guise, that of a major cultural shift, supporting papers are included to fill in the background and to describe some of the effects of this foreign invasion on native literature. A rounded picture emerges that will be intelligible to readers who have no specialized knowledge of China.

Translating China as Cross-Identity Performance

Translating China as Cross-Identity Performance PDF Author: James St. André
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824875303
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
James St. André applies the perspective of cross-identity performance to the translation of a wide variety of Chinese texts into English and French from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. Drawing on scholarship in cultural studies, queer studies, and anthropology, the author argues that many cross-identity performance techniques, including blackface, passing, drag, mimicry, and masquerade, provide insights into the history of translation practice. He makes a strong case for situating translation in its historical, social, and cultural milieu, reading translated texts alongside a wide variety of other materials that helped shape the image of “John Chinaman.” A reading of the life and works of George Psalmanazar, whose cross-identity performance as a native of Formosa enlivened early eighteenth-century salons, opens the volume and provides a bridge between the book’s theoretical framework and its examination of Chinese-European interactions. The core of the book consists of a chronological series of cases, each of which illustrates the use of a different type of cross-identity performance to better understand translation practice. St. André provides close readings of early pseudotranslations, including Marana’s Turkish Spy (1691) and Goldsmith’s Citizen of the World (1762), as well as adaptations of Hatchett’s The Chinese Orphan (1741) and Voltaire’s Orphelin de la Chine (1756). Later chapters explore Davis’s translation of Sorrows of Han (1829) and genuine translations of nonfictional material mainly by employees of the East India Company. The focus then shifts to oral/aural aspects of early translation practice in the nineteenth century using the concept of mimicry to examine interactions between Pidgin English and translation in the popular press. Finally, the work of two early modern Chinese translators, Gu Hongming and Lin Yutang, is examined as masquerade. Offering an original and innovative study of genres of writing that are traditionally examined in isolation, St. André’s work provides a fascinating examination of the way three cultures interacted through the shifting encounters of fiction, translation, and nonfiction and in the process helped establish and shape the way Chinese were represented. The book represents a major contribution to translation studies, Chinese cultural studies, postcolonial studies, and gender criticism.

Translating China

Translating China PDF Author: Xuanmin Luo
Publisher: Multilingual Matters
ISBN: 1847693857
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Translation has been instrumental in opening the door between China and the rest of the world from ancient times to the present day, and has helped facilitate cultural exchange and the sharing of knowledge. This book makes and important contribution to the study of translation into and from Chinese. A wide range of topics are covered, such as Chinese canonization of Buddhism, Chinese cultural identity and authenticity in translation, Chinese poetry, opera, politics and ideology in translation, and the individual contributions made by translators to modernity and globalisation. The analyses and arguments offered by the authors make this book a must read for anyone interested in translation from a Chinese perspective.

Translating Catechisms, Translating Cultures

Translating Catechisms, Translating Cultures PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004353062
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
Translating Catechisms, Translating Cultures explores the dimensions of early modern transcultural Christianities; the leeway of religious negotiation in and outside of Europe by comparing catechisms and their translation in the context of several Jesuit missionary strategies. The volume challenges the often assumed paramount Europeanness of Western Christianity. In the early modern period the idea of Tridentine Catholicism was translated into many different regions where it was appropriated and adopted to local conditions. Missionary work always entails translation, linguistic as well as cultural, which results in a modification of the content. Catechisms were central instruments to communicate Christian belief and, therefore, they are central media for all kinds of translation processes. The comparative approach (including China, India, Japan, Ethiopia, Northern America and England) enables the evaluation of different factors like power relations, social differentiation, cultural patterns, gender roles etc. Contributors are: Takao Abé, Anand Amaladass, Leonhard Cohen, Renate Dürr, Antje Flüchter, Ana Hosne, Giulia Nardini, John Ødemark, John Steckley, Alexandra Walsham, Rouven Wirbser.

Modern China and the West

Modern China and the West PDF Author: Hsiao-yen PENG
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004270221
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
In Modern China and the West: Translation and Cultural Mediation, the authors investigate the significant role translation plays in the act of cultural mediation. They pay attention to transnational organizations that bring about cross-cultural interactions as well as regulating authorities, in the form of both nation-states and ideologies, which dictate what, and even how, to translate. Under such circumstances, is there room for individual translators or mediators to exercise their free will? To what extent are they allowed to do so? The authors see translation as a "shaping force." While intending to shape, or reshape, certain concepts through the translating act, translators and cultural actors need to negotiate among multifarious institutional powers that coexist, including traditional and foreign. Contributors include: Françoise Kreissler, Angel Pino, Shan Te-hsing, Nicolai Volland, Joyce C. H. Liu, Huang Ko-wu, Isabelle Rabut, Xiaomei Chen, Zhang Yinde, Peng Hsiao-yen, Sebastian Hsien-hao Liao, and Pin-chia Feng.

Osiris, Volume 37

Osiris, Volume 37 PDF Author: Tara Alberts
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226825124
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
Highlights the importance of translation for the global exchange of medical theories, practices, and materials in the premodern period. This volume of Osiris turns the analytical lens of translation onto medical knowledge and practices across the premodern world. Understandings of the human body, and of diseases and their cures, were influenced by a range of religious, cultural, environmental, and intellectual factors. As a result, complex systems of translation emerged as people crossed linguistic and territorial boundaries to share not only theories and concepts, but also materials, such as drugs, amulets, and surgical tools. The studies here reveal how instances of translation helped to shape and, in some cases, reimagine these ideas and objects to fit within local frameworks of medical belief. Translating Medicine across Premodern Worlds features case studies located in geographically and temporally diverse contexts, including ninth-century Baghdad, sixteenth-century Seville, seventeenth-century Cartagena, and nineteenth-century Bengal. Throughout, the contributors explore common themes and divergent experiences associated with a variety of historical endeavors to “translate” knowledge about health and the body across languages, practices, and media. By deconstructing traditional narratives and de-emphasizing well-worn dichotomies, this volume ultimately offers a fresh and innovative approach to histories of knowledge.

Chinese Sympathies

Chinese Sympathies PDF Author: Daniel Leonhard Purdy
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501759752
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
Chinese Sympathies examines how Europeans—German-speaking writers and thinkers in particular—identified with Chinese intellectual and literary traditions following the circulation of Marco Polo's Travels. This sense of affinity expanded and deepened, Daniel Leonhard Purdy shows, as generations of Jesuit missionaries, baroque encyclopedists, Enlightenment moralists, and translators established intellectual regimes that framed China as being fundamentally similar to Europe. Analyzing key German literary texts—theological treatises, imperial histories, tragic dramas, moral philosophies, literary translations, and poetic cycles—Chinese Sympathies traces the paths from baroque-era missionary reports that accommodated Christianity with Confucianism to Goethe's concept of world literature, bridged by Enlightenment debates over cosmopolitanism and sympathy, culminating in a secular principle that allowed readers to identify meaningful similarities across culturally diverse literatures based on shared human experiences. This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem)—a collaboration of the Association of American Universities, the Association of University Presses, and the Association of Research Libraries—and the generous support of the Pennsylvania State University. Learn more at the TOME website, available at: openmonographs.org. The open access edition is available at Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.

The Spatiality of Emotion in Early Modern China

The Spatiality of Emotion in Early Modern China PDF Author: Ling Hon Lam
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231547587
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 479

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Book Description
Emotion takes place. Rather than an interior state of mind in response to the outside world, emotion per se is spatial, at turns embedding us from without, transporting us somewhere else, or putting us ahead of ourselves. In this book, Ling Hon Lam gives a deeply original account of the history of emotions in Chinese literature and culture centered on the idea of emotion as space, which the Chinese call “emotion-realm” (qingjing). Lam traces how the emotion-realm underwent significant transformations from the dreamscape to theatricality in sixteenth- to eighteenth-century China. Whereas medieval dreamscapes delivered the subject into one illusory mood after another, early modern theatricality turned the dreamer into a spectator who is no longer falling through endless oneiric layers but pausing in front of the dream. Through the lens of this genealogy of emotion-realms, Lam remaps the Chinese histories of morals, theater, and knowledge production, which converge at the emergence of sympathy, redefined as the dissonance among the dimensions of the emotion-realm pertaining to theatricality.The book challenges the conventional reading of Chinese literature as premised on interior subjectivity, examines historical changes in the spatial logic of performance through media and theater archaeologies, and ultimately uncovers the different trajectories that brought China and the West to the convergence point of theatricality marked by self-deception and mutual misreading. A major rethinking of key terms in Chinese culture from a comparative perspective, The Spatiality of Emotion in Early Modern China develops a new critical vocabulary to conceptualize history and existence.