Translating China for Western Readers

This book explores the challenges of translating Chinese works, particularly premodern ones, for a contemporary Western readership. Reacting against the "cultural turn" in translation studies, contributors return to the origin of translation studies: translation practice. By returning to the time-honored basics of linguistics and hermeneutics, the book inquires into translation practice from the perspective of reading and reading theory. Essays in the first section of the work discuss the nature, function, rationale, criteria, and historical and conceptual values of translation. The second section focuses on the art and craft of translation, offering practical techniques and tips. Finally, the third section conducts critical assessments of translation policy and practice as well as formal and aesthetic issues. Throughout, contributors explore how a translation from the Chinese can read like a text in the Western reader's own language.

Introduction: Translating China for Western Readers in the Context of Globalization
Ming Dong Gu

Part I. Reflections on Conceptual Issues of Translation

1. Hermeneutic Principles of Understanding as the Logical Foundation of Translation
Chung-ying Cheng

2. Does the Metaphor Translate?
Martin Svensson Ekström

3. Translating Chinese Literature: Decanonization and Recanonization
Wang Ning

4. Readerly Translation and Writerly Translation: For a Theory of Translation That Returns to Its Roots
Ming Dong Gu

Part II. The Art and Craft of Translation

5. Translating Texts in Chinese History and Philosophy
Michael Nylan

6. Translating Medieval Chinese Panegryic Poetry
Fusheng Wu

7. Real-m-ization and Eventualization: A Phenomenological Approach to Poetic Translation
Liu Huawen

8. Internet and Electronic Resources for Translation of Premodern Chinese Texts and How to Use Them
Richard John Lynn

Part III. Critical Assessment of Translation Practice

9. Translators in Brackets, or, Rambling Thoughts on Translation Work
Wolfgang Kubin

10. Translating the Tang Poets: A Personal View by a Western Poet and Reader
Frederick Turner

11. The Three Paradoxes of Literary Translation: On Translating Chinese Poetry for Form
Tony Barnstone

12. Aesthetic Fidelity versus Linguistic Fidelity: A Reassessment of Chinese Translations of Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell
Yuehong Chen

Afterword: Reflections on Reading the Collected Essays
Dennis M. Katz

A Reference List of Further Readings
Daisy Qin Guo

Contributors
Index