Abstract

Seen through the lens of André Lefevere’s concept of rewriting, a translation is not simply a static text, but a cultural and even a political act exercised by players at both the individual and institutional levels during the translation process. Jesuit missionary-translators in early Qing China especially encountered pressures, challenges and support from their patrons as factors of control in their translations. Joachim Bouvet and his two protégés, Joseph de Prémare and Jean François Foucquet, were the three representative Figurists of the time. The Figurists, a group of Jesuits who focused on the re-interpretation of Chinese classics, advocated the esoteric doctrines of the Dao. Despite both being called followers of Bouvet, Prémare and Foucquet diverged in their separate interpretations of the Dao. Their own preferences and propensities were part of the reason for this, though patronage also played a significant role, which reinforced and supported their personal interpretations of the Dao. This paper will examine two intellectual webs of relationships and auspices, those of Prémare and Foucquet. Examining their correspondences and manuscripts stored in the Vatican Library and the Archives Jesuites de Paris, I will outline the profiles of the two Figurists and identify the institutional or individual support each received. Furthermore, the intellectual webs of their patrons not only made an impact on how each man developed and circulated his knowledge of the Chinese classics, but also influenced how they interpreted the Dao and the Daodejing. Each of their trajectories in associating Christianity with the Dao also made a lasting impact on the next generation of Jesuits in China on their understanding of Dao and Daoism.

Abstract

James Legge (1815–1897) is a pioneering translator who extensively adopted Zhu Xi’s (1130–1200) commentaries in his works. This article argues that Legge stands as a distinctive figure in Chinese translation history via his in-depth dialogue with Zhu’s commentaries in his annotated Chinese Classics. He innovatively correlates the teachings of Confucius with Christianity via Zhu’s system of thought. This article discusses three interrelated themes from Legge’s Zhu-based annotation in his Confucian Analects. First, Legge uses Zhu’s interpretation to show how Confucian learning (xue 學) identifies goodness (shan 善) as a phase from common good qualities to transcendent excellence, and how this Confucian view on goodness can be related to the Christian idea of the supreme good. Second, Legge adopts Zhu’s thoughts on human selfish desires and heavenly principle (tianli 天理) in exploring the subject of “subduing one’s self and returning to propriety” (keji fuli 克己復禮), in order to illumine the relevance of Confucian teachings to the Christian doctrines of original sin and divine grace. Finally, for Legge, Zhu’s contemplation of nature conveys the vision of a universal creator that accords with the Christian image of God. Overall, through his dialogue with Zhu, Legge’s Analects demonstrates a meaningful synthesis of central topics in Confucianism and Christianity, encouraging new thoughts on humanity, moral transcendence, and the universal world of the divine.

Abstract

The present study aims to investigate how far Taiwanese people’s postcolonial identities could be represented via comparing a Japanese novel, Orphan of Asia (1945), with its Chinese (2008) and English (2006) translations. The research methods include a comparative analysis of the Japanese source text (ST) and its Chinese and English target texts (TTs), followed by a cross-textual analysis of these Chinese and English TTs.

The key findings are firstly, compared with the Japanese ST and its Chinese and English TTs, more translation differences and problems were identified in the English TT, presenting different ways of expressing Taiwanese people’s colonial situations, which as a result may or may not successfully represent Taiwanese people’s postcolonial identities. Secondly, the present study shows that the translators’ ideological intervention may influence the representations of Taiwanese people’s postcolonial identities to some extent, pointing to the heterogeneity in postcolonial translation. Thirdly, the present study stresses the significance of using foreignization in postcolonial translation to potentially reshape the target readers’ world knowledge. For future translation research on postcolonial identities, the present study provides implications of the analysis of translators’ translation techniques related to ideological involvement.

This work was supported by the Humanities and Social Sciences Research Fund of the Ministry of Education of P. R. China under Grant No. 16YJA740025 and by the Humanities and Social Sciences Research Fund of Chongqing Municipal Education Commission under Grant No. 17SKG072.

摘 要

周作人在翻譯選目上較為自主，但外部影響亦不容小覷。在為《小說月報》翻譯的過程中，一方面，他對外國文學的譯介理念深刻影響著該刊的編輯者，另一方面，沈雁冰等人也有意識要利用周氏兄弟以往的譯介實績和文壇影響力，從而積極向二人約稿。但是大方向一致的背後，在對具體篇目的取捨及闡釋上仍可看到周作人自身趣味與刊物路線之間的博弈關係。

Abstract

Zhou Zuoren insisted on the right to choose the texts to be translated. However, the external influence cannot be neglected. Taking Zhou Zuoren’s translations in the The Short Story Magazine as an example, on one hand, his translation concepts profoundly influenced the editors of the magazine; on the other hand, Mao Dun and others also consciously made use of the influence of the Zhou brothers’ previous translations. Although they cooperated with each other in most cases, when it came to the choice and interpretation of a particular article, the struggles between Zhou Zuoren’s own interest and the magazine’s line were visible.

摘 要

勒菲弗爾將贊助人定義為促進或妨礙作品的閱讀、創作和改寫的力量，並特別指出贊助功能主要表現為一種積極的推動力量。之後的學者在研究個人和機構的贊助功能時，也多將焦點集中於贊助人促進作品形成和接受，對其妨礙功能關注較少。本文以《金瓶梅》中性描寫的英譯為切入點，考察文學審查制度在《金瓶梅》英譯本的形成、出版、推廣和接受過程中既妨礙、又促進的雙重贊助功能。雖然表面上看似矛盾，但兩種相反功能共現於同一贊助人的現象恰恰揭示出了贊助系統的層次性、動態性和複雜性。

Abstract

Lefevere defines patronage as a force that may promote or hinder the reading, creation and rewriting of works, with a highlight that patronage is mostly a promoting rather than hindering force. As such, researchers on patronage of persons and institutions have predominantly focused on the former with a practical exclusion of the latter. This article, by putting the English translations of the sexual descriptions in Jin Ping Mei under scrutiny, attempts to tease out literary censorship’s dual patronage function of both hindering and promoting the production, publication, circulation and reception of the relevant texts. Despite the seeming ambivalence, the concurrence of the two opposite functions in the same patron actually reveals the hierarchical, dynamic and interactive nature of the patronage system.