Museum text translation in the Chinese context: the museum role and text production

ABSTRACT

Discussion of museum text translation in the Chinese context started in 1991, and much attention is still being paid to language errors and ways of producing better translations, revealing the persistence of similar translation problems. This paper addresses the issue in a different way through engaging with museum studies. The museum was introduced into China a century ago by Western missionaries and gradually developed Chinese characteristics, especially in the museum role and museum text style, demonstrating the nature of Chinese museums as translation. Here we compare the museum role and museum text style in China and the West that greatly influence translation but are rarely noticed or touched upon in translation studies, perhaps because it needs to involve museum studies, which is outside the vision of many researchers. Based on the comparison, we propose some guidelines for translators, hoping to make a substantial contribution to the improvement of translation quality.

KEYWORDS:

• Chinese museum history
• museum role
• museum text style
• museum text translation
• Chinese context
• translation guidelines

Introduction

The museum is defined as ‘a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public’. It ‘began as a Western institution’ (Neather 2018, 364), and was introduced into China a century ago by Western missionaries who started to set up museums in China in the mid-nineteenth century to ‘help facilitate the colonial rule’. Meanwhile, the knowledge of Western science and culture was also introduced into China, contributing to China's modernization (Chen 2019, 58). Subsequently, some Chinese intellectuals and government officials who had studied in or visited the West followed suit to set up museums by themselves in the early twentieth century, for the purpose of ‘enlightening and entertaining Chinese people’ and of ‘strengthening the nation’ (Chen 2019, 58–59). From the first Chinese museum being setting up in Nantong in 1905, Chinese museums have experienced three stages of development: infant stage from the mid-nineteenth century till the end of the Republic of China in 1949, development stage from the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949 till 1978, and prosperous stage from 1978 till now (Chen 2019, 57). Museum boom or ‘fever’ appeared a few times: first in the late 1950, second in the early 1980s, and the third in the 1990s (Zhang 1993, 33; Varutti 2014, 2). The majority of the museums are state-owned (Lu 2011) and/or government dominated (Yang 2008), which inevitably leaves marks in the museum text. In museum studies, museum texts refer to both ‘texts in museums’ (e.g., labels, wall texts, catalogues, and brochures) and ‘museums as texts’ (i.e., how the museum as a whole operates as a text, and communicates with its public) (Ravelli 2006). This study concerns the former.

Over a half-century, museums have undergone a shift from a narrow programmatic focus on collections and scholarly and professional activities to a focus on serving audiences, seeking ways to reach a broader public and generate satisfaction and positive outcomes for their visitors through the arrangements, services, and offerings (Kotler and Kotler 2000, 271). Chinese museums are no exception. One practice is that more and more Chinese museums are providing English translations of museum texts to cater for international visitors. However, the quality of translated texts in museums has been troubling both visitors and researchers (e.g., Neather 2004, 2005a; Zuo 2003, 2005).

Discussion of museum text translation in the Chinese context started in 1991, and much attention is still being paid to language errors and ways of producing better translations (e.g., Mu 1991; Ye 2001; Neather 2004; Liu 2005; Zuo 2003, 2005; Zhu and Yang 2017; Zhang 2021), revealing the persistence of similar translation problems. We ask: why do the translation problems persist after decades of discussion? What other factors influence the translation quality in addition to what have been repeatedly discussed in existing studies?

To answer the questions and escape from the predicament in museum text translation, there is the need to make a shift in research model and focus from investigating translated texts in individual museums to investigating the source text production, which entails engaging with museum studies, conducting a transdisciplinary research. In this paper, we focus on the museum role and museum text style in China and the West, two aspects that have fundamental influence on museum text translation, but are rarely noticed or touched upon in translation studies. Moreover, based on the analysis, we come up with some guidelines for museum text translation, hoping to shed new light on both museum text translation and its research.

To set the scene for this study, we firstly look into museum text translation studies in the Chinese context to have a picture of the status quo, followed by a discussion of the transdisciplinary approach we adopt for this study.

Museum text translation studies in the Chinese context

Museum text translation is not a new topic in Chinese translation studies. From the first discussion in 1991 (Mu 1991), three decades have passed. In 2013, there was a short review of museum text translation studies in China by an MA student, one and half page long, looking at the journal articles published in 2010–2012 (Xu 2013). According to the analysis, the majority of the research focused on translation errors and standards. Some discussed translation strategies and a few translation principles. Then, what happened before 2010 and after 2012?

Several rounds of search by early April 2022 (with the keywords ‘museum’ and ‘translation’) in CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure, an electronic platform that integrate significant Chinese knowledge-based information resources) show that since 1991, there have been over 500 works on museum text translation. The studies can be roughly divided into three stages: emergence in 1991–2000, slow increase in 2001–2010; and steady increase or development in 2011–2021. These works include journal articles (the majority), conference papers (around 12), newspaper articles (around 8), MA dissertations (about 90), and MIT (Master of Interpreting and Translation, a professional degree in China) translation reports (about 67). Some of the journal articles were developed from MA dissertations (e.g., Dou 2009, 2011). The researchers consist of university language teachers (the majority), master students (quite some, roughly 1/3) and professional translators (very limited, e.g., Shao 2012, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2019; Yang and Shao 2016).

In general, the main points summarized in Xu 2012 still hold true to a great extent in that the over 500 studies fall into two main types of research: discussing translation strategies, principles, criteria, and models; and looking at particular translation problems, including language errors, suggesting solutions to the problems, and/or providing better versions.

It should be noted that before 2007, almost all the studies of museum text translation adopted the traditional ‘impressionistic’ approach (Neather 2009), showing prolonged influence of the translation principle ‘faithfulness, expressiveness, and elegance’ proposed by Yan Fu in the late nineteenth century after he translated Thomas Henry Huxley's Evolution and Ethics. While the ‘impressionistic’ approach has continued till today (e.g., Zhu and Yang 2017; Zhang 2021), a shift started toward engaging with theories (more or less in different degrees) in discussion museum text translation in 2007 when the MA dissertation (Li 2007) adopted Venuti's domestication and foreignization in discussing cultural issues in museum text translation, which are one of the mostly engaged theories (also see Shi 2010; Shao 2019), especially popular among master students, including our own MA students, though often used as alternative terms for literal translation and liberal translation. Another approach extremely popular in China is the German functionalist school of translation theories (e.g., Li and Hu 2011; Zhang 2014; Wang 2020).

With or without theories, many of the journal articles are one to three pages long, discussing similar issues, such as translation errors and strategies, with data from different museums. This reflects that in-depth research is needed and the translation quality still needs improvement in many museums; meanwhile, these case studies in the Chinese context to some extent contribute to ‘taking stock’ that Guillot has proposed to have an ‘overview of translation practices across the many different possible sites of representation’ (Guillot 2014, 92) and to gain ‘a better idea of translation practices across cultures and in different museological and exhibitionary contexts’, which is regarded as a key task of museum text translation research, but still ‘seems some way off’ (Neather 2018, 374).

There are several studies published in international journals or edited books, not included in CNKI, such as Jiang 2010, 2012, 2018, Jiang and Zhu 2018; Liao 2015, 2016; Neather 2005a, 2005b, 2008, 2009, 2012a, 2012b, 2012c, 2018. These works show a tendency of engaging with professional field or museum studies. Limited in number, these works enrich and strengthen museum text translation studies in the Chinese context, with their attention to the professional community and museum studies. As museum text translation is an activity of highly specialized nature, museum text translation studies cannot go very far without intersection with museum profession and museum studies.

Towards a transdisciplinary study of museum text translation

The above literature review has shown that researchers have paid much attention to the micro-level linguistic issues, such as language errors in the translation and ways of dealing with the problems, but little attention to the macro-level cultural issues, such as the museum role and museum text style, in spite of their fundamental influence on translation, perhaps because discussing such issues need to go beyond translation studies and involve museum studies, which is still outside the vision of many translation studies researchers. Nevertheless, the review also shows that a new transdisciplinary methodology of museum text translation studies is emerging that engages with the museum field and museum studies. This paper also attempts to conduct a transdisciplinary study, hoping to broaden the scope of the field.

Based on Ravelli's two types of museum texts, Neather (2018, 361) distinguishes between ‘museums as translations’ and ‘translations in the museum’. Obviously, ‘translations in the museum’ refers to translated museum texts. Neather takes ‘museums as translations’ because museum representation intersects with translation in two ways: (1) the museum itself is a form of ‘cultural translation’, translating cultures ‘through the selections and combination of objects, texts and other representational apparatus in the exhibitionary space; and (2) interlingual translation is ‘an essential aspect of multilingual museum representation that seeks to cater for different language user needs’ (2018). We would add a third point: museums in non-Western countries like China are a (result of cultural) translation from Western museums as reflected in the brief history of the Chinese museum discussed before. This concept of ‘Chinese museums as translation’ lays foundation for the comparison in the following section.

During the translation process, Chinese museums have developed Chinese characteristics, especially in the museum role and museum text style, which we have found during visiting Chinese and Western museums over the years. This finding is verified by some literature in museum studies, which inspires us to engage with museum studies and compare the Chinese museum (the translation) with the Western museum (the source text), focusing on the museum role and museum text style.

Here we use the broad term ‘Western museums’ or ‘museums in the West’ for brevity to refer to the many museums we have visited for collecting museum texts in the U.K. and some Europeans countries like Germany, France, Italy and Spain. We also use the broad term ‘Chinese museums’ or ‘museums in China’ to refer to the focus of this study, although there are many types of museums in China as in the West, such as history, art, nature, science & technology, to name but a few. Our concern here is the major roles of museums that affect museum text production and the major features of the museum text style that affect museum text translation, regardless of the museum type. Any special or unique museum roles and features of museum texts in individual museums are not included in this study due to focus. Hence, the general term ‘museum’ (Chinese or Western) is used here.

Katharina Reiss's text typology theory (Reiss [1977] 1989) is instrumental for discussing museum text production. Reiss divides texts into four types based on language functions and summarizes the main characteristics of each type: informative (plain communication of facts, e.g., reference works), expressive (creative composition, e.g., poems), operative (inducing behavioural responses, e.g., advertisements) and audiomedial (works with visual images, music, etc., e.g., films) (Reiss 1977, 108-109). Reiss's theory helps understand the museum text type and sheds light on museum text production, providing a forceful framework for the analysis.

The discussion of the museum text style is illustrated by a few examples of museum texts in English and Chinese, collected from the National Museums Scotland and V&A Museum in the U.K. and Ningbo Museum and Ningbobang Museum in China. In order to keep the data up-to-date and comparable, the examples are taken from the latest online museum texts introducing the museum and exhibition, such as ‘About US’ of the two British museums and ‘本馆简介’ [brief introduction to the museum] of the two Chinese museums, rather than from the brochures and leaflets collected from various museums in the past, which could become outdated as museums often update their texts. Following and based on the analysis, we come up with some guidelines for museum text translation to help solve the lingering translation problems.

Differences in the museum role and in museum text style

A museum is expected to ‘acquir[e], conserv[e], researc[h], communicat[e] and exhibi[t] the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment’ (ICOM 2017, 3). Chinese museums perform the same function, but with some special characteristics in the museum role and museum text style that translators of Chinese museum texts should be aware of.

Differences in the museum role

In the West, museums are creations of the Enlightenment: institutions meant to invoke reason and rationality to supplant the superstitions and subjective knowledge of earlier times (Hooper-Greenhill 2000, 13). As a consequence, the major role and function of museums in the West is the dissemination of knowledge. When museums were established in the West during the nineteenth century, education was one of their most prominent functions. Education at this time was understood as a process of imparting information and, through this, beliefs and values, with the aim to constitute the subject as an ideal citizen (Bennett 1995, 99ff.). Museum education during this period had a moral, sometimes even proselytising dimension (Koven 1994, cited in Hooper-Greenhill 2000, 17). This has changed fundamentally; nowadays moral education in the museum is perceived as rather problematic because knowledge should be objective, singular, and value-free (Hooper-Greenhill 2000, 15). The educational role of the museum in Western culture is now rather perceived as ‘to provide stimulating environments for learning that take account of the existing knowledge of the learner, and that enable both the use of prior knowledge and the development of new knowledge’ (Hooper-Greenhill 2000, 24). Although China museums take on the same function, their role is not restricted to just imparting knowledge but also to foster moral education. The long-standing Confucian tradition of moral education and individual moral cultivation is still prominent in China. Chinese educators by and large believe that ‘through moral education norms regulating personal, social, and environmental interaction should be cultivated in young people’ (Zhang 2016). Several policies during the last years ‘advocate that moral education in all schools across the nation should take the responsibility of passing on the time-honoured, excellent moral ideals and behavioural norms, and add new content to them in the present era’ (Wang and Wang 2018, 1f). More importantly, since the establishment of the PRC in 1949, it has been emphasized by the authorities time and again that ‘museums must carry out patriotic education’ (see Chen 2019, Xinhua News Agency 2019). Museums have been used ‘to display a vision of an advanced and sophisticated brave new China’ (Vickers 2007, 368). All this will certainly also have repercussions on the museum as extracurricular classroom. Since the mid-1990s, the government has designated many museums as ‘bases for patriotic education’ (Vickers 2007, 366), showing an explicit political and ideological function. At the entrance of many museums – not only museums of history and revolution, but also museums of science, technology and natural history, ‘there is often a plaque stating that the museum is a “base to teach patriotism”’ (Lu 2014, 213). This function is reflected in exhibitions in Chinese museums. Meanings of the exhibits are often ‘decontextualized’ to ‘promote and reaffirm the ideas, values and discourses of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), the state and the social elites’. As a result, museums become part of the ‘monolithic and authorized discourse about the history, the culture, the people and the landscape of China’, and each item in museums serves as ‘materialized evidence to support this discourse, to construct or enhance Chinese identity and to promote nationalism and patriotism’ (Lu 2014, 214). In 2004, the government made ‘entry to state-run museums free for all schoolchildren accompanied by their teachers’ to ‘promote and encourage school visits’ (Vickers 2007, 366), taking Chinese museums as ‘a key element’ in promoting ‘a state-centered patriotism’ (Vickers 2007, 365). Research reveals that history education in museums as extracurricular form of history education is more effective in forging nationalistic sentiments among students than in-class textbook education (Qian, Xu, and Chen 2017, 199ff).

The way museums perceive their role directly influences and shapes the production of museum texts in regard to content, style and language and also determines the function and communicative purpose of texts in the museum. The differences in the museum role in China and the West lead to differences in the museum text style.

Differences in the museum text style

The museum role described by ICOM (2017, 3) places museum texts in the ‘informative type’ (Reiss [1977] 1989, 108). Informative texts are intended to communicate the content and present facts objectively, which should be logical and descriptive so that the information is precisely conveyed.

Western museums aim at providing a positive learning environment that assists the visitors to develop new knowledge and to broaden their experience horizons. They pay attention to the existing knowledge of the museum visitors and new information is scaffolded and provided in a more neutral and scientific way. The visitors are carefully guided and subjective interpretations or evaluations of museum objects are being avoided. Museum texts are expected to describe the museum, the collections, and the meaning of the exhibition succinctly. The language should be as accurate as current knowledge allows. Controversy should be avoided if possible. Fact and opinion should be differentiated insofar as this can be done. All in all, accuracy, brevity, and comprehensibility are the key dimensions for effective communication in museums (Devenish 1990, 70). Such style is reflected in the following two examples:

Example 1 (National Museums Scotland)

Our mission is to preserve, interpret and make accessible for all, the past and present of Scotland, other nations and cultures, and the natural world.

Example 2 (V&A Museum)

The V&A is the world's leading museum of art and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects, books and archives that span over 5,000 years of human creativity. The museum holds many of the UK's national collections and houses some of the greatest resources for the study of architecture, furniture, fashion, textiles, photography, sculpture, painting, jewellery, glass, ceramics, book arts, Asian art and design, theatre and performance.

Both examples are museum introductions. The former very briefly tells in plain English what visitors can access in the National Museums Scotland. The latter is similar, a bit longer (70 words in total), introducing the type of the museum and the collections and resources there.

Chinese museum texts often show a different style, following the Chinese tradition and art of verbosity which uses flowery and vague language that is not supportive of, but rather proves to be an obstacle to the process of conveying relevant information to the visitor. Compared with the above two examples, the online ‘brief’ introductions to Ningbo Museum and Ningbobang Museum are much longer (each more than 500 words), covering various kinds of information, including the floor area, the architecture, the type, and the ranking of the museum. The collection and exhibition information takes a small part of it (roughly 1/3), but containing many idioms or metaphors in typical Chinese four-character expressions, as in the example below:

Example 3 (Ningbobang museum, provincial base for patriotic education)

综合展[…]包含序厅、筚路蓝缕、建功立业、赤子情怀、群星璀璨、薪火永传6个章节。

Lit.: The general exhibition covers 6 chapters of introduction hall, great hardships in pioneer work, making contributions and progresses, patriotic spirit, a galaxy of stars, and passing the torch forever.

The text looks very beautiful with the many four-character expressions, but the meaning is not very clear (e.g., 群星璀璨/a galaxy of stars), and some words (e.g., 筚路蓝缕/great hardships in pioneer work) are even unknow to many, including our master students of translation programme.

Similar wording is found in the text for the permanent exhibitions on Ningbo history in Ningbo Museum. The following example is taken from the section entitled ‘东方神舟’ [lit. Eastern miracle boat]:

Example 4 (Ningbo museum)

[…] 浙东文化的大家纷呈与影响天下, 宁波帮的坚韧不拔与辉煌成就 […]。

Lit.: […] the great number of literati from the east of Zhejiang province and their impact on the country, the perseverance and great achievements of Ningbobang […].

Here high language register is also used, with the four-character expressions, but the meaning is vague and ambiguous (e.g., 大家纷呈/the great number of literati and 影响天下/their impact on the country), subject to different interpretations. The poetic style somewhat shifts the dimension of the text function towards the expressive type, which makes museum text translation tricky.

The ambiguous metaphors, the often padded, long-winded and repetitive sentences, the complicated and vague expressions and the abundance of fancy adjectives in Chinese museum texts make it difficult for the reader (including the translator) to grasp the precise information in the text. Such rhetorical and communicative style, however, serves a different purpose in the source culture than to pass on information to the international visitor. The embellished language of the text aims at conveying beauty and erudition rather than explicit content. The complexity of the text is proof of authority, prestige, intellect and influence and to prove this is more important than whether or not the visitor is able to understand the information in the text.

In the Chinese tradition of text production, the use of a high language register seems to serve the purpose of creating authority, while in the Western culture authority or credibility is rather achieved through scientific, objective or neutral language. For instance, in academic text production, such norms as ‘neutrality, detachment, objectivity, rationality and substantiation’ are ‘specific to Western scholarship to a certain extent’, while in Chinese academic writings, ‘value judgements vis-à-vis the object of study, patriotism, etc. are allowed or preferred, or even required – especially, or at least, where matters such as politics and national interest are involved’ (Chang 2018, 465f). This also happens in museum text production. The English text of introduction to the museum speaks to the readers in a more equal and friendly way, whereas the Chinese text often ends with the political and ideological content, sounding very superior, lack of affinity (Liu 2013, 131). The above examples have illustrated this.

A translator needs to be aware of these cultural differences in rhetorical and communicative styles. If the tone of the Chinese text is directly transferred into the English translation, the result is often an awkward and exaggerated text that looks boastful or might even be unintelligible to the English reader. It is the translator's responsibility to culturally mediate this kind of language, focus on the information in the text, and convey the information in a succinct, plain and straightforward language that is accessible to a broad target audience. The next section provides some guidelines for translators of Chinese museum texts.

Museum text translation: some guidelines

If museum text production faces many obstacles, including inadequate text production processes and written guidelines (see Ravelli 1996, 370), it is even more so for museum text translation, which needs special training and guidelines. Museum text translation is a highly complex process and a demanding task that involves not only complex negotiations between languages but also between cultures (cf. Bassnett 2014, 9) and needs consideration of the museum context. Below are some guidelines for translators, concerning the target audience, cultural mediation, language mediation, and museum context.

• (1) Cultural sensitivity to the target audience

Translators should be aware that English translation of the Chinese museum text is not for native English speakers only, but for an audience of complex cultural and educational background. In the interlingual practice at Chinese museums, English as foreign language is generally used as lingua franca. The English language is spoken by more than 1.5 billion people worldwide, but only around 400 million people speak it as their first language. This means that around one billion people speak English as their second language and there are big disparities in the proficiency of English (Breene 2016). Translators of Chinese museum texts need to be aware of the expectations of the target audience in regard to the content, the style, and the language of the translated museum texts, and should aim at using a plain and straightforward language that is accessible to a broad non-native English-speaking target audience, producing readable texts that offer information in an explicit way. The language and structure of the text should be kept simple. Lexicogrammatical features that are more appropriate to higher language registers should be avoided, without compromising the scientific integrity of the information (Ravelli 1996, 369ff; see also Neather 2009, 149). Metaphors, frequently used in Chinese museum texts, should be avoided in the English translation (Serrell 1996, 84ff). The translation should be produced ‘in such a way that the receivers recognize the function for which it is intended, accepting it as functional precisely for this function’ (Nord 2006, 142). To achieve this, cultural mediation is indispensable in view of the expressive features that Chinese museum texts more or less carry.

• (2) Cultural mediation for target-oriented translation

As there are discrepant levels of knowledge and experience in the source and target audiences and large gaps between the source and target cultures, value systems, perspectives, and world views (Nord 2002, 32), museum text translation requires cultural mediation. In many cases, it cannot be presumed that the visitor has sufficient educational background or knowledge about China to make sense of all the information provided in the Chinese source text. The translator has to make the information explicit and needs to explain things in careful steps. To make texts broadly accessible, information has to be explained rather than presumed. The term ‘宁波帮 Ningbobang’ is a good example, which contains very rich historical and cultural meaning, referring to generations of distinguished people from the historical harbour city named Ningbo. The term is not always immediately intelligible even to Chinese audience, not to mention international visitors. Merely transliterating it into Ningbobang is not sufficient, which only conveys the sound. Some explanation of the meaning in the brief introduction to Ningbobang Museum would help visitors understand the term and generate their interest to explore the museum.

On the other hand, sometimes, in order to focus on the main information, omitting some information from the source text is also necessary, such as the information on the floor area and ranking of the museum in the brief introductions to Ningbo Museum and Ningbobang Museum. Less information well explained may be more efficient in increasing understanding and also more interesting to a diverse audience.

• (3) Language mediation for readability

Museum texts only work if the information in the text is organized in a coherent and cohesive way (Halliday and Hasan 1976, cited in Ravelli 1996, 369). Visitors will be confused and frustrated if texts are unfocussed and ‘jump around’ from point to point (Ravelli 1996, 377). This is one of the major problems in Chinese museum text translation. Translated texts often do not show a logical and consistent structure because translators simply adopt an approach of straightforward linguistic transfer. In order to attain thematic flow and a better organization of the translated text, translators often need to re-organize the information given in the source text. On a macro level, museum text translation requires cultural mediation because the text functions of the Chinese source text cannot be just transferred to the English target text due to cultural differences (as discussed above). On a micro level this can be achieved by re-ordering clause elements or sentences, switching between active and passive voice, and using less nominalization in target texts. Such micro-level interventions and shifts are the essential part of translator training, which have been much discussed in translation studies and hence will not be dwelt on here.

• (4) Engaging with professional field for specialized translation

To achieve even more coherence, the translator should always pay attention to the interaction of the text with the object and the museum space (Neather 2009, 153). This requires translators to engage as much as possible with the professional field for producing effective translation. Translators need to possess an up-to-date knowledge of the subject material and its terminology in both languages and have awareness of the challenges specific to museums like the interaction between texts, objects, and space, the interlingual practice at museums, and the discourse of museology on the production of museum texts. Most importantly, translators should work closely with museum professionals in the translation process, keeping communication with museum professionals and asking for clarification when any questions arise about the source text and the exhibition.

Translators should also keep in mind that readers are standing while they read the text and that the exhibition texts need to be taken in quickly. For this reason, the density of information cannot be too high and it should be avoided to pack in too much information in one single text. Museum texts have to be understood and translated in the context of the whole exhibition. One single exhibition text is not necessarily the only source of information on a particular exhibition item or topic. This implies that a translator always needs to consider the place of a text within the exhibition, as well as its particular purpose or function.

Among these four points, except (3) which concerns the basic skills a professionally trained translator should have acquired, (1), (2), and (4) are guidelines on the macro-level, which need due attention from both translators and researchers. It is hoped that this initial attempt on making guidelines will lead to more efforts towards building up a more comprehensive list of guidelines for museum text translation so as to improve the overall quality.

Conclusion

This study adopts a transdisciplinary approach, combining translation studies with museum studies in examining museum text translation. With our concept of ‘Chinese museums as translation’ developed on the basis of Neather's notion of ‘museums as translations’ and drawing on literature in museum studies, we compare the museum role and museum text style in China and the West, which explicates their connections and differences. The comparison demonstrates that as translation Chinese museums have assumed a new role in education. Many Chinese museums have been officially designated as ‘bases for patriotic education’, such as Ningbobang Museum. This role, together with the Chinese tradition of text production which favours beautiful language and high language register, has a profound influence on museum text production.

In Reiss's text typology theory, museum texts fall in the informative type, using plain language to convey the precise information, as reflected in the examples from the National Museums Scotland and V&A museum. However, Chinese museum texts often display features of the expressive type, carrying more or less flowery, high register language to express the proud feeling of China's history, culture, and achievements and to show the writer's erudition and authority, as can be seen in the examples from Ningbo Museum and Ningbobang Museum. In other words, Chinese museum texts are often a mixture of informative and expressive types. This feature further complicates museum text translation, a job that needs considerations of various aspects and joint efforts from both translators and museum professionals.

For this reason, we propose some guidelines for museum text translation, emphasizing that translators need to have cultural sensitivity to the target audience of diverse cultural and educational background, to mediate between the cultures and between the languages, and to engage with the professional field and collaborate with museum professionals. Due to scope and space, the guidelines only highlight four key aspects in museum text translation, generated from the analysis. More efforts are needed for a comprehensive list of guidelines for the translation practice.

We believe that museum text translation as specialized translation needs special training and guidelines for effective intercultural communication in the museum context and good translation quality needs joint efforts of the translator and museum professional. Our experiences in teaching on museum masterclasses for Chinese museum professionals over the past years tells that translators, experts in the museum area, and curators mostly operate in isolation and disjunction, which to a great extent underlies the unsatisfactory translation quality. Last but not least, museum text translation studies need to engage with museum studies for a better development of museum text translation studies and for further enlightenment to the translation practice. This paper sets an example.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Social Sciences Fund from China's National Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Science (19AYY013).

Notes on contributors

Zhongli Yu

Zhongli Yu (PhD in Translation and Intercultural Studies, University of Manchester; MSc in Translation Studies, University of Edinburgh) is an Associate Professor of Translation Studies in the School of Education and English and Research Lead of the Research Priority Area in Gender Studies at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China. Her research interests include museum narratives and translation, gender/women/feminism in/and translation, (feminist) translation history, war interpreting/interpreter, translation education, and intercultural communication. She is a member of the Editorial Board of Asian Journal of Women's Studies and of the Journal Translation Horizons.

Thomas Hirzel

Thomas Hirzel is an Assistant Professor in Digital Humanities and Chinese Studies in the School of International Communications, Director of the Digital Heritage Centre and Research Lead of the Research Priority Area in Ningbo Studies at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China. He is a historian, a linguist and a China scholar with an expertise in the analysis of Chinese primary sources and archival research. His research interests include the socio-economic and cultural history of Ningbo and the lower Yangzi region, Chinese cultural heritage and digital humanities, Chinese art history, as well as translation and intercultural communication in Chinese GLAMs.