Exploring the non-substantive aspect of translation through a translanguaging lens

ABSTRACT

“Translanguaging” refers to the dynamic language practice of multilingual users that transcends the boundary between languages and other semiotic resources used in the meaning-making process. This paper explores how “Translanguaging” can be a useful framework for (1) considering the creative use of multifaceted languages as a space of a dynamic embodiment of creative assemblage comprising various distributed linguistic and semiotic elements; and (2) examining how translation can be regarded as a translanguaging practice showing generative interaction between languages and cultures. The Taiwanese novel Tanch’ê shihch’ieh chi and its English translation The Stolen Bicycle offer illuminating locales for such an investigation for its distinctiveness in the original writer’s use of multifaceted languages, including Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, English, and indigenous language. Through a qualitative textual analysis, this paper focuses on the consistent appearance of the direct textual approach and the deployment of non-textual semiotics. These textual and non-textual practices illustrate how the translanguaging acts of multifaceted languages and their translations in a fictional world make such texts visually and acoustically cacophonous. This research argues translanguaging as a conceptual framework can elucidate the non-substantive aspect of translation as a composite of transculturation and inter-linguistic/-semiotic interplay.

KEYWORDS:

• Translanguaging
• multifaceted languages
• non-substantive translation
• transculturation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Semiotics generally refers to the study of signs and symbols. In this research, its adjective form, semiotic, would be used interchangeably as a synonym of non-linguistic, extra-linguistic, and non-textual to refer to supra-segmental features, including bracket, italics, quotation marks, upper cases, etc.

2. Taiwanese, also known as Hokkien, is a variant vernacular of Southern Min similar to the Southern Min dialect spoken in Xiamen, China. Taiwanese is regarded as the local language of Taiwan. As a variant dialect of Southern Min, Hokkien was carried over to Taiwan by Chinese migration from the different regions of China’s southern coastal provinces during the Dutch rule of Taiwan (1624–1662) and after 1684 when the then Qing Dynasty of the Chinese empire incorporated Taiwan as a dependency of Fujian province (Heylen 2005). Since then, Taiwanese has developed its own traits, which includes loan words from indigenous languages and Japanese (Tsao 2000).

3. Taiwanese is spoken by 81.9% of the island’s population, compared to Mandarin’s 83.5%. However, these figures can be misleading. As Taiwan’s education system, media and workplaces have long prioritised Mandarin Chinese, many Taiwanese-speaking citizens can only speak a little Taiwanese to express greetings and basic phrases, which results in a continuous reduction of citizens’ literacy in the Taiwanese language (Hollo 2019).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Science and Technology Council of Republic of China (Taiwan) under research grant number: MOST 110-2410-H-002-088-.

Notes on contributors

Szu-Wen Kung

Szu-Wen Kung is Assistant Professor at the Graduate Program in Translation and Interpretation, National Taiwan University, where she coordinates a number of translation courses, including Translation Practicum - Chinese into English, Translation for Exhibitive Purposes, Translation of Advanced Journalistic Texts, Translation of Social Science Texts, and Industrial Internship Courses. Her research interests lie in cultural turn and sociological approach to translation research, literary translation in cross-cultural and multilingual contexts, nonprofessional translation, and multimodal translation. Her recent publications include a monograph: Translation of Contemporary Taiwan Literature in a Cross-Cultural Context: A Translation Studies Perspective (2021) published by Routledge; and a journal article: “Critical theory of technology and actor-network theory in the examination of techno-empowered online collaborative translation practice: TED Talks on the Amara subtitle platform as a case study” (2021) published by Babel: International Journal of Translation 67 (1).