Intercultural Mediation in the Translation of the Self in Travel Writing: A Case Study of Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper

ABSTRACT

Travel writing narrates travellers’ psychological development through mediation in the complex interplay between otherness and identity. Based on the notion that translation embraces personal experience and active transformation of the self through text, this paper manifests travel writing as a translation of the self of the traveller/writer. It aims to investigate intercultural mediation in the traveller’s translation of the self via a case study, Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China, a travel writing classic by Fuchsia Dunlop. We first explore Dunlop’s intercultural mediation by drawing on the concept of acculturation, focusing on her stresses and strategy in acculturation and intercultural adaptation throughout her translation of the self. We then review her ethic of difference in intercultural mediation. Dunlop adopts the integration strategy through intercultural contact. Her attitude towards Chinese culinary culture changes from an unconscious core belief in ethnocentrism to an acknowledgement of ethnorelativity, finally achieving an intercultural adaptation. Dunlop’s memoir provides an opportunity to look at a broadening concept of translation, which is to examine the translation of the self in an intercultural context, particularly changes in translators’ attitudes towards cultural difference: ignore it or open up to it.

KEYWORDS:

• Intercultural mediation
• travel writing
• translation of the self
• acculturation
• Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper
• Chinese culinary culture

View correction statement:

Correction

Disclosure statement

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

Correction Statement

This article was originally published with errors, which have now been corrected in the online version. Please see Correction (https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2023.2234167)

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pan Xie

Pan Xie is an Assistant Professor in Translation Studies at the Department of Foreign Languages of Southwest Jiaotong University. His interest lies in Translation Studies, particularly in the literary translations between Chinese and English in the twenty-first century. He has published several articles on Translation Studies in SSCI, A&HCI, and CSSCI journals such as Translation and Interpreting Studies, Translation Review, Journal of language and Politics, Chinese Translator Journals. His recent research draws on cultural back-translation, particularly the Chinese translation of English literary writing about China. E-mail: [email protected].

Xiaoxiao Xin

Xiaoxiao Xin is a Lecturer in the School of Foreign Languages, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST). She holds a PhD in Translation Studies. Her main research interests lie in translation theory and practice, literary translation, translation criticism, and translator studies. She has published some papers on translation studies in SSCI, A&HCI and CSSCI journals such as Perspectives: Studies in Translation Theory and Practice, Meta: Translators’ Journal, International Research in Children’s Literature, and Shanghai Journal of Translators. E-mail: [email protected].