Auto-image and norms in source-initiated translation in China

Abstract

This article explores an area that has so far been under-researched in polysystem studies – literary translation initiated by the source culture. The case studied is translation of Chinese literature into English planned by the government of the People’s Republic of China. It is found that in such translations, some Chinese weights and measures were converted into British ones in the 1950s but increasingly conserved since the 1970s. In the meantime, weights and measures tended to be conserved in English–Chinese translation but converted in Chinese–English translation initiated by the target culture. It can be seen that the norms governing translation initiated by the source culture are determined mainly by factors internal to that culture. A probable explanation is that norms governing source-oriented translation are correlated to the auto-image of the source culture, which has been on the rise in the case of China. It is hoped that the findings of this case study may contribute to the augmentation of polysystem theory and Descriptive Translation Studies.

Keywords:

• auto-image
• translation norm
• source-initiated
• Descriptive Translation Studies
• polysystem theory

Notes

1. The price for slight imprecision in terms of weights and measures in fiction is usually not high. However, there is a big difference between nine jin and nine pounds as the weight of a new-born baby. At the time when “Storm in a Teacup” was written or when Old Lady Nine Jin was supposed to be born, one jin was equivalent to about 597 grams or 1.31 lb. Old Lady Nine Jin should have therefore weighed 11.79 lb when she was born, which would have been a rare phenomenon indeed, given that the average weight of a new-born baby is about 7.5 lb even in today’s developed countries. The technique of exaggeration in the source text is lost in the name “Old Mrs. Nine-pounder,” whose weight at birth should have been within the normal or at least the humanly possible range. The translators might have been unaware of this big difference because one jin was equivalent to 500 grams or roughly 1.1 lb when they were translating Lu Xun in the 1950s.

2. The edition I have does not have a publication date, but it should be 1947, according to Yu (2009, 64).

3. As the translation for 兩 (liang, which was one sixteenth of a catty in the time of the story).

4. In spite of the fact that one jin here is equivalent to only half a kilogramme.

5. The term “autonomous creation” is borrowed from Aixelá but redefined. Aixelá’s original definition is “put[ting] in some nonexistent cultural reference in the source text” (Aixelá 1996, 64), which means the introduction of an item specific to the source culture.

6. Such an effort would not have met with much success even if it had been made, given the isolation of China from the West in those days.

7. Foreignization in translation as a means to establish “Sino-English” as a new variety of internationalized English has been put into practice by the Chinese Government. For example, a “theory” credited to Jiang Zemin, a retired President of China and Chairman of the Communist Party of China, that the Communist Party of China “represents the development trends of advanced productive forces,” “represents the orientations of an advanced culture,” and “represents the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people of China,” is called in English the theory of “Three Represents” (China.org.cn n.d.), defying a rule of English grammar that “represent” is a verb instead of a countable noun.