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#8 Historical Study - Spring 2010 - 筆譯研究方法專論

張貼者： NTNU GITI BLOG on 2010年2月22日 星期一
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#8 Historical Study
劉禾【跨語際實踐】（Lydia Liu, Translingual Practice）

7 意見:

charlotte wu 提到...
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2010年4月9日 晚上11:38
Craig 提到...

It is often noted that languages are alive and therefore continually evolving, and analyzing this evolution with respect to colonial practices seems likely to produce some interesting scholarship. Liu's project strives to analyze the shifting value of foreign concepts as they are grafted onto a host culture, and how this analysis reveals power relations underlying forms of representation and culture-building projects. Liu's example of “modern” versus 現代 (or 摩登), while situated in late Qing early Republican Era histories, also reveals much about Taiwan's more recent culture building projects (one of which actively involves me), specifically in light of the terms 後現代 (or 當代). Analyzing the various points of contact between usage and overt and implied ideological meaning of these terms in Taiwan and the West reveals much about local values, self perceptions and positioning in the global hierarchy. One such reading involves the implied leadership of western “progress” and Taiwan's alignment with powers off its eastern coast. This points to an interesting irony, as one trajectory of “post” ideologies in America is the wholesale critique of “progress” under late 19th/early 20th century modernist projects, and a reëvaluation of non-western modes of thinking and being which may be kinder on ourselves and the world. The point is these terms have evolved separately after the initial points of contact (contact is continually renewed), and have come to mean very different things conceptually, affectively and politically. Other examples are too easily found, and not long ago I translated an essay about the importation of the word consciousness into Chinese from the West in the 19th century. The author's position was that the meaning of 意識, evolving against traditional Chinese perspectives of holism and fluidity, has necessarily become much more than its English antecedent, and actually has taken on the meaning of perception which is in direct opposition to the English logos-based definition of consciousness (I happen to disagree with the Mainland writer on this point, but still there is an awareness of the redefining of imported concepts through ideology). What I find interesting about these discussion is that it has direct application in our practice as translators (unlike theories which merely note down “calque” as an observable phenomenon), as uttering a statement is impossible without some degree of ideological framing, and this, taken together with the translator's task of restating or rewriting, means we must be sensitive to the deeper cultural nuances of terms that may seem equivalent on the surface.

Liu's reconceptualizing of 'source' and 'target' as 'guest' and 'host' is also interesting, as it emphasizes dual agency in the flow of information. Also, 'host' allows for the ongoing interpretation of meaning, whereas 'target' is conceptualized as a place where a trajectory stops. Focusing on the 'host' culture's agency in deriving meaning may relieve us of the clichéd foreignization/domestication dichotomy, as it seems meaning must be domesticated in order to be understood or put to use, and this realization makes foreignization look like another myth of translation.

2010年4月20日 中午12:18
charlotte wu 提到...

In these two chapters (Chapter 1 and Chapter 7), Liu discusses two rather important issues in translation: the translated modernity in translation as a translingual practice and the perspectives of ‘national literature’ formed by literary criticism in the May Fourth epoch. Several issues in her discussion interest me quite a lot.

First, in terms of translation as translingual practice, as the title of the book suggests, this could be seen as the most fundamental issue of this book. I think the reason that Liu tries to use translingual practice to talk about translation lies in her seeing translation not merely as language exchange, but, more importantly, as cultural dialogues. In her discussion of the ‘Sino—Japanese—English’ loan translation, we can see that translation is not restricted in exchanging ‘linguistic products’. Rather, I would say that translation involves a series of ‘appropriation—incorporation’ between cultures which induces further ‘appropriation—incorporation’ in linguistic or sign systems. I think the trope of translation as a round-trip dissemination is a very good example of the intricate dialogues between culture and linguistic systems. That is why I also share with her viewpoint of ‘indigenous Chinese can no longer be so easily separated out from the exogenous Western’ (p.30). In my point of view, when we are distinguishing the famous issue of ‘self’ and ‘other’, it can never be a simply ‘either-or’ question. In the numerous cases we have seen in translation (e.g. Buddhist Sutra translation or the translation in the May-Fourth epoch), part of the ‘other’ may come from the ‘self’, and vise versa. Therefore, the simple linearity of language exchanging that most people assumed in translation is, to a great extent, an illusion.

Second, Liu also talks about ‘equivalence’. She argues that equivalence is ‘hypothetical’. I agree with her contention of seeing translation not as the swapping between equivalents but as creating a middle zone between host and guest languages. I would even suggest that this zone created by translation is not only the middle zone between language systems but also the contact area between cultures. I am also interested in the idea of not seeing the non-existence of equivalents as lacking/ inferiority of culture. To be honest, using the example of introducing ‘piano’ to New Guinea which I’ve talked about in our class, originally, I would also see this kind of introduction as a kind of ‘enriching’ to the aboriginal culture. But, as Liu suggests, this non-existence of equivalents may simply imply a belated translated modernity rather than the inferiority of culture system. And it reminds me that by seeing the non-existence of equivalents as a ‘lack’, I am simply using nothing but a standard of material development to judge the degree of sophistication of a culture. Maybe if we are viewing the degree of sophistication of a culture through the relation between men and nature, the result could be totally opposite. This observation, for me, is a very good reminder to be more cautious about the standard of value judgment entrenched in our point of views.

Third, in terms of the discussion on the literary criticism of national literature, I also share similar viewpoint with Liu’s idea of seeing feminist criticism as a way of reading and intervention. In fact, I would even say that what I’ve gained from these two chapters is that translation is also a kind of reading and intervention that creates the contact zone between cultures.

2010年4月20日 下午2:30
Elaine Lee 提到...

This week we read Lydia H. Liu’s Translingual Practice in which the author tries to look at translation from a historical perspective. In the introduction chapter, she gives several questions to interrogate, or sometimes, challenge my perception towards the notion of translation and the semantic/linguistic transferring process I usually take for granted. Rather than resorting to debates on issues such as translatability/East-West power confrontation, I feel that the author intends to lead us to look something beyond especially in terms of Chinese language by critiques of Steiner and Benjamin and introduction of some interesting theory and points raised by Said, Rafael, or Tejaswini. Her point strongly suggests that one must seek ‘the occurrences of historical contact, interaction, translation and the travel of words and ideas between languages,’ in order to avoid the dilemma of transhistorical/transdiscursive approach and cultural relativism when it comes to translation. She further gave us an example of the term geren zhuyi and its neologistic equivalent of Japanese Kojin Shugi from English ‘individualism’ which should be examined in a historical/translingual context. It is especially interesting when she talks about the travels of certain terms by Said’s traveling theory. Indeed, she also argues that Chinese language not only changes in itself but interacted and fused with other language systems mainly from Japanese, which originally borrowed words from classic Chinese and later imported back reversely, leading to loanwords and neologisms. I am wondering if traces of terms back to their origins in history could apply to every term we encounter in translation, and modern technology, as we discussed last time, may be also of great help here. Yet her view offers a good perspective to re-think equivalence theory. Moreover, the influence from other language systems reminds me of the discussion we had in the classroom last week concerning how Middle Asian and Indian translators contributed to Chinese languages in Buddist Sutra translation activities last for several centuries. In this way, if we take a wider perspective on translation activities, the ‘guest’ culture the translator face is actually multi-layered and manifold. What I originally believe translating operating between two cultures may turn out to be multicultures vs. multicultures. In other words, translation is not simply transferring meaning ‘within the horizon of an absolutely pure, transparent, and unequivocal translatability.’ Additionally, I totally agree to her view that she sees non-European languages not a site of resistance to European languages but a neglected area to be observed and investigated of its discursive context in connection with other linguistic environments. Later in her book, she applies her view to contradictory conditions and contending voices in literary works by using Xiao Hong’s The Field of Life and Death as a case study. In her analysis, the female protagonists are much more manifested themselves through in life and death, a different interpretation from that of a male critic. Also she tries to re-position Xiao Hong’s works in Chinese literary criticism and discusses the reason why her works are situated in national literature canon. I think her demonstration of re-analyzing a literary work could be inspiring for translators to pay more attention to certain ignored and stereotyped characters or cultures.

2010年4月20日 下午5:25
more from Craig 提到...

In Chapter 7 Liu tackles the construction of national literature in China and offers a gendered reading of Xiao Hong's The Field of Life and Death. Liu's reading focuses on the text's traditional placement in the patriarchal narrative of nation building, anti-imperialism and war. Lui sees the female body being sacrificed to nationalist agenda, making a specific reference to rape victims meant to incite public outrage at Japanese atrocities. Liu claims nationalism is a predominantly male-centered discourse, since women are not depicted as having agency, ownership and right to dominate, but rather are treated as property themselves. Xiao Hong, since she choose to participate in male-centered discourses of national survival and anti-imperialist struggle, rather than trivial (trivialized) concerns of women was canonized by early 20th century male critics in China, and metaphorically sacrificed to male dominated discourses.

Liu's reading seems to suggest Iragary's notion of “the sex which is not one” where “male” is the sole gender, and “female” only serves as a marked dependency, or negation. Iragary sought to establish feminine writing as residing outside of phallogocentric discourse, and independent of it for definition. If it were not for the dependency on western theory, it would seem possible that Liu may be inserting Xiao Hong into this tradition of French feminism.

In a similar vein, it is interesting to note that late martial law readings of Bai Xianyong's Neizi by 張小紅 and 龍應台and others contended his book was an allegory of cross strait relations —a patriarchal mainstream discourse —and had nothing to do with homosexuality.

2010年4月20日 下午6:12
Unknown 提到...

In this week’s reading Lydia Liu discusses the problem of language in cross-cultural studies as well legitimation and building of national identity in China. Liu is interested in investigating the process of translation and its implications for cross-cultural understanding. She is particularly interested in circumstances surrounding the act in which scholars cross over language barriers between different cultures or language communities. One of the central questions proposed by Liu’s work is, as she states in the first chapter, “In whose terms, for which linguistic constituency, and in the name of what kinds of knowledge or intellectual authority does one perform acts of translation between cultures?” With this question Liu is basically challenging us to re-evaluate the plethora of assumptions that are made, and accepted, whenever scholars from one culture attempt to understand/explain information or characteristics of another culture. In “Translingual Practice” it seems that Liu would like to strike at the very core of the ground on which these assumptions are made. She claims that we must “confront forms of institutional practices and the knowledge/power relationships that authorize certain ways of knowing while discouraging others.”
Chapter one of “Translingual Practice” begins to address this issue by investigating the assumptions inherent in Western notions about the nature of the ‘other’. In particular, Liu discusses notions of universal categorization such as self, language, and nation. Much of the discussion is presented in light of the interesting history built into many modern Chinese neologisms. As Liu points out, many of these neologisms have been borrowed into Chinese as Japanese translations of European terms. According to Liu, this borrowing may occur in one of three ways: (1) words that existed in pre-modern Japanese but not in classical Chinese; (2) classical Chinese expressions used by the Japanese to translate Western terms that were then imported back into Chinese with a radical change in meaning; (3) modern Japanese compounds. The occurrences of these borrowings, according to Liu, are important to the formation/transformation of sensibilities throughout China. Liu’s study emphasizes the historical importance of not only translation but also of the words themselves; she explains, “Words, texts, discourse, and vocabulary enter one’s scholarship as veritable historical accounts per se, not just as sources of information about something more important than themselves.”...........

2010年4月20日 晚上7:18
Unknown 提到...

.......In chapter seven, Liu continues her discussion of the problem of language in cross-cultural studies and its relationship to words and translation; she also begins to analyze the connections between words as literature and their relationship to the phenomena of legitimation and national identity in 20th century China. Liu also addresses the issue of gender as it relates not only to literature, legitimation, and the building of national identity, but also as it relates to literary criticism. In particular, she discusses the case of Xiao Hong’s work titled, “Field of Life and Death.” Unfortunately, to me, Liu’s attempt at a gendered reading of Hong’s work comes off as being quite a stretch. Of particular disappointment is Liu’s claim that Hong’s novel, “…does not espouse the Buddhist faith of some of its characters…[but instead] it stresses the plight of the female body, locating the meaning of its suffering in the immediate socioeconomic context of this world rather than in a world of karma.” Last time I checked, ‘this world’ and the ‘world of karma’ were not two different places! On the following line Liu continues, “Death, for example, is a horrible disintegration of the body rather than the ultimate escape from the distresses of life.” Apparently, Liu’s seemly less than rudimentary understanding of Buddhist doctrine has caused her to make the assumption that death described as ‘a horrible disintegration of the body’ is not congruent with Buddhist views, whereas, she seems to feel that to a Buddhist death would be described as the ‘ultimate escape from the distresses of life’. I guess she has never heard of the concept of 輪迴, which, interestingly, may also be referred to as 生死, the title of Hong’s novel.

2010年4月20日 晚上7:18

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