Unlike Venuti, who obviously has the political agendas of challenging the hegemony of the Anglo-American culture and improving the status of translators, Chinese scholars argue for yihua just to show their enthusiasm for learning from other cultures, especially the West.
In China many people advocate that a strategy of “foreignization first and domestication second” should be adopted in English-Chinese translation (Sun Zhili, 2003:48), while in Chinese-English Chinese translation, “domestication should be used as much as possible” (Xu Jianping et al, 2002:36).
In recent years, most Chinese scholars use “domesticating” and “foreignizing” for their English Chinese translations of guihua / yihua, and some quote from Venuti (1995) in their discussions. What must not be forgotten is that domestication as much as possible in Chinese translation into English and the foreignization-first strategy in English-Chinese translation might be exactly what Venuti is against. One should never just take Venuti’s terms and forget the contexts in which they are used and the purposes they serve.
Context plays a significant role in the justification and determination of Chinese translation strategies. For example, archaism is seen as guihua or domesticating in Chinese discussions but foreignizing in Venuti’s. For Venuti, archaism results in historical remoteness but this is not necessarily the case in Chinese translation. Since the classical dialect is actually pure Chinese, while modern Chinese is heavily influenced by European languages, the use of archaism in Chinese translation means return to traditional Chinese values, which is surely domesticating.
“People [in China] tend to understand the new Western Chinese translation terms from their own perspective and translate them into traditional Chinese terminology. In consequence, the introduced foreign theories become deformed, are domesticated by traditional Chinese theories and cannot possibly enlarge the views of the Chinese scholars. ….”(Lin Kenan, 2001:14) Equating guihua/yihua with domestication/foreignization is a case in point.
An increasing number of Chinese scholars opt for “domesticating” / “foreignizing” for their English Chinese translations of guihua/yihua and quote Venuti to justify their argument for foreignization in English-Chinese translation. But one must not forget that the Chinese discussions of guihua/yihua are similar to the old literal/free debates; guihua/yihua and domesticating/foreignizing have different origins and meanings and are used in different contexts for different purposes. One must never confuse a traditional discussion of Chinese translation methods with political Chinese translational theory.
Chinese translation:www.sytra.cn/
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This entry was posted on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 4:37 pm and is filed under 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, Uncategorized.
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