Fathoming Translation as Discursive Experience

Chunshen Zhu is currently Professor of Translation Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen), Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Translation, Hong Kong Baptist University, and Adjunct Professor at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. Prior to this, he was a professor at the City University of Hong Kong.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Introduction: Towards a positive study of translation








3+1 childhood diseases



‘Theory’



‘Theories’ or ‘turns’



Relativity of validity



Bourdieu’s language theory revisited



Insights from Friedman and Iser
1.6.1 Friedman’s (1953) characterization of positive economics outlined

1.6.2 Iser’s (2006) conceptual framework of critical theory outlined




Positive translation studies



Between theory and practice: Theorization and application



About this book



Chapter Two

Structure of Meaning (SOM): Making of meaning and Triggering of discursive experience

2.1 Preamble

2.2 Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL): Translation as text re-creation

2.3 Speech acts: Intentionality in translation

2.4 Structure of Meaning: An integrated three-dimensional model of meaning making

2.4.1 The compositional dimension

2.4.2 The interactional dimension

2.4.3 The experiential dimension

2.5 Relationships between the dimensions of SOM

2.5.1 Dimensions of SOM: A generic view

2.5.2 SOM: Form and substance

2.6 Translation: A discursive experience in three dimensions

2.7 Summary

Chapter Three

From structure to experience: Meaning making in translation

3.1 Preamble

3.2 What we have understood about translation: A brief overview

3.3 Sense, meaning, and meaning making

3.4 Dynamics of meaning making: Ingarden’s conception of ‘moments’

3.5 Reading and experiencing: A tryout

3.6 Experiment with focus management in translation

3.6.1 A linguistics text in translation

3.6.2 The opening sentence of The Old Man and the Sea in Chinese translation

3.6.3 A linguistics text in translation re-examined: Management of information focus

3.7 Discussion and conclusion

Chapter Four

The Sentence as Unit of Translation (UT): From function to experience

4.1 Preamble

4.2 Between text and sentence: UT redefined

4.3 Case study one: Within and beyond a sentence

4.4 Case study two: From sentence to text

4.4.1 Textual integrity of sentences in the source text

4.4.2 A translation experiment from the perspective of textual integrity

4.5 Discussion and conclusion

Chapter Five

Augmentation of transitivity: Modification and attention management in translation

5.1 Att- and adv-modification: A preliminary framework

5.2 Modification: To indicate, to describe, or to define

5.3 Comparability between att- and adv-modification in attention management

5.4 Modification: Information distribution and attention management

5.5. From external to internal modification: Looking into a word

5.5.1 Meaning structured in a word

5.5.2 Internal modifiers: Morphemic and sememic

5.6. From morphemic to sememic modification: Looking into a morpheme

5.6.1 Word meaning development and its implications for translation

5.6.2 ‘Skewed’ correspondence and its implications for translation

5.7 False and pseudo morphemic modifiers

5.7.1 False morphemic modifiers

5.7.2 Pseudo morphemic modifiers

5.8 Attention management and manipulation through modification: Three case examples

5.8.1 Angry Birds, Twelve Angry Men, etc.

5.8.2 The Wife

5.8.3《鋼的琴》‘steel deatt qin’

5.9 Summary

Chapter Six

Touching base with text: Repetition and signification in translation

6.1 Preamble

6.2 What kind of linguistics?

6.3 Why (not) literary texts and literary translation?

6.4 Leitmotif as VTU in literary translation: The mapping of a textual network

6.5 Operation of leitmotif as VTU: Case examples

6.5.1 From Chinese translations of John Galsworthy’s The Apple Tree

6.5.2 From Chinese translations of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

6.6 Discussion: Textual network, effect, and apurposiveness of literary translating

6.6.1 Accountability for the network of signification: Leitmotif as VTU

6.6.2 The apurposiveness of artistic creation: From illocutionary to perlocutionary

6.7 Conclusion

Chapter Seven

Language in action: Syntactic iconicity and translation

7.1 Of arbitrariness and iconicity: From language to text

7.2 Syntactic iconicity: Form, function, effect

7.3 Iconicity as ‘foreignization’ in creative writing: Wang Meng’s ‘The Eye of Night’

7.3.1 Case One: Iconicity of short sentences

7.3.2 Case Two: Iconicity in a long sentence

7.4 Iconic in translation: To be, or not to be

7.5 Conclusion

Chapter Eight

Deceptive language and conflict of experience: Text (re)production and dissemination through translation

8.1 Situation, culture and text (re)production

8.1.1 Relating skill to situation

8.1.2 Culture: Its behavioural dimension of tool making

8.1.3 From tool making to sign making

8.1.4 Text as sign

8.1.5 Cultural awareness in text (re)production and dissemination

8.2 Text (re)production and dissemination: A case study

8.2.1 The historical situation of the source text production

8.2.2 A present-day situation of translation

8.3 Critique and discussion

8.3.1 The translation as a primary sign

8.3.2 The translation as a secondary sign

8.4 Conclusion

Index