Translation and Literature in East Asia


Book Description

Translation and Literature in East Asia: Between Visibility and Invisibility explores the issues involved in translation between Chinese, Japanese and Korean, as well as from these languages into European languages, with an eye to comparing the cultures of translation within East Asia and tracking some of their complex interrelationships. This book reasserts the need for a paradigm shift in translation theory that looks beyond European languages and furthers existing work in this field by encompassing a wider range of literature and scholarship in East Asia. Translation and Literature in East Asia brings together material dedicated to the theory and practice of translation between and from East Asian languages for the first time.




Translation and Modernization in East Asia in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries


Book Description

This book discusses how Western ideas, knowledge, concepts and practices were imported, adapted and even transformed into varied contexts in East Asia. In particular, authors in this rich volume focus on the role translation played in the processes of modernization in China, Japan, and Korea in the 19th and early 20th centuries.




Missionary Translators


Book Description

Exploring the history of missionary translation of Christian texts in East Asia, Missionary Translators offers a comparative perspective between the features of East Asian languages and the historical context of the translation. Focusing on the Bible and Christian theological works, it looks at the intersection of linguistics, translation studies and history. This book discusses the real-life challenges faced by missionary translators in producing Christian texts in East Asian languages. Students, historians, scholars and those interested in the study of East Asian cultures or translation will find this book to be an insightful and invaluable resource.




Islam Translated


Book Description

The spread of Islam eastward into South and Southeast Asia was one of the most significant cultural shifts in world history. As it expanded into these regions, Islam was received by cultures vastly different from those in the Middle East, incorporating them into a diverse global community that stretched from India to the Philippines. In Islam Translated, Ronit Ricci uses the Book of One Thousand Questions—from its Arabic original to its adaptations into the Javanese, Malay, and Tamil languages between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries—as a means to consider connections that linked Muslims across divides of distance and culture. Examining the circulation of this Islamic text and its varied literary forms, Ricci explores how processes of literary translation and religious conversion were historically interconnected forms of globalization, mutually dependent, and creatively reformulated within societies making the transition to Islam.




Translation and Literature in East Asia


Book Description

Translation and Literature in East Asia: Between Visibility and Invisibility explores the issues involved in translation between Chinese, Japanese and Korean, as well as from these languages into European languages, with an eye to comparing the cultures of translation within East Asia and tracking some of their complex interrelationships. This book reasserts the need for a paradigm shift in translation theory that looks beyond European languages and furthers existing work in this field by encompassing a wider range of literature and scholarship in East Asia. Translation and Literature in East Asia brings together material dedicated to the theory and practice of translation between and from East Asian languages for the first time.




Routledge Handbook of East Asian Translation


Book Description

Routledge Handbook of East Asian Translation showcases new research and developments in translation studies within the East Asian context. This handbook draws attention to the diversity of scholarship on translation in East Asia, and its relevance to a variety of established and emerging fields. It focuses on hitherto less-explored interactions, such as intra-Asian translation encounters, translation of minority languages, and translation between East Asian and non-European languages, while also contributing to a thriving body of historical scholarship on East Asian translation traditions. Contributions reflect a growing awareness of the cultural and linguistic heterogeneity within nations, and the reality of multilingualism and plurilingualism among many communities in East Asia. A wide variety of translatorial practices are discussed, including the creative use of Chinese in Japanese-language novels, the use of translation to evade censorship online, community theatre translation, and translation of picture books. The volume also includes contributions by practitioners, who reflect on their experiences of translation and of developing training programmes for community interpreters. This handbook will appeal to researchers and students of translation and interpreting studies. Chapters are likely to be of value to those working, not only in East Asian studies, but also disciplines such as literary studies, global cultural studies, and LGBT+ studies.




East Asian Literatures


Book Description

This volume discusses the past, present and future perspectives of literature in Japan, China and South Korea and its interface with India. Since this being a largely unexplored area, an attempt has been made to present a true picture of the literature and cultural milieu of the East Asian countries to the readers through well researched, thought-provoking and enlightening papers contributed by eminent scholars from India, Japan, China and Korea. It is a historical fact that India maintained strong cultural ties with East Asian countries directly or indirectly through religion and culture since ancient times. This cultural bond has become all the more significant and meaningful in this age of information technology and globalization. In this context, literature has a great role to play. To be precise, it is only through literature that this existing bond of cultural affinity among India and East Asian countries could be nurtured and strengthened. This book gives a vivid picture of the state of the past and present literary trends in Japan, China and South Korea, the influence of Indian literary trends and thought on their literatures, and the general perception and assimilation of East Asian literatures in India. This book would be a unique and comprehensive reference material for teachers, researchers, students, writers, and literary critics of Indian and East Asian literatures.




Literary Translation and Cultural Mediators in 'Peripheral' Cultures


Book Description

This book sets the grounds for a new approach exploring cultural mediators as key figures in literary and cultural history. It proposes an innovative conceptual and methodological understanding of the figure of the cultural mediator, defined as a cultural actor active across linguistic, cultural and geographical borders, occupying strategic positions within large networks and being the carrier of cultural transfer. Many studies on translation and cultural mediation privileged the major metropolis of Paris, London, and New York as centres of cultural production and translation. However, other cities and megacities that are not global centres of culture also feature vibrant translation scenes. This book abandons the focus on ‘innovative’ centres and ‘imitative’ peripheries and follows processes of cultural exchange as they develop. Thus, it analyses the role of cultural mediators as customs officers or smugglers (or both in different proportions) in so-called ‘peripheral’ cultures and offers insights into an under-analysed body of actors and institutions promoting intercultural transfer in often multilingual and less studied venues such as Trieste, Tel Aviv, Buenos Aires, Lima, Lahore, or Cape Town.




Literary Sinitic and East Asia


Book Description

In Literary Sinitic and East Asia: A Cultural Sphere of Vernacular Reading, Professor Kin Bunkyō surveys the ‘vernacular reading’ technologies used to read Literary Sinitic through a wide variety of vernacular languages across diverse premodern literary cultures in East Asia.




Asian Translation Traditions


Book Description

Translation Studies, one of the fastest developing fields in the humanities since the early 1980s, has so far been Euro-centric both in its theoretical explorations and in its historical grounding. One of the major reasons for this is the unavailability of reliable data and systematic analysis of translation activities in non-Eurpean cultures. While a number of scholars in the Western tradition of translation studies have become increasingly aware of this bias and its problems, practically indicates that the burden of addressing such defiencies and imbalances should be on the shoulders of scholars who are conversant with the non-Western translation traditions and capable of engaging in much-nedded basic research. This book brings together eleven scholars with expertise in different Asian translation traditions, who highlight language and cultural environments as well as perceptions and modes of operation often different from those in the Western tradition. Their contributions enhance our understanding of the various elements that influence the transfer of knowledge across cultures and provide invaluable data for the study of translation as a force for cultural development and cultural planning. Contributors include Eva Hung, Judy Wakabayashi, Lawrence Wong, Yoshihiro Osawa, Teresa Hyun, Keith Taylor, Rita Kothari, Doris Jedamski, Raniela Barbaza and Bill Cummings.