Henri Mouhot, the French naturalist and explorer is always credited for rediscovering Angkor civilization though he was not the first foreigner to discover Angkor Wat of Cambodia. According to ancient China history, Zhenla (真腊អាណាចក្រចេនឡា) is the ancient name for Cambodia, possibly in a Rajamandala existence—circle of kings which draws the comparison from ancient India emphasizing an otherwise system of kingdom allowing the co-existence of smaller king states physically—as a priori speculated by Oliver William Wolters. The true history of Angkor civilization can be pieced out by Yuan-era diplomat attaché Zhou Daguan’s (Chou Ta Kuan/周达观) Zhenlafengtuji (真腊风土记A Record of Cambodia: The Land and its People or The Customs of Cambodia)—an eye-witnessed, original geographic account of the lives and customs of Cambodians during the Khmer Empire despite at times complacent in deliverance. The rediscovery of Angkor Wat in 1859, the restoration of its glories and popularization across the globe virtually owed ancient Chinese cultural dissemination from the anthropological aspect when Mouhot mistakenly dated Angkor formation to around the same era as Rome. The pivot points of this paper are to reintroduce the cultural contributions and geographic significance of ancient China, including its habitual, faithful recording practice to the ensuing generations through the restoration of Angkor civilization in a situation-inspired approach.
For nearly a century, the composition of classical Chinese poetry had been on the decline, which was caused by the evolution of language and the transformation of education. However, the last decade has seen a rise in classical poetry writing. What most astounds the world is that younger generations have actively joined this writing movement. The objective of this paper is to examine the current phenomenon and the potential factors from the perspective of new liberal arts. Through general observations from students’ works in the composition of Chinese classical poetry, this paper also makes a historical comparison of the education mode between the decline and revival period. The findings indicate that it is information technology that brings back the three-millennia-old artistic form to this new era. The enhancement of information technology has removed the obstacles to accessing poems and has aided the process of writing poems. The revival of classical Chinese poetry composition exerts a far-reaching impact on poetry education in the context of new liberal arts. The results of this paper highlight the necessity of more research in similar areas.
This essay discusses some ancient and medieval examples from Arabic culture, dealing with the task of translating genres that did not exist in the target language. By examining these historical instances, this paper demonstrates that only by adapting innovative techniques can translators translate a genre that has no equivalent in the target language. It shows that the translators must try to enter what Jacques Derrida calls “the protocol of a text” to come closer to grasping the authors’ presuppositions. While it is the responsibility of the translator to choose a suitable method to deal with the challenge of translating a foreign genre, grasping the authors’ presuppositions, understanding the conventions of the target language, and inhabiting the different mansions of the source language are crucial factors in any successful translation. Although bringing the readers to the source language helps them come closer to understand the authors intentions, it can create more complex text for audience unfamiliar with that foreign genre. Finding a similar genre in the target language can be a temporal solution, though it might go against the intentions of the original author.
This paper explores the institutional practices of translating news articles by focusing on ideological representations and editorial guidelines. It also investigates the steps adopted by news translators when transferring news articles with a slight focus on Arabic. The study uses surveys in a form of interviews and questionnaire, which were delivered to a range of journalists and news editors involved in translating news. Their input is qualitatively analysed to find out how translation operates and how ideologies impinge upon translation products in media institutions. The paper enhances our understanding of the role of translators who work within ideologically-driven institutions. In particular, it reveals that the editorial policies of news institutions are not always stated and can at times be hidden. Moreover, a news item can be intentionally altered and news sources can be blurred, so that readers are kept unaware that the target text is a translation from various sources.
This article is concerned with the study of urban spaces, such as cities, suburbs and modes of transportation, and their changing social and political dimensions in Cold War America. To do so, the essay will try to understand how cities and suburbs, post- World War II, evolved in terms of demographic composition and how domestic and foreign policies of the two power blocks impacted this demography. American sociologist, Louis Wirth’s (1996) ideas of expansion of cities and formation of suburbs have been examined against the actual development of American metropolises alongside an exploration of domestic policies, especially those of ‘containment’ and ‘conformity’, and referenced to works of Cold War historians- Robert Genter and Nadel. Having identified the forces governing these spaces, the essay then delves forward to account for the implications of the ‘third space’ in Cold War America. It considers ‘third space’ as a geographic entity, as propounded by historian of urban planning- Edward Soja, and compares the representation of the ‘third space’ in Cold War literary texts to derive its conclusion.
Rhetoric plays an essential role in early modern English education and profoundly influences on Shakespeare’s writings. Furthermore, forensic rhetoric offers a convenient channel through which Shakespeare could discuss such topics as law, justice and sound. Through his masterly use of forensic rhetoric, Shakespeare presents various scenes to audiences of different ages. As one of the “problem plays”, All’s Well That Ends Well also has many applications of forensic rhetoric. Rhetoricians have divided rhetoric into five cannons: inventio, dispositio, memoria, elocutio, and pronuntiatio. However, throughout the studies of Shakespeare’s plays both at home and abroad, there has been a tendency to concentrate almost exclusively on the translation of elocutio, such as word arrangement and style, etc. Few scholars have focused on the translation of Shakespeare’s inventio. Therefore, this paper analyzes the translation of forensic rhetoric in All’s Well That Ends Well.
This paper explores the emergence of an Indian Literature across various periods of Indian history, and the dependence of this national literature upon the anthology form. It investigates how the politics of the anthology form, specifically those of women’s writing, are closely linked to the politics of gender and nationalism, paying close attention to the exclusions and inequalities that are produced by homogenized notions of Indianness and Indian Literature. Through a comparative analysis of three selected anthologies of women’s writing, I analyze how texts are selected for anthologizing, how the anthology is arranged and narrativized, how the reader’s reception of the text is guided through its formal aspects, and how much space is given to translation and translators. The crucial role of translation in the production of such anthologies is underlined throughout the paper, and I contend that feminist translation praxis could be a viable method and approach to intervene in the socio-literary sphere of gender and nationalism.
An illegitimate son of a Russian Jewish immigrant, born in Paris on April 23, 1918 and one of the France’s most prolific men of letters, Maurice Druon made a name for himself as a patriotic egophiliac. Through his critically acclaimed series of historical novels, Les Rois Maudits, and Les Grandes Familles, for example, he intended to revive the long-lost French medieval egotistic glory. With his wartime resistance hymn, “Chant des Partisans”, which he and his uncle, Joseph Kessel, adapted from the Russian-born troubadour Anna Marly’s lyric song, he infused a strong sense of ego in the French fighters against the German wartime occupiers. It was for all such contributions to nation building and for his unflinching determination to promote French linguistic and political culture that he was made Minister of Cultural Affairs in Pierre Messmer’s cabinet (1973-1974), a Deputy of Paris (1978-1981) and a ‘perpetual secretary’ of the Académie Francaise. But in between his writing Les Rois Maudits, as he said in the preface to the story, he wanted to try his hands in something else and ended up writing Tistou Les Pouces Verts. This paper makes use of the properties of ecocritical theory in order to investigate the importance of Maurice Druon’s stride from egotistic to eco-conscious writing meant for children.
This paper highlights the richness associated with having several dialects within the same Italian language system, and specifically discusses the Sicilian dialect that was highly affected by Arabic. The article will also go back historically to introduce “Siqilliya,” examining the Arabic Sicilian lexicology to demonstrate syntactic constructions typically relevant to the Arabic language, and thus exposing the Sicilian Arabism. My main target is to show, through different examples, the interaction between the Sicilian and Arabic languages at the cultural, syntactic, lexicological and grammatical levels. I will also trace some terms used by Andrea Camilleri through his “Commissario Montalbano,” which have become a “modo di dire” or way of speaking that has become an integral part of the Italian language.
This article explores how the institutional and ideological practices of news media can impact on translating news articles by focusing on the ideological representations in media discourse. It tests the hypothesis that hidden ideologies in news texts are changed/re-presented in the process of reformulation, taking into account the translation practices followed by news institutions. The study applies a Critical Discourse Analysis model to analyse issues relayed to representing people and events in a range of media texts. To do this, it uses a corpus of 63 news articles collated from Aljazeera and Al-Arabiya websites to identify the textual, ideological, and institutional representations and alterations happening through translation. It shows that it is possible for a news translator to carry out minor or major alterations to a news story under translation for the purpose of ideologically reorienting their message or text-focus.
As a professional translator and a respected translation scholar, Lawrence Venuti’s intellectual insights and relentless academic endeavors have led to widely acclaimed scholarly publications in the field of Translation Studies, most notably The Translator’s Invisibility (1995), The Scandals of Translation (1998), and Translation Changes Everything (2013).
The construction of new liberal arts emphasizes the humanism of technology, that is, humanities + information technology. With the development of economic globalization and information technology, localization industry came into being. Localization is a new service integrating language technology, information technology and project management technology. The localization industry has an increasing demand for professional talents with professional translation skills and proficient use of translation tools. In the next five years, the localization industry will provide lots of employment opportunities for English majors. For teaching translation to English majors in local colleges, combining the specific situation of local colleges, and based on the characteristics of localization translation, innovating the teaching mode is the key to ensure the cultivation of localized applied translators. Taking Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics Dongfang College as an example, this paper puts forward a new translation teaching model of “Minor Course”, “Learning by Doing” and “Classroom + Practice” to ensure the teaching effect of localization translation.
Referential cohesion in African languages is a largely neglected area of study. Given the foregoing, this study, theoretically anchored on Descriptive Translation Studies and Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) seminal model, explores referential cohesion in the translation of English-Swahili healthcare texts with an endeavour to describe its use and establish if there is variation when texts are translated. Cohesion in translation is fundamental since it is the basis of a network of relations that allows readers to interpret a text. The results show that personals and demonstratives are the most widely used references in both the source and target texts. Further, anaphoric reference is the most prevalent. In addition, it emerged that the translated Swahili text uses more reference items than their English counterparts. This is partly due to explicitation and the nature of the Swahili verb. This study brings to the fore the role of translators in making texts cohesive notwithstanding the reference items used in the source texts.
Written records on little people (Homo floresiensis) or ‘Hobbits’ are legions in either occidental or oriental history, let alone the excavation finding of a 1.06 meter (3.6 feet) 30-year-old adult female at Liang Bua cave on the remote Indonesian island of Flores in 2003. In English and Chinese literature, there are indeed no meagre narratives of little people, let alone the records found in the Chinese historical documentation and Buddhist scriptures as early as 770 BC. The main thrust of this qualitative research is to examine the little people in literature believed to be a different species or new human by comparing English and Chinese mythologies, literary creations with historical documentations and current archeological findings in light of historical research—an approach which identifies social and cultural history drawing from three main sources, namely, primary, secondary and oral tradition where accessible.
Cross-cultural and within-culture variation in conceptual metaphors is a much-debated subject in Cognitive Linguistics research. The theory points out that such variation occurs on a series of dimensions, like social, ethnic, regional, stylistic and subcultural dimensions. The social dimensions consist of the separation of society into people, youthful and old, and working class and average workers. The purpose of this study was to undertake a deeper look at the distinctions caused in metaphorical conceptualization due to the attitude each individual or group of individuals possesses, especially with regard to the economic status of each group. To this end, twenty individuals were selected, with the only variable existing amongst them being their financial status. Each person was asked to write three paragraphs on three separate topics, adding up to sixty paragraphs, in an attempt to try and determine differences in metaphorical conceptualization. The results reveal interesting insights largely supporting the thinking in the theory on individual and cross-cultural variation in Conceptual Metaphors rooted in social agents’ financial statuses. Other research like the current one would contribute to our Cognitive Linguistics understanding of the social dimensions of Conceptual Metaphor variation and universality.
The reading and influence of Mo Yan’s novels are beyond the scope of their own culture and are accepted and recognized by scholars and ordinary readers under the recommendation of western mainstream media publishing houses and Sinologists, despite the fact that there is usually a very low status for Chinese-English translation literature in the western foreign literature translation field, and the translated literature from other languages occupies a rather marginal position in the multicultural literature field of western countries. Using the Sociotranslotological concepts of‘Field’, ‘Cultural Capital’ and ‘Habitus’, this paper analyzes the elements which promote Mo Yan’s works into world literature with the focuses on translators’ habitus in the translated literature field. It is found out that the cultural capital and habitus of Howard Goldblatt, the English version translator of Mo Yan’s works have great contribution in pushing Mo Yan’s novels into the west literature field and promoting their worldwide reading and influence.
The aim of this paper is to examine the correlation between the Orpheus Myth and Atogun’s novel Taduno’s song through the lense of mythopoetics. It also aims at analysing the manner in which the eponymous hero fights against political corruption in particular in Nigeria. The study is important because it enables us discover the ways in which Atogun adapts the Orpheus myth and marries it to his own strategy of fighting corruption so as to address the contemporary political situation in his country, Nigeria. The primary data for this paper is the novel Taduno’s song and the Orpheus myth. Secondary data in the form of works and papers on myth and mythmaking as well as on political corruption have been reviewed and used to support arguments in this paper. A close reading method has been used to analyse words, expressions, situations and contexts in the primary sources in terms of themes and style. The secondary sources have mainly been used to adduce evidence in support of arguments in the paper. The study establishes that Atogun adapts the Greek myth to the Nigerian situation in order to bring the contemporary political situation of his country to the fore. This is because the Orpheus myth encapsulates universal themes that allow it to be adapted to the present century. The study also concludes that evidence from the narrative indicates that in addition to stronger institutions, Africa also needs stronger, morally principled, courageous and selfless citizens who can rise against political corruption anywhere it rears its ugly head in the continent.
The aim of this study is to identify translation by omission and translation by addition procedures within the area of consumer-oriented texts in English-Arabic translation texts of in-flight magazine articles. Nida’s (1964) techniques of adjustment that include both additions and subtractions are adopted to verify the goals of the translation in this study, along with Dickins et al. (2017) and Vinay and Darbelnet (1995) as main references for understanding the theoretical scope of the two notions. Findings show that both procedures could be regarded as general traits in translating consumer-oriented texts from English to Arabic and vice versa.
This paper explores how sexuality and femininity1 are transferred in the Chinese subtitles of the chick flick, Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001). In order to address this question, the article is divided into three main parts. In the first section, a review of how the film is received in the Anglophone and Chinese markets is presented respectively, also including the challenges posted to the subtitlers, e.g. the translation of sexuality and swearing in the discourse of women. The second section offers a theoretical framework that structures the paper, adopting Ernst-August Gutt’s (1986) “Relevance Theory” and Anthony Baldry and Paul Thibault’s (2006) “Multimodality” to examine how the Chinese subtitles work for primarily the Chinese female audiences. What follows is a detailed analysis of two situational categories of recurrent features (swearing and sexuality) in the Chinese subtilties of this chick flick, specifically proving constructions of feminist ideology. The paper concludes that the Chinese subtitles articulates a relatively moderate version compared to the original explicit sexuality and taboo language. Such moderation reflects an increasingly improved entanglement of feminine identity in a contemporary Chinese context.
This paper brings up the history of comparative literature from its beginning to the postcolonial era, discussing the challenges and controversies that have shaped the history of the discipline and practice. Drawing mainly upon Edward Said’s thought, but also other prominent theorists, the paper sketches the evolution of the concept of comparative literature on the one hand, and on the other hand, it shows through some recent examples of transnational and transcultural questions, how difficult it is in the contemporary context of Globalization to preserve the nation as a space and concept of reference for the writing of the history of literature, due to the very fact of the transformation of the nation and its contours in recent decades. It is also about showing that despite the circulation of worlds and the challenge of the nation’s rigid borders by the process of migration among others, the nation is not yet disqualified as a framework and substructure for literary production. It further discusses the relationship between literature and nation in the contemporary context as well as the issues of transnationality and world literariness, using two examples from France and Nigeria.
