Multidimensional analysis allows for the comparison of registered features of multiple translations from the same source text through the identification of potential latent factors from the convergence of observed factors. Based on the self-built Chinese translation corpus of the English book The Wealth of Nations, this paper adopts a multidimensional analysis to investigate the register features of three Chinese translations. Principal component analysis reveals that the three Chinese translations are found to be different in five dimensions. Among these, Personal Narration and Personal Stance are the most salient dimensions, highlighting a diachronic increase in translators' authorial presence and evaluative involvement. Generally, it can be concluded from the shifts of translation styles as "specificity-authority-involvement." Variations of dimensions can be interpreted with reference to Bourdieu's framework, showing how translators' positioning is influenced by concepts of field, capital, and habitus. A combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis could advance the understanding of linguistic variations in the translation styles and potential mechanisms lying behind.
Although The Tale of Genji, a monumental literary endeavour and a cornerstone of Japanese culture, has been explored from a multitude of research perspectives including feminist and queer frameworks, its translations are yet to be viewed through a gendered lens. Of particular interest are elements of the novel that change their meaning with shifting understanding of sexuality and moral codes, which offer a multitude of interpretations for translators working under different socio-political and cultural circumstances. This paper selects textual references to same-sex desire between men as one such element, and compares how the two iconic English translations by Waley (1935) and Seidensticker (1976) approached parts of the novel that would have been seen as taboo in their respective time and place. The case study provides insight into the shifting approaches to translations of queer texts, and questions some of the assumptions about the linear developments in the history of translation.
This study examines political naming as a narrative and translational mechanism in Susan Abulhawa's Mornings in Jenin and its Arabic translation Baynam & amacr; Yan & amacr;m al-'& Amacr;lam, translated by S. S. Tamimi. Drawing on the narrative theory of translation and postcolonial approaches, the article argues that naming practices - such as "Jew," "Zionist," "Israeli," and spatial labels like "closed military zone" or "den of terror" - function not as neutral descriptors but as technologies of power that organize agency, legitimacy, and moral evaluation. Through close qualitative analysis of selected English - Arabic paired excerpts, the study demonstrates how political naming structure perceptions of threat, normalizes militarization, criminalizes space, and disrupts kinship relations. The analysis further shows that Tamimi's Arabic translation largely preserves the source text's heterolingual tension and narrative framing, thereby sustaining rather than mitigating the ideological force of naming. By conceptualizing translation as re-narration, the article highlights how translational choices redistribute political meaning and ethical positioning across linguistic contexts. Ultimately, the study foregrounds political naming as a central narrative device through which memory, violence, and recognition are negotiated in both original and translated texts.
Is Cantonese Opera translatable? Can verbal music be reproduced in translation? And what makes an effective translation in translating performative texts? This article, by drawing upon theories from modern translation studies, takes Hong Kong translator C.C. Jane Lai and her English translation of the Cantonese Opera Farewell My Concubine as a case study. It investigates how the translator made her own endeavors to reproduce verbal music in light of performability, readability, and acceptability. The major focus of the article is on the strategies and norms adopted and the aesthetic effect achieved in the receptor culture.
This article examines how Isaac Taylor Headland's Chinese Mother Goose Rhymes (1900) constructs a transnational image of Chinese childhood through intertwined processes of translation, visual mediation, and ideological framing. Moving beyond previous text-focused studies, it foregrounds the collection's intermedial dimension. Using a three-tier framework of textual mediation, intermedial interaction, and ideological interplay, the study analyses 140 translated rhymes together with 124 photographs and illustrations. Ideology is treated as a lens permeating the textual and visual layers. The findings show that Headland's translation domesticate culturally specific elements, aligning the rhymes with Anglophone ideas of childhood innocence and play. Meanwhile, the photographs employ composition, framing, and viewing positions to produce typologised and sentimentalised images of Chinese children. Together, these strategies construct a culturally accessible yet ideologically mediated image of Chinese childhood, effectively reframing the collection as a curated cultural artefact aligned with missionary and colonial expectations. By integrating translation studies with visual and multimodal analysis, this study reconceptualises translation as an intermedial process of cultural mediation that not only represents but also structures cross-cultural perception, offering new insights into the historical construction of global childhoods.
The Three Non-yi (san buyi(sic)(sic)(sic)) constitute the core of Dao'an's(sic)(sic) (312-385 CE) translation thought, yet their interpretation has remained unsettled across more than a millennium. Earlier scholarship has generally offered two readings - not easy and not alterable. Drawing on a comprehensive review of Dao'an's own prefatory writings on translation practice and critique, and on the Chinese philological tradition that understands the character yi ((sic)) simultaneously as jianyi(sic)(sic) (simplicity), bianyi(sic)(sic) (alteration), and buyi(sic)(sic) (immutability), this article argues that the key to recovering Dao'an's intent lies in prudence (shen(sic)), his sincerity of "true-heart" directed toward translation. Dao'an's formulation of the Three Non-yi is not merely a portrayal of the perennial tensions of translatability; it also offers an ethical perspective that supplements the ethic of faithfulness and helps redress the prevalent misunderstandings associated with contemporary deconstructionist approaches. "How could one not exercise the utmost prudence" ((sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)): this admonition encapsulates a praxis that seeks the immutable within the mutable and accepts the necessity of alteration in order to preserve what must not be altered. This dialectical orientation embodies Dao'an's acute linguistic observation, practical wisdom, and scrupulous translation ethics, offering enduring guidance for later Chinese translation theory and practice.
This essay explores the English translation and discussion of Tao Qian's (sic)(sic)((sic)(sic)(sic), circa 365-427) Chinese poetry by various translators and literary critics in the West. Arthur Waley, William Empson, Jonathan Culler, James Hightower, Eugene Eoyang, and others have resorted to Tao's one particular poem "Change of Seasons" (sic)(sic) to advance their ideas about literary theory, comparative literature, and Sinology. An old Chinese poem has gained new life in a continuous cycle of translation, interpretation, and circulation in the world republic of letters.
This article examines Su Manshu's poetry translation against the backdrop of the critical transitional phase from classical to modern Chinese literature by introducing "stylistic interference" as both a theoretical framework and a methodological lens for analysis. Drawing on Geoffrey Leech's stylistic theory and Sherry Simon's notion of creative interference, this study posits stylistic interference as a deliberate act of alteration - one that reframes the original stylistic features, often at the expense of the formal integrity of the source text. Through close textual analysis, the article delineates three principal modes of stylistic interference: omission, transformation, and the introduction of new stylistic deviations. This study argues that Su Manshu leveraged these modes to simultaneously engage with Western poetic structures while reaffirming classical Chinese aesthetics. By so doing, this study proposes that stylistic interference operates not merely as a strategy of poetic domestication but as a constitutive means of asserting creative agency. This theoretical thinking moves beyond traditional binaries of fidelity and rewriting, contributing to translation studies and stylistics by advancing a systematic framework for examining stylistic transformation as creative rewriting in the act of poetry translation.
"Civil governance" (wenzhi (sic)(sic)) was a key feature of ancient Chinese society, emphasizing ideological control through cultural policies. During the Qing dynasty, translating Han Chinese texts extended wenzhi by aligning translation with Confucian orthodoxy and political needs. The Five Classics were translated, printed, and used in imperial exams and Banner schools to educate Manchu Bannermen, refine morals, and promote orthodox learning. For rulers, these translations facilitated cultural assimilation and governance, while for the populace, they provided access to mainstream Han academic traditions. Since moral education was central to governance, the translation of the Five Classics played a crucial role in ethical indoctrination, statecraft reform, and loyalty to the sovereign.
Adversity explicitation is the verbalization of the covert adversity textual meaning in translation. This paper reports a case study of the Chinese stereotypical adversative (sic) "but" as the translation explicitation from the source language of English. The study is carried out on corpora of three different genres: international legislation, financial editorial, and public speech. The quantitative results show adversity explicitation as genre-general as well as genre-specific. The qualitative analysis then attributes genre-specific adversity explicitations to the "imported" intersubjectivity argumentation in international legislation and to the hybridization of this discourse meaning with lexico-grammatical and pragmatic features of the target language. Genre-general adversity explicitations are attributed to English-Chinese contrasts in information structuring. Chinese adversity explicitations can be the choices by the translator to recreate the topic continuity and asymmetric information structure in discourse. The findings of this study suggest how discourse context decides the language pair-specific type of explicitation. It is argued that a motivated and adequate explanation for translation explicitation should be in the framework of cross-linguistic contrasts in genre norms and information structure.
In today's digitally mediated world, international advertising campaigns increasingly rely on artificial intelligence to create, adapt and deliver persuasive messages across cultural and linguistic boundaries. The paper explores how AI is reshaping the discourse of global advertising and what this means for linguists, translators, and intercultural communication specialists. From transcreation to cultural misfires, the study examines real-world cases where slogans or brand names succeeded - or spectacularly failed - to resonate with their intended audiences. Drawing on such examples from both recent and more dated campaigns, the paper addresses the linguistic and extralinguistic strategies used in localisation, highlighting both the potential and the pitfalls of algorithmically driven communication. Ethical questions surrounding content authenticity, cultural sensitivity, and the role of human oversight in AI-generated messaging are also discussed. Emphasis is placed on best practices that integrate technological innovation with linguistic expertise and intercultural awareness. The paper concludes with reflections on the future of international advertising and the critical role of applied linguistics in navigating this evolving terrain.
