From Margin to Mainstream: Retranslation of Early Chinese History

Öz

This paper sets out to examine the diachronic movement of the three English versions of Zuozhuan 左傳 (Commentary of Zuo) by James Legge ([1872] 1991), Burton Watson (1989), and Stephen Durrant, Wai-yee Li, and David Schaberg (2016) with the time span of nearly one century and a half based on paratextual analysis. Zuozhuan, listed as one of the thirteen ‘Chinese canons,’ is the core Confucian narrative history recording the turbulent period in the pre-Qin dynasty between 722–468 BCE. The current literature often involves the examination of its narrative, key words interpretation, and comparative study with other historiographies; however, there has been little discussion about the English translations of the historical texts. Drawing on Lawrence Venuti’s retranslation theory, the present study explores the retranslation of Zuozhuan in terms of the translators’ agency, the intertextual relationship with the other historiographies, and the role of history. Our results indicate that Legge explores the comparative and the scholarly value from the Victorian moral standard and Protestant ideology. Watson, by contrast, places priority on its narrative feature in the late twentieth century. Durrant et al. highlight literariness and the scholarly and the pragmatic value at the start of the new millennium. The research reveals the translators’ endeavor to change the status of early Chinese history from periphery to centrality through literary features and easier accessibility while preserving the academic value. This research not only sheds new light on the cause and value of the retranslations but also investigates the application of the retranslation hypothesis on the newly-targeted data of the historical canon.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• retranslation;
• agent;
• intertextuality;
• historical moment
• paratextual;
• Zuozhuan

Kaynakça

1. AsiaNow. 2018. “AsiaNow Speaks with the Translators of Zuo Tradition/Zuozhuan.” May 1. Accessed March 11, 2020. https://www.asianstudies.org/asianow-speaks-with-the-translators-of-zuo-traditionzuozhuan/.
2. Austin, John L. 1962. How to Do Things with Words. London: Oxford University Press.
3. Balcom, John. 2005. “An Interview with Burton Watson.” Translation Review 70 (1): 7–12. doi:10.1080/07374836.2005.10523916.
4. Bensimon, Paul. 1990. “Présentation.” [Presentation.] Palimpsestes, no. 4, ix–xiii. https://journals.openedition.org/palimpsestes/598.
5. Berman, Antoine. 1990. “La retraduction comme espace de traduction.” [Retranslation as a translation space.] Palimpsestes, no. 4, 1–7. doi:10.4000/palimpsestes.596.
6. Brooks, A. Taeko. 2003. “Heaven, Li, and the Formation of the Zuozhuan左傳.” Oriens Extremus 44 (2003/04): 51–100. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24047568.
7. Brownlie, Siobhan. 2006. “Narrative Theory and Retranslation Theory.” Across Languages and Cultures 7 (2): 145–170. doi:10.1556/Acr.7.2006.2.1.
8. Bywood, Lindsay. 2019. “Testing the Retranslation Hypothesis for Audiovisual Translation: The Films of Volker Schlöndorff Subtitled into English.” Perspectives 27 (6): 815–832. doi:10.1080/0907676X.2019.1593467.

9. Deane-Cox, Sharon. 2014. Retranslation: Translation, Literature and Reinterpretation. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
10. Desmidt, Isabelle. 2009. “(Re)translation Revisited.” Meta 54 (4): 669–683. doi:10.7202/038898ar.
11. Di Giovanni, Elena. 2017. “New Imperialism in (Re)translation: Disney in the Arab World.” Perspectives 25 (1): 4–17. doi:10.1080/0907676X.2016.1234490.
12. Durrant, Stephen. 1992. “Smoothing Edges and Filling Gaps: Tso Chuan and the ‘General Reader.’” Journal of the American Oriental Society 112 (1): 36–41. doi:10.2307/604583.
13. Durrant, Stephen, Wai-yee Li, and David Schaberg, trans. 2016. Zuo Tradition/Zuozhuan: Commentary on the “Spring and Autumn Annals.” By Zuo Qiuming. 3 vols. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
14. Garnaut, Ross. 2012. “China: New Engine of World Growth.” In China: New Engine of World Growth, edited by Ross Garnaut and Ligang Song, 1–18. Canberra: Asia Pacific.
15. Genette, Gérard. 1997. Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation. Translated by Jane E. Lewin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
16. Giddens, Anthony. 1986. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity.
17. Girardot, Norman J. 2002. The Victorian Translation of China: James Legge’s Oriental Pilgrimage. Berkeley: University of California Press.
18. Greenall, Annjo K. 2015. “Translators’ Voices in Norwegian Retranslations of Bob Dylan’s Songs.” In “Voice in Retranslation,” edited by Cecilia Alvstad and Alexandra Assis Rosa. Special Issue, Target 27 (1): 40–57. doi:10.1075/target.27.1.02gre.
19. Koskinen, Kaisa, and Outi Paloposki. 2015. “Anxieties of Influence: The Voice of the First Translator in Retranslation.” In “Voice in Retranslation,” edited by Cecilia Alvstad and Alexandra Assis Rosa. Special Issue, Target 27 (1): 25–39. doi:10.1075/target.27.1.01kos.
20. Kovala, Urpo. 1996. “Translations, Paratextual Mediation, and Ideological Closure.” Target 8 (1): 119–147. doi:10.1075/target.8.1.07kov.
21. Kujamäki, Pekka. 2001. “Finnish Comet in German Skies: Translation, Retranslation and Norms.” Target 13 (1): 45–70. doi:10.1075/target.13.1.04kuj.
22. Legge, Helen Edith. 1905. James Legge: Missionary and Scholar. London: The Religious Tract Society.
23. Legge, James, trans. (1872) 1991. The Chinese Classics. Vol. 5, The Ch’un Ts’ew with the Tso Chuen. By Zuo Qiuming. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Printing Office. Reprint, Taipei: SMC. Citations refer to the SMC edition.
24. Li, Wai-yee. 2014. “Poetry and Diplomacy in the Zuozhuan.” Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture 1 (1–2): 241–261. doi:10.1215/23290048-2749431.
25. Meschonnic, Henri. 2011. Ethics and Politics of Translating. Translated and edited by Pier-Pascale Boulanger. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
26. Pellatt, Valerie. 2013. “Introduction.” In Text, Extratext, Metatext and Paratext in Translation, edited by Valerie Pellatt, 1–6. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.
27. Pines, Yuri. 2002. Foundations of Confucian Thought: Intellectual Life in the Chunqiu Period, 722–453 B.C.E. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.
28. Pines, Yuri. 2017. “History without Anecdotes: Between the Zuozhuan and the Xinian Manuscript.” In Between History and Philosophy: Anecdotes in Early China, edited by Paul van Els and Sarah A. Queen, 263–299. New York: State University of New York Press.
29. Rosenthal, Jesse. 2017. Good Form: The Ethical Experience of the Victorian Novel. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
30. Schaberg, David. 2002. A Patterned Past: Form and Thought in Early Chinese Historiography. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center.
31. Van Poucke, Piet. 2017. “Aging as a Motive for Literary Retranslation: A Survey of Case Studies on Retranslation.” Translation and Interpreting Studies 12 (1): 91–115. doi:10.1075/tis.12.1.05van.
32. Venuti, Lawrence. (2003) 2013. “Retranslations: The Creation of Value.” Chap. 5 in Translation Changes Everything: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge.
33. Wang, John C. Y. 1977. “Early Chinese Narrative: The Tso-Chuan as Example.” In Chinese Narrative: Critical and Theoretical Essays, edited by Andrew H. Plaks, 3–20. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
34. Watson, Burton, trans. 1989. The Tso Chuan: Selections from China’s Oldest Narrative History. By Zuo Qiuming. New York: Columbia University Press.
35. Zhang, Huanyao, and Huijuan Ma. 2018. “Intertextuality in Retranslation.” Perspectives 26 (4): 576–592. doi:10.1080/0907676X.2018.1448875.