Thesis Note Chinese Translation

Draft by 27.5.14 Thesis Notes 25.5.
14
1

Introduction (20.4.14)
Harmonising the voice of Li Ching-chao: the four translations as (overtons/harmonies/version) of the
original

Translation is a struggle with impossibility -- Mirra Ginsburg, Russian Translator

Reimagining the voice of Li Ching-chao: the reality between the Literary Chinese and English language.
Finding the voice of Li Ching-chao: A case study of 4 different translations of Sheng Sheng Man.

Introduction (1500 - 2000 words)

The thesis deals with the multi-faceted relationship between the translated poem and its original, as well as the relation
between different translated poems on the same original poem. The thesis takes James Holmes proposition as the starting
point, where he defines:

The poem intended as a translation of a poem into another language, which as one type of meta-literature we
may call a metapoem, is from this point of view a fundamentally different kind of object from the poem from
which it derives. This difference is perhaps best defined in the following proposition:
MP:P :: P:R
the relation of the metapoem to the original poem is as that of the original poem to reality.
(Holmes, 1968: 10)

Holmes considers creative literature, like poetry, fiction and drama, as the writer makes use of language to formulate
certain statements which are usually extra-linguistic and might, with some hesitation be called the realities (ibid),
and he refines the concept of meta-language suggested by Barthes and suggests the translated poem would be better
described as metapoem, which its relation to poem is similar to that of an analysis or explication of a poem to that
poem (ibid). Holmes further refines his statement in another essay, suggesting

the metapoem is a nexus of a complex bundle of relationships converging from two directions: from the original poem, in its
language, and linked in a very specific way to the poetic tradition of that language; and from the poetic tradition of the target
language, with its more or less stringent expectations regarding poetry which the metapoem, if it is to be successful as poetry,
must in some measure meet.

the world Poem -------Metapoem

Holmes point of view is subjected to readers who can understand the translated and original poem, whilst in reality,
the majority of readers, with little knowledge of the source language, can only rely on translation(s) to appreciate the
original poem.

The aim of the thesis to test whether Holmes proposition is tenable. Holmes conducts his study mainly with
European languages (Dutch, and one example, German) into English. The thesis does not aim to dispute or disprove
the MP:P :: P:R proposition entirely, but seeks to add to the claim by exploring whether the metapoem can be in
direct relation with reality. It is the thesis interest to see if the proposition can be restated as MP:R :: R:P, where the
reality as a pivotal point for translation.

When starting to write the thesis, the following questions arose:

1) Is it necessary to define the value of the metapoem based entirely on its relation with the original poem?
2) When there is more than one metapoem, do they still reflect the same reality?

The thesis shall investigate see if the same case applies when translating from Literary Chinese into English. To
achieve this, the thesis tries to identify impediments in translating from literary Chinese into English language. Holmes in
his essay points out four impediments when translating from Dutch into English (although one example was demonstrated
through using German), in which Dutch is a closer language to English and literary Chinese. Even though a lot of translators
(Raffel, 1986: XX; Balcom, ; Pan, ) have attempted to highlight the difficulties when translating from Chinese into English as
translation criticism, the thesis is identifying the impediments to show, such constraints between English translation of
Literary Chinese highlights the problem of comparing MP:P. Instead, it suggests translator may better start with analysing
how Chinese constructs the reality, then reconstruct it with English language.

The huge cultural gap between the Chinese and English proposes challenges to translators, where in the relationship
further defined by Holmes:
the world Poem -------Metapoem
This proposes more problems into Holmes proposition, since Chinese has a rather different poetic tradition than the
English.
Draft by 27.5.14 Thesis Notes 25.5.14
2

The case study subject is going to be the tzu Sheng Sheng Man written by the Song Dynasty poetess Li Ching-chao. I
choose this tzu because it is the most representative among Lis works, and it is regarded as one of the most important
Song Tzu where it is always included in Literary Chinese pedagogic canon. It is one of the tzu that has been translated by
many notable translators,

Analysing the tzu will provide series of impediments, whilst analysing four translations attempted by both native Chinese
and native English speakers will provide data that shows how Literary Chinese constructs the reality differently from
modern English language does. Suggesting Holmes may not be accurate, in Chinese context, to define and restrict the
notion of MP only to the relationship between MP:P. The thesis suggests, may be we can look at MP:R, using R as a pivotal
point for linking both the metapoem and its original.

It also aims to provide explanations for the discrepancies between the metapoems on the same poem.
Since the reality constructed by literary Chinese is fairly different, it is implicit (or ambiguity), it has its own tradition,
cultural reference, form, morphology and phonology. Using analysis, not just adding onto the lists of Holmes impediments,
but this is to prove, better to start with R when we are translating poetry.

Ultimately this thesis aims to enrich what has be said by James, and it is a plea for a translation gain: by looking at many
translations, what we should imagined about Li Ching-chao. Ultimately in search of the kinship of translation.
reality = voice in the case study

At the end of the study the thesis is not going to prescribed, but trying to study what kind of voice of Li Ching-chao has
been created.

A useful example = literal meaning in Chinese differs a lot from what we actually mean, hence English cant do a literal
translation, but a creative way of translating it, which seemingly not faithful to the ST.

Introduction (13.4.14)

A metapoem or a Frankenstein? and should we be satisfied?

Introduction (2500 words)

Justified by Andr Lefevere, one doesnt need to know the source language from which the poet So Dongpo
has been translated, they will notice itd be problematic to pinpoint what is the image of So Dongpo. Andre Lefevere in his
article title asks an interesting question, Excuse me, is This the Same Poem?, when he was reading different English
translations of the same poem by So DongPo. He highlights the differences between translation as reader who doesnt
know any Chinese, and illustrates the power of translation towards readers who do not know Chinese.

A similar study was conducted to show there are nineteen ways of looking at the poet Wang Wei . The more
famous the poet was, the more translations were published. At the conclusion Lefevere does not come up with any
solution and concludes he should not come up with any solution about how should Chinese poetry be translated into
English, but he sets a framework for my research, in which I would like to start with the same question, Is this the
same poem? As I read more translated poems, some successful translations are another poems, and I begin ask the same
question Excuse me, is This the Same Poem? Hence I would like to research what is the relationship between the many
translated poems and their relationship with the original.

Define what is Metapoem and introduce the argument proposed by James Holmes 500

The main purpose of this thesis is to explore the multi-faceted relationship between the translated poem, or called
metapoem and its original, by comparing different versions of the same poem Shen Shen Meng written by the Song
Dynasty poet Li Ching-chao. Taking James Holmes essay as a starting point, the thesis is going to explore and rethink
about the relationship between the translation and its original. By metapoem, as it is defined by James Holmes, he
defines,

The poem intended as a translation of a poem into another language, which as one type
of meta-literature we may call a metapoem, is from this point of view a fundamentally
different kind of object from the poem from which it derives.

3

In Holmes words, the metapoem is something derived from the original and the two share a severed umbilical
cord. When explaining the difference between a metapoem and a poem, he suggests,

This difference is perhaps best defined in the following proposition: MP:P :: P:R - the
relation of the metapoem to the original poem is as that of the original poem to reality.

This paper is going to analyse a few metapoems (i.e. the translators translate poem using a poem form instead of a
form of verse or prose), and explore further the proposition proposed by Holmes on the relationship between the
metapoem and its original. Does the value or significance of a metapoem has to rely on its relationship with the
original, instead of the reality (i.e. MP:R :: P:R)? In other word, can the metapoem be directly reflecting the reality?

What metapoem does, according to Holmes, is to criticise the original. Different from criticism, which is another kind
of meta-literature, the metapoem, on the other hand, interprets, as William Frost has pointed out, not by analysis, but
by enactment. It is important to note that Holmes pointed out himself the impediments he identified may vary
greatly in emphasis according to the languages and the cultures concerned, where his study was focusing on creating
a metapoem in one specific language, English, on the basis of a poem in another specific language, Dutch. Hence this
becomes the aim of the thesis, to test whether his claim will be the same when translating a poem in Classical Chinese.

The thesis is not going to dispute what Holmes has suggested, but through further exploration the first part of the
paper attempts to show there should be more factors (than acumen as a critic, craftsmanship as a poet, and skill in
the analysing and resolving of a confrontation of norms and conventions across linguistic and cultural barriers) in
making of appropriate decisions. Through this we can rethink about the relationship of metapoem and its original.

elaborate the first part of the thesis can be enhanced by Susans view or Snell -hornbys (500) link to the
main Research Question I am going to answer

When translation become a discipline in academic studies, there is a tendency to fall into the binary
categorisation, which operate with rigid dividing-lines, binary opposites, antitheses and dichotomies (Snell-
Hornby, XXXX: 450). Following the suggestion of Snell-Hornbys third hypothesis, the first part of the thesis is going
to re-examine the notion of metapoem, and suggest its relationship with the original is more like a spectrum. With
Holmes

Besides if one considers on a practical level, when the translator is translating poetry, certain decisions have to be made in
order to finalise a translation. It is a sustaining thought, as suggested by Susan Bassnett, translation is inevitable, all
translations are originals and all originals are translations. (Bassnett, XXXX: ). It is counter-arguing with Holmes
notion of metapoem as a derivative from the original, as a subversion. In fact, translators, especially Chinese translator,
in translating classical Chinese poetry tend to use a hybridization of style when dealing with Classical Chinese poetry. The
thesis suggests, drawing data from the text analysis, that the trend of translating Chinese poetry is now very seldom to use
only either, domesticating or foreignising; or modernising or historicising; ___or ___ technique, but usually a mixture of
blend. ambiguity as emptiness.

Learning from Linder and her article, what the thesis is concerned with is not the accuracy of the translation, but
rather how each text (metapoem) adds to the meaning of the original. By identifying the relationship between the
metapoem and its original, versus the reality, the thesis hopes to answer what we gain through the many
translations, and see how it helps us in understanding Li Ching-chao in general? Since after all we have to translate it
from classical Chinese to modern Chinese in order to understand.

Further elaborate the study is going to be conducted under the context of translating Chinese poetry,
this scope can test/enrich the proposition suggested by Holmes (500)

When John Balcom highlights the question, _____ not only that is the problem for translating modern Chinese
literature, it is even more problematic when it comes to translating Classical Chinese poetry.

The thesis is going to argue, by highlighting the discrepancies between different translations, an English metapoem of
a Classical Chinese poetry does not show the relationship MP:P::P:R, since the P:R is problematic to analyse, and it is
due to the implicitness, which in turn creates the poetics, in Chinese poetry. Therefore it is only through a
hybridisation of the two languages, ambiguity as ____? to reflect the reality

Highlight how MP:P is so contrasting, since English is inevitably explicit in order to work, whilst Chinese is

First part of the thesis is going to discuss
Translating poetry is perhaps the most problematic among all other kinds of literary translation, and translators have
their own view on how to translate poetry and never agree with one another. It is not the aim of this paper to
prescribe the solution for translating poetry, as there is no such thing as the perfect translation. Instead, the paper
attempts to compare different translations of the same poem,

4

Restating Hypothesis clearly and what we may expect from the case study? 500

When one considers the writing system of the Chinese language, the cultural and the tradition in Chinese literary
history, translating from Classical Chinese into English language seems impossible. Due to the distance between the
East and West, the methods different translators came up in the past to bridge between the two cultures are
therefore providing a scope to study the difference. The different translations of the same poem could tell us more
about

The second part of the thesis is going to deal with

[the structure of the thesis/ demonstration 500]/ a very useful example

However when translation and creativity are mentioned in the same breath, the issue of
faithfulness to the original immediately imposes itself. If a translator is being creative, does that
imply that he or she is being unfaithful to the author and his or her work?
(John Balcom 2006: 119)

Research Question (that I cant decide, but I have a direction)
How do we construct Li Ching-chao in English?
Englishing Li Ching-chao
Is the translation of Li Ching-chao a version of the original or is .Translation as a (sub)version or
Translation as the original
Gain or Loss, Alive or Dead, Original or subversion of original: the only way to make Li Ching-chao
lives again is to set it alive again, through translating and translating and make the translation become the
original even though the notion of original is rather problematic.
James Holmes p.10 the poem intended as a translation of a poem into another language, which as
one type of meta-literature we may call a metapoem [MP:P::P:R - the relation of the metapoem to
the original poem is as that of the original poem to reality.] To what extent the translation of Li
Ching-chao is a metapoem?
What do we leave behind when failing to translate.
how can we explain the discrepancy? p.174 (translating for Chinese from Chinese to Chinese)
When one poem has been translated many times, what does it bring to the .
What is Li Ching-chao to us now? after being translated again and again.
Reimagining the voice of Li Ching-chao: how poetry translation is a process of re-creation? a study of
translating from implicit to explicit
Translating, Rewriting, or Recreating? Reimagining the voice of Li Ching-chao.
what the actual practise V.S. the academic debate: First artwork , later criticism

What we learn from the many translations?
Towards a hybridisation
Testing if the translation of Li are metapoem?
MP:P :: P:R this is an explanation to answer the discrepancy of different translation. in support of
translating more more more, the more it is translated the more it will come to life???
What is the afterlife of Li? Towards a pure language of Li?
A plea against the loss in translating Li

Aim

binary systems:
the translator-writer continuum
When we look at the translation of poetry, no two translators could come up with the same translation. This is
Rationale of doing the thesis

Vincent Venutis translators invisibility??? Who decides the voice of Li Ching-chao
5

Translation compensation: this is what everyone has been doing
re-examine the role of translators during poetry translation
the difficulties of translating Chinese (implicit) to English (explicit) What are the difficulties from translating
implicit to explicit?
what is the task for translators when translating poetry?

success = becoming a literature on its own ?
what is the point of translating poetry?
Who do you think you can translate? can the translation done by Xu Yuanchong be counted as the literature or
conclusion
the only way to make Li Ching-chao lives again is to set it alive again, through translating and translating and make
the translation become the original even though the notion of original is rather problematic.

What to do for the actual Analysis/Case Study
1 on translating emotions
2 on translating the sounds/ phonology
3 on translating the imagery
2&3 actually constituate to form the emotions

Quotes

Rethinking Translation
with his British collaborator in order to create a young Frankenstein, Three Trapped Tigers, a version more than a
translation or - as all translations are - another book.

towards a hybridisation of Poetics - Chinese and English
As translators can pretty much agree a translation is good (a translated text), they may not be able to come to
consensus about how to achieve such translation. [i.e. disagree on the explanation about how to come up with the
translation]

p.10 Poem and Metapoem: poetry from Dutch to English J ames S Holmes

It would seem to be worth our while to consider a third approach to the problem of verse translation, one which
steers midway between the unattainable ideal of equivalence and the desperate counsel of impossibility. Over
against the creative literature of poetry, fiction, and drama, in which the writer makes use of language to
formulate certain statements about matters, situations and emotions which are themselves usually extra-linguistic
(in short, about what might, with some hesitation be called reality), one can distinguish a body of meta-literature,
writing which makes use of language to communicate something about literature itself. Literary criticism and
explication are obvious examples of such meta-literature, but so, too, is literary translation.
The poem intended as a translation of a poem into another language, which as one type of meta-literature we
may call a metapoem, is from this point of view a fundamentally different kind of object from the poem from
which it derives. This difference is perhaps best defined in the following proposition: MP:P :: P:R - the relation of
the metapoem to the original poem is as that of the original poem to reality.

The metapoem, on the other hand, interprets, as William Frost has pointed out, not by analysis but by
enactment.


A successfully translated poem is always another poem.

6

Definition of terms
Translation is of course, a rewriting of an original text because it involves re-writing the message from one language
to another (Lefevere, 1992: vii). Translating poetry is

All rewritings, whatever their intention, reflect a certain ideology and a poetics and as such manipulate literature to
function in a given society in a given way. Rewriting is manipulation, undertaken in the service of power, and in its
positive aspect can help in the evolution of a literature and a society. Rewritings can introduce new concepts, new
genres, new devices and the history of translation is the history also of literary innovation, of the shaping power of
one culture upon another. But rewriting can also repress innovation, distort and contain, and in an age of ever
increasing manipulation of all kinds, the study of the manipulation of all kinds, the study of the manipulation
processes of literature as exemplified by translation can help us towards a greater awareness of the world in which
we live.
(Lefevere, 1992: vii)

Rewriting may sound very similar to recreating, yet the latter focuses more on the creativity during the writing
process, whilst the former focuses more on the finished product.

It is a poetry - yet in Chinese, there are the distinction between and . Even though its not the literature history
should not be compared, the musical quality should not be lost through translation.

Susan Bassnett:
It is a sustaining thought: translation is inevitable, all translations are originals and all originals are translations.

Translation is inferior to the original writing?
The recent creative turn in translation studies has challenged notions of translation as a derivative
and uncreative activity which is inferior to original writing. Commentators have drawn attention to
the creative processes involved in the translation of texts, and suggested a rethinking of translation as
a form of creative writing. Hence there is growing critical and theoretical interest in translations
undertaken by literary authors.
https://www.tinhouse.com/blog/4204/recreate-or-re-create-creativity-and-translation.html

p.2 translating literature Intricate Pathways:
many distinguished translators have explored and sought to elucidate the difference between creating an original
text and creating a translation.

Qian Zhongshu (1995: 257) in his book Collection of Prose by Qian Zhongshu,recalls his experience when reading
the translation by Lin Shu, the eminent literary translator in the end of the Qing Dynasty, as preferring the
translation to the original (the original Chinese reads , ). This
is proof positive that the translation can in some sense surpass the original with the translator's creative rewriting
skill for the translated version has now gained a life of its own.

Fry
All we have are words.

Walter Benjamin
p.75 The translators task - translated by Steven Rendall

And we never get beyond this, so long as translation claims to serve the reader. However, if translation were intended
for the reader, then the original would also have to be intended for the reader. If the original is not created for the
readers sake, the how can this relationship allow us to understand translation?

Even the original may not be intended for the reader,

Literature review perhaps!
Anthony Pym in his essay eloquently argued that the translator as non-author.
Then who are the translator when they are translating poetry, and when they finished translating, what are their
relationship with the text

When Lawrence Venuti is promoting the visibility of translator and Susan Bassnett argues translator as write in
support with recreation in the literary translation (taking a creative turn), Pym suggests the translator as non-author
7

because the original is not writing for a reader and the translation should not be written with a reader in mind and
Benjamin claims the

Introduction (2500 words)
Lit review (3000 words)
Methodology (1000 words)
Analysis (3000 words)
Discussion (4000 words)
Conclusion (1500 words)
total =15000 words

Introduction x (deleted)

How do we construct Li Ching-chao in English?
Englishing Li Ching-chao

with his British collaborator in order to create a young Frankenstein, Three Trapped Tigers, a version more
than a translation or - as all translations are - another book.
Is the translation of Li Ching-chao a version of the original or is

The thesis aims to study the differences between translated poems and learn from the translators by
evaluating their translations. It is going to be a case study on the English translation of the Tzu by Li Ching-chao (
) from the Song Dynasty. Through contrasting the differences (and similarities) in the three different translations,
it shows different translators would have different priority in making translation decision, and they all have a
different answers to the question, can one translate a poem?.

studying the different versions of translation
is it a translation or is it an original or completely irrelevant
It is a sustaining thought: translation is inevitable, all translations are originals and all originals are translations.
this is true, only under the

Translation as a version or Translation as the original

Gain or Loss, Alive or Dead, Original or subversion of original
the only way to make Li Ching-chao lives again is to set it alive again, through translating and translating and make
the translation become the original even though the notion of original is rather problematic.

explore the notion of translating creatively
see if they can still be faithful to the original
and

What is the translators task when they are translating poetry?

Anthony Pym in his essay eloquently argued that the translator as non-author.
Then who are the translator when they are translating poetry, and when they finished translating, what are their
relationship with the text

When Lawrence Venuti is promoting the visibility of translator and Susan Bassnett argues translator as write in
support with recreation in the literary translation (taking a creative turn), Pym suggests the translator as non-author
because the original is not writing for a reader and the translation should not be written with a reader in mind and
Benjamin claims the

Translator is not writing

what the actual practise V.S. the academic debate
First artwork , later criticism

p.75 The translators task - translated by Steven Rendall

8

And we never get beyond this, so long as translation claims to serve the reader. However, if translation were intended
for the reader, then the original would also have to be intended for the reader. If the original is not created for the
readers sake, the how can this relationship allow us to understand translation?

Even the original may not be intended for the reader,

Translating, Rewriting, or Recreating? Reimagining the voice of Li Ching-chao.
What is Li Ching-chao to us now? after being translated again and again.
Reimagining the voice of Li Ching-chao: how poetry translation is a process of re-creation? a study of translating
from implicit to explicit

Who decides the voice of Li Ching-chao
All we have are words.

The main purpose of this thesis is to explore the intricate relationship between translation and creative writing
through studying the translated poetry and the original poetry. By comparing different version of translations of the
same poetry by Li Ching-chao, as an aspect of languages to capture poetics and When we are asking ourselves how
should we translate poetry in order to capture the nuances of emotions from one language in another

When one considers the writing system of the Chinese language, the cultural and the tradition in Chinese literary
history, translating from Classical Chinese into English language seems impossible. Due to the distance between the
East and West, the methods different translators came up in the past to bridge between the two cultures are
therefore providing a scope to study the difference. The different translations of the same poem could tell us more
about

towards a hybridisation of Poetics - Chinese and English
As translators can pretty much agree a translation is good (a translated text), they may not be able to come to
consensus about how to achieve such translation. [i.e. disagree on the explanation about how to come up with the
translation]

Hypothesis:


1)
when John Balcom highlights the question, _____ not only that is the problem for translating modern Chinese literature,
it is even more problematic when it comes to translating Classical Chinese poetry.

2)
since it is more or less justified by a few writers (in lit review?) like Raffel, saying its only possible to re-create the
poetry, using poetry to translate poetry

3)
we came to the same question asked by Lefevere is this the same poem?
Lefevere provides a framework for comparing

4)
at the conclusion of the thesis, it is not going to prescribe the best solution for poetry translation, but more like
through the discussion in the paper, we can evaluate what has been translated and what images they have created for
Li Ching-chao, thus translators in the future, should anyone is going to attempt to translate Lis again could use the
findings of this paper as guidelines. see if it works.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Intro (aim at 1500 - 2000 words)

linking the spectrum - Translator-author-writer
ultimately gives us some insights re creativity

9

AIM:
what the hell is the thesis about?

Context:
a lot of translations, are they the same poems? from a pure English reader point of view
no perfect version. Cant find one replace the original. But if we are not replacing what is the point of having these
rewriting or even, recreation?

Structure of the thesis
literature is reviewed to show
set out the conceptual framework for analysis - outline how this research is being conducted, sections of what-so-
ever hypothesis
the actual analysis
conclusion - here link back to what the thesis is trying to explore
-------------------------------------------------------
When one poem has been translated many times, what does it bring to the

The same poem may have more than one translation, and usually there is no official translation of one poem.

how can we explain the discrepancy? p.174 (translating for Chinese from Chinese to CHinese)
------------------------------------------------------

Comparing the different versions of the poems - justify why Tzu not Shih

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Context/reality/Phenomenon
When we look at the translation of poetry, no two translators could come up with the same translation. This is

Qian Zhongshu (1995: 257) in his book Collection of Prose by Qian Zhongshu,recalls his experience when reading
the translation by Lin Shu, the eminent literary translator in the end of the Qing Dynasty, as preferring the
translation to the original (the original Chinese reads , ). This
is proof positive that the translation can in some sense surpass the original with the translator's creative rewriting
skill for the translated version has now gained a life of its own.

Translation is inferior to the original writing?
The recent creative turn in translation studies has challenged notions of translation as a derivative
and uncreative activity which is inferior to original writing. Commentators have drawn attention to
the creative processes involved in the translation of texts, and suggested a rethinking of translation as
a form of creative writing. Hence there is growing critical and theoretical interest in translations
undertaken by literary authors.
https://www.tinhouse.com/blog/4204/recreate-or-re-create-creativity-and-translation.html

p.2 translating literature Intricate Pathways:
many distinguished translators have explored and sought to elucidate the difference between creating an original
text and creating a translation.

Questions in mind???

What is poetry translation?
what is the task for translators when translating poetry?
re-examine a series of translation theories, as every theory stems from literary translation
reflect on the criteria of evaluating poetry translation, whether it is a successful translation or not? success =
becoming a literature on its own
the difficulties of translating Chinese (implicit) to English (explicit)

A successfully translated poem is always another poem.
What are the difficulties from translating implicit to explicit?
What do we leave behind when failing to translate a Chinese dead metaphor?
what is the point of translating poetry? A study of the functions of poetry translation.
Who do you think you can translate? can the translation done by Xu Yuanchong be counted as the literature
or

10

What to do for the actual Analysis/Case Study
1 on translating emotions
2 on translating the sounds/ phonology
3 on translating the imagery
2&3 actually constituate to form the emotions

Product-oriented models of translation
Involves analysis of (part of) one target text or comparative analysis of several
target texts (e.g. re-translations, translations produced under different circumstances, etc.) with reference to the
applicability of a particular theoretical model. Theoretical models e.g. shifts

Why am I doing this Thesis?

Translation compensation: this is what everyone has been doing
Vincent Venutis translators invisibility???

***) re-examine the role of translators during poetry translation.
1)When reading a English translated poem, frequently I have to guess what is that poem in Chinese source text. Most
of the time I have that Ah-ha moment, surprised by how different it sounds in English, providing I have learnt the
Chinese poem by heart. If the poem in English that is so different, can we still claim they are the same poem? This
leads to the study of the nature and philosophy of translation. Are we meaning the same?

2) Translators role in translating poetry. Is he the translator trying to be faithful to the author (who is likely to be
dead and no one knows what s/he thought 1000 years ago), or is he the writer himself? This leads to the definition
of translation and transcreation.

3) Translation criticism. Through studying different versions of the translated poetry cover a period of 80 years,
from Bing Xin to Xu to Rexroth. Compare different strategies used in translating culturally bound terms be it
culturally speaking or linguistically speaking. (no cultural equivalence and linguistic equivalence)
may end up just doing a criticism on ONE translated version. Like the paper by Xavier Lin.

4) if translation process is a process of creation (with creativity), would translation theories help? Xu has proposed
quite a lot of theories re poetry translation.

5) through Translation as a culture studies since we would never be able to overcome the cultural boundary
between the East and the West, therefore through translation we can learn more about one another.

Literature Review (16.4.14)
LITERATURE REVIEW (3000 words)

Lit Review:::
Starting from against his contemporaries in the 60s, which either argue poetry is untranslatable, or completely sets off
from the original, like a Frankenstein, (e.g. Erza Pound)

hence, James restricts the notion of MP by the relationship between MP:P.

The translatability of poetry - a plea to focus on the growth
The controversies about the translatability of poetry are all based on the notion of equivalence: many different views and
methods or models/theories were proposed. People argue and argue over the same issues but never agree with one
another (Pym). Holmes stated those concerned primarily with verse translation are inclined to despair of any such thing

In face what Holmes was trying to answer, is through suggesting a different notion of equivalence, not measuring the
metapoem with the stick of the original.

No it couldnt translated - bullshit, since its inevitable
Yes it is translated, when we are looking at the issue with a more
Yes we can certainly re-create something as good, and it will live its afterlife
No cant translate but only recreate

11

the answer to translatability is forced into a binary system too: yes it is translatable and no it is not translatable. It is
inevitable to have translation.

Intro - what is the main/fundamental issues of translatability of poetry 500
context of translating Chinese poetry?
When translation become a discipline in academic studies, there is a tendency to fall into the binary
categorisation, which operate with rigid dividing-lines, binary opposites, antitheses and dichotomies (Snell-
Hornby, XXXX: 450). However on a practical level when one is translating poetry, besides choosing between
Englishing Li Ching-chao, or forcing the reader to read a literal word-to-word rendering of Lis poem, are there
are third way/approach of retelling the what was sung by Li Ching-chao around a thousand year ago? (Towards
a hybridization of translating Classical Chinese poetry). it is very seldom for one to use only one technique but
usually a mixture of blend.

(3) Translation studies has been hampered by classical modes of categorisation, which operate with rigid
dividing-lines, binary opposites, antitheses and dichotomies. Frequently these are mere academic constructs
which paralyse the finer differentiation required in all aspects of translation studies. In our approach the typology
is replaced by the prototypology, admitting blends and blurred edges, and the dichotomy gives way to the
concept of a spectrum or cline against which phenomena are situated and focussed. p.450 Mary Snell-Hornby

Taking a step further from Snell-Hornbys third hypothesis, this paper will like to demonstrate

Translation: The focus of the growth of literary knowledge
p.7
in 1978, Andre Lefevere tested the following hypothesis: that translation, as a metaliterary discipline, is better suited
to make literary products accessible, and can claim a higher degree of scientificity, than the other metaliterary
activity, commentary.

Some general problems in translating poetry
How to explain the discrepancies of the many version
hence lead onto the study of the

Some specific problems we face when translating Chinese Poetry
problems created by translating from Chinese into English
How we view reality is rather different, [not that we veiw the reality differently, but how we express what we see may be
differently?] from the language and cultural perspective
nature of Chinese contrasting with English
punctuation
plurals
terms
do all these discrepancies suggest a different reality? if using the proposition of James Holmes as a standard/measure for
good poetry translation, it may become problematic should allow creativity and subjectivity??? ejuculation of
prejudice

in search of the pure language, this is more like mind reading, when human do not need to use verbal communication

METHODOLOGY (1500 words)

To gather the data, I have chosen four translations on Li Ching-chaos Sheng Sheng Man. It was written in Song dynasty in
the poetry form tzu (), which was a form differs from the shih ().

differences between Shih and Tzu

Look at the form of the metapoem
Text analysis - highlighting features

CHAPTER I: (2500 words)
INTRODUCTION AND HYPOTHESES
This chapter introduces the idea of the
research, how it arose, the main concepts
framing the theoretical approach to the
12

analysis and the methodology and attempts
to give an account of terrorism as a subject
itself.

CHAPTER II: (2000 words)
METHODOLOGY
This chapter summarises the methodology
and the approach used in the research
along with the gathered data.

CHAPTER III: (3000 words)
THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK / Literature review
This Chapter discusses the basic concepts on
which this research is based in two different parts,
according to the form of the hypothesis.

CHAPTER IV: (6500 words)
THE ANALYSIS

CHAPTER V: (1000 words)
CONCLUSIONS AND FINAL THOUGHTS

p.76 - 77 Translation as (sub)version

The history and trend of translating Chinese poetry into English - very briefly

There are 5 / 6 directions of studying the issues of translating poetry, namely,
different schools of translating CHINESE poetry into English, highlights problems emerged

what is translation and creativity

Translators responsibility in translating poetry

http://hantown.bokee.com/1115313.html
Define what is Ci?

literature review structure:
review the history of translation theories on poetry translation
For around two-thousand years w

Xu and his theories in particular?
David Bellos: Is that a fish in your ear?
Xia: Translation Compensation
Raffel: Translators responsibility

Looking at how translation Chinese Poetry into English is Translating UP, whilst it should be more equal????

Analysis Structure
linguistic: Gender, plural, tenses, punctuation
Culturally inequivalence: pipa Guitar

p.94 3.2, But obviously translation is multi-dimensional; moreover, its manifold dimensions and levels are
interwoven and reinforce each other, and therefore its full description can only be achieved by weighing the findings
concerning its various levels.
Gideon Toury The Nature and Role of norms in literary translation

p.97 but at least one thing is now clear in view of the major role that norms play in translation, namely that an
appropriate position should be assigned to them in translation theory as well.

13

p.7

p.19
the third main concept to be introduced is that of metalanguage: if we want to speak about the correspondence of a
statement to a fact, we need a metalanguage in which we can state the fact (or the alleged fact) about which the
statement in question speaks, and in addition can also speak about the statement in question (Popper 1972:46).

I now propose to introduce the following distinction which may, I hope, serve to clarify the way we speak about
literature. I would like to reserve the term literature for the non-scientific discipline that produces literary works.
The term metaliterature will, from now on, be used in this paper to refer to the discipline which makes statements
about literature. There is no reason why this discipline could not aspire to the scientific.

Metalanguage, as we have seen, speaks about both statement and fact. p.20

---------------------------------------------------------------
When you should annotate?
like when you are doing maths, you have to show how you come up with the answer.
its good because you can learn about the theories and shut people up when you are at work.
when it is not immediately direct; probably a good idea to talk about it. but avoid so-what idea.

The chosen solution therefore reduces the SL title to sense, at the expense of evoked meaning. This represents a
translation loss, defined by Hervey and Higgins [1992:24] as any failure to replicate a ST exactly, whether this
involves losing features in the TT or adding them. translation loss is something that Hervey and Higgins regard as
inevitable: Once one accepts the concept of inevitable translation loss, a TT that is not, in all important respects, a
replica of its ST is not a theoretical anomaly...the translator can concentrate on the realistic aim of cutting down on
translation loss, rather than unrealistic one of seeking the ultimate translation of the ST.

http://www.xinghui.com/big5/yilin/duiyizhejieru.htm
New ideas on Translators interposition

Literary Translation: A Practical Guide, Clifford E. Landers.
Some notes on translating poetry p.97

Clement Wood, editor of The complete Rhyming Dictionary, has stated flatly, Poetry cannot be translated; it can only
be recreated in the new language.

This suggests another criterion for juding a translation solely on the basis of its target language: a mastery of stylistic
and grammatical standards must be supported by a familiarity with idiomatic usage.

Theories behind translating poetry:
Xu Yuanchong: The art of translation

Whether by virtue of an imposed pattern, as in Le Roman de Renart, or dynamic tension, as in Rimbaud, or the four-
dimensional complexities of Mallarme, the language of poetry will always be farther from that of normal speech than
even the most elaborate prose. It is more formal, more artificial, and more precise. The translator, inevitable
accustomed to hearing that his project is impossible, may find, in fact, that poetry, by its very eccentricity, presents
itself as a series of discrete problems to which there seem to be, however temporarily, solutions. Words long sought
may suddenly fit themselves into places like pieces of a puzzle, and ultimately one may feel that a translation is
finished because to change any part of it would mean changing the whole. The more complex the project, the more
this has to be true. Even if one is seeking a unicorn or the Questing Beast, it has, or will assume, a shape in the mind
where, accordingly, it will be, once found, joyfully recognised.
p.65-66 Patricia Terry The Invisible Difference: Notes on the Translation of Poetry, Translation

Rethinking on Translating Classical Poetry:
14

Classical Poetry translation has been done a lot of times and nothing more could be added. The case is more like, no,
there will not be any re-translation, but just a constant study in the academia about what was good and what was not
good about the translated poems. There will never be something called the English Poetry of Li Ching-chao.

If a translator is being creative, does that imply that he or she is being unfaithful to the author and his or her work?
John Balcom p.117 The Translator as Writer

In the introduction of the book by Susan Bassnett outline one of the most fundamental questions for literary
translation.
S

Bassnett explains Borges has questioned the notions of distinctiveness of original and copy, or of writer and
translator.

p.2 it has often been argued that there is no such thing as a perfect translation.

the ORGANIC image contrasts with the negative rhetoric of accusations of betrayal

One of the most frequently asked questions in literary translation is the
Bassnett outlines one of the most important questions in literary translation,

Xavier Lin: then translation is no longer about looking for the solution; rather it is about creating solutions.

Western Translator tends to create? Chinese Translator tends to

Is it a translation? or just re-writing the entire poem?
Good thesis = a good set-off point serves as a pilot for more extensive study + strong and interesting,
preferably original, argument (thesis).

Case studies example:
1 very Chinese influenced
2) very much westernised
3) Read like English but retain the Chinese flavour

Flow:
1) historical debate of equivalence in Translation. very likely Stemming from literary translation [insert proof]
(Bakers In Other Words) + (Pyms Exploring Translation Theories)
2) No absolute equivalence, hence different approaches in translating Poetry
[quoting arguments in academia: Thinking Chinese Translation/ ]
3) Translation theory and historical movement in China (link to Poetry/ Literary Translation)
4) Translators role in translating Poetry, how to use translation compensation

Raffel Xu Zhongyuan Other various????

The problem of untranslatability and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

Bellos: p.168 he proved how flawed the hypothesis is using the NASA examples (155); yet a more sophisticated
version of the same question: some thing in French, can never be expressed in English, and vice versa. Thinking in
French (proved: different personality by speaking different languages)

Xia: p.31 the untranslatability is in fact linked to the study of translation compensation. It is just how you look at the
issue and see how to compensate for it.

A study on Translation Compensation

Evaluation of the translated poems:

Jeremy Munday: Evaluation in Translation: Critical points of translator decision-making

*The reader-author relationship
15

The definition of Poetry

It is a literary form in most of the cultures. Yet the definition of poetry is different from one culture to another.
[perhaps an OED definition]
i) Raffel: no similar literary history, suggesting the literary genres are different from cultures to cultures.
iia) Chinese word for from [chapter 5 p.453 ]
iib) further discussion about suggesting the word shouldnt be translated as poem
iic) the different genres of Chinese poetry should probably be treated differently (e.g.
) p.385
iid) the focus on and ; and probably why it shouldnt be translated using the same tactics?
iii) English poetry, and what is it to English native reader, from an English perspective

The history of translating Chinese Poetry - relating to the development of translation theories
* xing yin yi) the theory of 3 beauties -_- what a name...
*http://www.translationdirectory.com/articles/article2062.php the issue of direction of translation in China: a
Historical overview

The History of translating Li Ching-chao
http://www.sinoss.net/uploadfile/2012/0611/20120611043752101.pdf

What is Transcreation?
About Transcreation or Recreation in translation when translating poetry
p.33-34 translation and creativity: Perspectives on creative writing and translation studies
if translation is necessarily a fiction, then it must go out to meet its fictionality.

p.1 The translator as writer
choosing the next symphony concert to go to, the names of the composers, conductor and orchestra will be key to
whether we buy the tickets.

http://www.soas.ac.uk/literatures/satranslations/Gopin.pdf
Sujeet Mukherji (1981) prefers to call it Translation as New writing. But Transcreation seems to be a better word to
express this literary tradition of India. Transcreation can offer the best possible solution for the problems of
culturally oriented literary texts. Transcreation in this context can be understood as a rebirth or incarnation (Avatar)
of the original work. In a general sense, it can be defined as an aesthetic re-interpretation of the original work suited
to the readers/audience of the target language in the particular time and space. This re-interpretation is done with a
certain social purpose and is performed with suitable interpolations, explanations, expansions, summarising and
aesthetic innovations in style and techniques.

Thinking Chinese Translation, ch. 13 Translation of traditional poetry[Valerie Pellatt]

p.154
Translation is at the heart of literary experience [...] would modern English poetry be what it is without Cathy, the
translations of Chinese which Ezra Pound published in 1915?

Xu: says that the point is how to make what is beautiful in one language appear as beautiful in another. Pellatt: But
this is not the whole story!!!!! a lot of the poems are not to do with beauty.
I: Well beauty in terms of language. Not about the content???

poems of Pounds Cathay verge on transcreation or recreation rather than strict translation

p.156
More tricky from Chinese into English: From implicit to Explicit (Pan)
Pan: recreation is not only attractive but, on many occasions, necessary when working from Chinese to English (pan
2002: 59).

Pan concentrates on mistranslation but what the HELL is mistranslation??? Its just untranslatability! e.g. in
Chinese its meant to be implicit (Hannah: yeah its two.dogs); who cares if you are talking to the dog, or whether
the dogs are what genders...etc
Wenguo Pan
Singular or Plural? A Case Study of the Difficulty and Charm in Rendering Chinese Poems into English
16

http://www.llc.manchester.ac.uk/ctis/activities/papers/

Pictorial elements/quality in Chinese. . Chinese characters as a poetic medium Erza Pound. It
is Ecphrastic (Ecphrasis is manifest in Chinese poetry not only through the images the poet creates, but also in the
absence of grammatical links.
characters as pictures are not quite valid: as a Chinese person, when I heard the word , i would not visualise the
character itself but instead a picture of horse, even though the character looks like a horse Plus poetry are
sung/recited more than read.

Pallett: above all, translators need to avoid McGonagallism. Yet i do find Xu sounds a bit like him with the rhymes
every two sentencescomical effect? Rhyme works differently in English than Chinese?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McGonagall

Find a pilot point to set off, demonstrate why you have done this piece of research.

Creative translation, translating creatively: a case study on aesthetic coherence in Peter Stamblers Han Shan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yan_Yu_(poetry_theorist)
*an aesthetic coherence in the translated text is an indispensable basis, and explores how this basis may involve
creativity in translating.
*The notion of Gestalt

The translator as writer p.134
To make a work of literature in Chinese language come to life in English is a complex process that involves a scholars
knowledge of Chinese language and culture as well as a profound knowledge of an creative flair in English. John
Balcom

A Study on Translation Compensation
p.189
the theory from the western translators are focusing more on linguistics but not the aesthetic
p.243
culturally bound items and concepts in Chinese poetry translated into English

Books that I am going to Review:
In others words
Thinking Chinese Translation, ch. 13
, Ch. 5 Poetry
The translator as Writer
The art of translating poetry
exploring translation theories
Lawrence Venutis translator invisibility
Can theory help translator
a study on translation compensation

CHAPTER I: (1500 words)
INTRODUCTION AND HYPOTHESES
This chapter introduces the idea of the
research, how it arose, the main concepts
framing the theoretical approach to the
analysis and the methodology and attempts
to give an account of terrorism as a subject
itself.

CHAPTER II: (3000 words)
METHODOLOGY / Literature review
This chapter summarises the methodology
and the approach used in the research
along with the gathered data.

CHAPTER III: (3000 words)
THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
17

This Chapter discusses the basic concepts on
which this research is based in two different parts,
according to the form of the hypothesis.

CHAPTER IV: (6500 words)
THE ANALYSIS

CHAPTER V: (1000 words)
CONCLUSIONS AND FINAL THOUGHTS

Lit Review (16.2.14)

p.76 - 77 Translation as (sub)version

The history and trend of translating Chinese poetry into English - very briefly

There are 5 / 6 directions of studying the issues of translating poetry, namely,
different schools of translating CHINESE poetry into English, highlights problems emerged

what is translation and creativity

Translators responsibility in translating poetry

Define what is Ci?

literature review structure:
review the history of translation theories on poetry translation
For around two-thousand years w

Xu and his theories in particular?
David Bellos: Is that a fish in your ear?
Xia: Translation Compensation
Raffel: Translators responsibility

Looking at how translation Chinese Poetry into English is Translating UP, whilst it should be more equal????

Analysis Structure
linguistic: Gender, plural, tenses, punctuation
Culturally inequivalence: pipa Guitar

p.94 3.2, But obviously translation is multi-dimensional; moreover, its manifold dimensions and levels are
interwoven and reinforce each other, and therefore its full description can only be achieved by weighing the findings
concerning its various levels.
Gideon Toury The Nature and Role of norms in literary translation

p.97 but at least one thing is now clear in view of the major role that norms play in translation, namely that an
appropriate position should be assigned to them in translation theory as well.

p.7

p.19
18

the third main concept to be introduced is that of metalanguage: if we want to speak about the correspondence of a
statement to a fact, we need a metalanguage in which we can state the fact (or the alleged fact) about which the
statement in question speaks, and in addition can also speak about the statement in question (Popper 1972:46).

I now propose to introduce the following distinction which may, I hope, serve to clarify the way we speak about
literature. I would like to reserve the term literature for the non-scientific discipline that produces literary works.
The term metaliterature will, from now on, be used in this paper to refer to the discipline which makes statements
about literature. There is no reason why this discipline could not aspire to the scientific.

Metalanguage, as we have seen, speaks about both statement and fact. p.20

---------------------------------------------------------------
When you should annotate?
like when you are doing maths, you have to show how you come up with the answer.
its good because you can learn about the theories and shut people up when you are at work.
when it is not immediately direct; probably a good idea to talk about it. but avoid so-what idea.

The chosen solution therefore reduces the SL title to sense, at the expense of evoked meaning. This represents a
translation loss, defined by Hervey and Higgins [1992:24] as any failure to replicate a ST exactly, whether this
involves losing features in the TT or adding them. translation loss is something that Hervey and Higgins regard as
inevitable: Once one accepts the concept of inevitable translation loss, a TT that is not, in all important respects, a
replica of its ST is not a theoretical anomaly...the translator can concentrate on the realistic aim of cutting down on
translation loss, rather than unrealistic one of seeking the ultimate translation of the ST.

http://www.xinghui.com/big5/yilin/duiyizhejieru.htm
New ideas on Translators interposition

Literary Translation: A Practical Guide, Clifford E. Landers.
Some notes on translating poetry p.97

Clement Wood, editor of The complete Rhyming Dictionary, has stated flatly, Poetry cannot be translated; it can only
be recreated in the new language.

This suggests another criterion for juding a translation solely on the basis of its target language: a mastery of stylistic
and grammatical standards must be supported by a familiarity with idiomatic usage.

Theories behind translating poetry:
Xu Yuanchong: The art of translation

Whether by virtue of an imposed pattern, as in Le Roman de Renart, or dynamic tension, as in Rimbaud, or the four-
dimensional complexities of Mallarme, the language of poetry will always be farther from that of normal speech than
even the most elaborate prose. It is more formal, more artificial, and more precise. The translator, inevitable
accustomed to hearing that his project is impossible, may find, in fact, that poetry, by its very eccentricity, presents
itself as a series of discrete problems to which there seem to be, however temporarily, solutions. Words long sought
may suddenly fit themselves into places like pieces of a puzzle, and ultimately one may feel that a translation is
finished because to change any part of it would mean changing the whole. The more complex the project, the more
this has to be true. Even if one is seeking a unicorn or the Questing Beast, it has, or will assume, a shape in the mind
where, accordingly, it will be, once found, joyfully recognised.
p.65-66 Patricia Terry The Invisible Difference: Notes on the Translation of Poetry, Translation

Rethinking on Translating Classical Poetry:
Classical Poetry translation has been done a lot of times and nothing more could be added. The case is more like, no,
there will not be any re-translation, but just a constant study in the academia about what was good and what was not
good about the translated poems. There will never be something called the English Poetry of Li Ching-chao.

If a translator is being creative, does that imply that he or she is being unfaithful to the author and his or her work?
John Balcom p.117 The Translator as Writer

19

In the introduction of the book by Susan Bassnett outline one of the most fundamental questions for literary
translation.
S

Bassnett explains Borges has questioned the notions of distinctiveness of original and copy, or of writer and
translator.

p.2 it has often been argued that there is no such thing as a perfect translation.

the ORGANIC image contrasts with the negative rhetoric of accusations of betrayal

One of the most frequently asked questions in literary translation is the
Bassnett outlines one of the most important questions in literary translation,

Xavier Lin: then translation is no longer about looking for the solution; rather it is about creating solutions.

Western Translator tends to create? Chinese Translator tends to

Is it a translation? or just re-writing the entire poem?
Good thesis = a good set-off point serves as a pilot for more extensive study + strong and interesting,
preferably original, argument (thesis).

Case studies example:
1 very Chinese influenced
2) very much westernised
3) Read like English but retain the Chinese flavour

Flow:
1) historical debate of equivalence in Translation. very likely Stemming from literary translation [insert proof]
(Bakers In Other Words) + (Pyms Exploring Translation Theories)
2) No absolute equivalence, hence different approaches in translating Poetry
[quoting arguments in academia: Thinking Chinese Translation/ ]
3) Translation theory and historical movement in China (link to Poetry/ Literary Translation)
4) Translators role in translating Poetry, how to use translation compensation

Raffel Xu Zhongyuan Other various????

The problem of untranslatability and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

Bellos: p.168 he proved how flawed the hypothesis is using the NASA examples (155); yet a more sophisticated
version of the same question: some thing in French, can never be expressed in English, and vice versa. Thinking in
French (proved: different personality by speaking different languages)

Xia: p.31 the untranslatability is in fact linked to the study of translation compensation. It is just how you look at the
issue and see how to compensate for it.

A study on Translation Compensation

Evaluation of the translated poems:

Jeremy Munday: Evaluation in Translation: Critical points of translator decision-making

*The reader-author relationship

The definition of Poetry

It is a literary form in most of the cultures. Yet the definition of poetry is different from one culture to another.
[perhaps an OED definition]
i) Raffel: no similar literary history, suggesting the literary genres are different from cultures to cultures.
iia) Chinese word for from [chapter 5 p.453 ]
iib) further discussion about suggesting the word shouldnt be translated as poem
20

iic) the different genres of Chinese poetry should probably be treated differently (e.g.
) p.385
iid) the focus on and ; and probably why it shouldnt be translated using the same tactics?
iii) English poetry, and what is it to English native reader, from an English perspective

The history of translating Chinese Poetry - relating to the development of translation theories
* xing yin yi) the theory of 3 beauties -_- what a name...
*http://www.translationdirectory.com/articles/article2062.php the issue of direction of translation in China: a
Historical overview

The History of translating Li Ching-chao
http://www.sinoss.net/uploadfile/2012/0611/20120611043752101.pdf

What is Transcreation?
About Transcreation or Recreation in translation when translating poetry
p.33-34 translation and creativity: Perspectives on creative writing and translation studies
if translation is necessarily a fiction, then it must go out to meet its fictionality.

p.1 The translator as writer
choosing the next symphony concert to go to, the names of the composers, conductor and orchestra will be key to
whether we buy the tickets.

http://www.soas.ac.uk/literatures/satranslations/Gopin.pdf
Sujeet Mukherji (1981) prefers to call it Translation as New writing. But Transcreation seems to be a better word to
express this literary tradition of India. Transcreation can offer the best possible solution for the problems of
culturally oriented literary texts. Transcreation in this context can be understood as a rebirth or incarnation (Avatar)
of the original work. In a general sense, it can be defined as an aesthetic re-interpretation of the original work suited
to the readers/audience of the target language in the particular time and space. This re-interpretation is done with a
certain social purpose and is performed with suitable interpolations, explanations, expansions, summarising and
aesthetic innovations in style and techniques.

Thinking Chinese Translation, ch. 13 Translation of traditional poetry[Valerie Pellatt]

p.154
Translation is at the heart of literary experience [...] would modern English poetry be what it is without Cathy, the
translations of Chinese which Ezra Pound published in 1915?

Xu: says that the point is how to make what is beautiful in one language appear as beautiful in another. Pellatt: But
this is not the whole story!!!!! a lot of the poems are not to do with beauty.
I: Well beauty in terms of language. Not about the content???

poems of Pounds Cathay verge on transcreation or recreation rather than strict translation

p.156
More tricky from Chinese into English: From implicit to Explicit (Pan)
Pan: recreation is not only attractive but, on many occasions, necessary when working from Chinese to English (pan
2002: 59).

Pan concentrates on mistranslation but what the HELL is mistranslation??? Its just untranslatability! e.g. in
Chinese its meant to be implicit (Hannah: yeah its two.dogs); who cares if you are talking to the dog, or whether
the dogs are what genders...etc
Wenguo Pan
Singular or Plural? A Case Study of the Difficulty and Charm in Rendering Chinese Poems into English
http://www.llc.manchester.ac.uk/ctis/activities/papers/

Pictorial elements/quality in Chinese. . Chinese characters as a poetic medium Erza Pound. It
is Ecphrastic (Ecphrasis is manifest in Chinese poetry not only through the images the poet creates, but also in the
absence of grammatical links.
21

characters as pictures are not quite valid: as a Chinese person, when I heard the word , i would not visualise the
character itself but instead a picture of horse, even though the character looks like a horse Plus poetry are
sung/recited more than read.

Pallett: above all, translators need to avoid McGonagallism. Yet i do find Xu sounds a bit like him with the rhymes
every two sentencescomical effect? Rhyme works differently in English than Chinese?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McGonagall

Find a pilot point to set off, demonstrate why you have done this piece of research.

Creative translation, translating creatively: a case study on aesthetic coherence in Peter Stamblers Han Shan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yan_Yu_(poetry_theorist)
*an aesthetic coherence in the translated text is an indispensable basis, and explores how this basis may involve
creativity in translating.
*The notion of Gestalt

The translator as writer p.134
To make a work of literature in Chinese language come to life in English is a complex process that involves a scholars
knowledge of Chinese language and culture as well as a profound knowledge of an creative flair in English. John
Balcom

A Study on Translation Compensation
p.189
the theory from the western translators are focusing more on linguistics but not the aesthetic
p.243
culturally bound items and concepts in Chinese poetry translated into English

Notes 18-3-14
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=d3Ys4WfDIf0C&q=bassnett#v=snippet&q=bassnett&f=false
p.113

A variant on the case study involves the detailed comparison of existing translations, rather than the production of a
new piece of translation work. This type of research will also include notes and commentary. Often such research
involves the study of translations that have been made at different points in times, so the weighting is likely to be
towards the commentary, with the translations used as illustrative material.

p.117
The old hierarchies are dismissed and the translation, as Walter Benjamin so beautifully tells us, gives life to texts
that otherwise would have rotted away into oblivion.

Planet words - forward by Stephen Fry
But next time you speak or write, do not try to work out what is going on socially, culturally, neurally, intellectually or
physiologically. This effort is beyond us all and you might just explode. Instead...celebrate.

Words are all we have. Certainly, reader, words are all we have, you and I, as you sit with this book or reading device
in front of you and I sit and tap at my keyboard. You have no idea where i am as I do this, and I have no idea who,
where or what you are as you cotinue to read. We are connected by a filament of language that stretches from
somewhere inside my brain to somewhere inside yours. There are so many cognitive and cerebral processes involved
simply in the act of my writing and your reading these words that not all the massed ranks of biology, genetics,
linguistics, neurology, computational science or philosophy can properly describ, let alone understand or explain,
how it all works.

Miss Cui Takes a Hermeneutic Turn
Richard Trappl has pointed out that translations from the Chinese in particular are part of the
history of sciences in that they
22

Reflect viewpoints, theories, paradigms and aesthetic perspectives of the era in which they were written. They
selectively and structurally influence the multi-layered process of intercultural communication, often guilty of
misinterpretation and distortion, but always a necessary medium for the reflection of self and other between cultures
and people.

Although we all might very well wish for a pre-Babelic rendition of the tale, the many translational interpretations of
Yingying Zhuan invite the open-minded reader to reflect on cultural and literary norms and human possibilities far
beyond the source text. Of course, had Scholar Zhang been more careful in his youthful passion, we would not have to
ponder the question of how to treat each other properly and respectfully, then and now, and here and there. As it is,
however, his mistake and its amendment give all of us a hermeneutic turn at meaning construction and
deconstruction twelve hundred years later, and Miss Cui might spin in the hermeneutic circle for a while yet.

Introducing translation studies: Theories and Applications, Jeremy Munday

p.253
According to Benjamin, what translation does is to express the central reciprocal relationship between
languages. It reveals inherent relationships which are present but which remain hidden without translation. It
does this not by seeking to be the same as the original but by harmonising or bringing together the two different
languages. In this expansive and creative way, translation both contributes to the growth of its own language (by
the appearance in the TL of the new text) and pursues the goal of a pure and higher language. This pure
language is released by the co-existence and complementation of the translation with the original. The strategy
to achieve this is through a literal rendering which allows the pure language to shine through: by a literal
rendering of the syntax which proves words rather than sentences to be the primary element of the translator.

test this claim achieve this is through a literal rendering? really? how about translating from Classical
Chinese into English?
The capacity to release this pure language is singular to translation:

It is the task of the translator to release in his own language that pure language which is under the spell of
another, to liberate the language imprisoned in a work in his re-creation of that work.

For Benjamin, liberation only occurs if the translator allows the TL to be powerfully affected by the foreign
tongue. Literalness of syntax and the freedom of pure language come together in interlinear translation. That is,
a word-for-word Target Language gloss inserted above the words of the original. The ideal translation, in
Benjamins opinion is an interlinear version of the Bible which allows the divine Word to appear.

Support the idea of foreignisation.

Translated! Papers on Literary Translation and Translation studies
p24 there is a graph explaining what is poem and Metapoem
p.49 a graph explaining historicising-modernising, re-creative-retentive, exoticising-naturalising

""""

"
"""""""

""""""
""""""""
""
23

"""""''"
919 """"

""""""
""""""
"
"919
"
"
""
"""
""" so dim, so dark, so dense,
so dull, so damp, so dank, so dead
53
""""so dim, so ... ""

""(assonance) ""(alliteration)"""
'gng gng"
""so d-
so...""
"
"

1998
1 1988
2 1992
1999
1945-

p.6 literature and Translation: new perspectives in literary studies
I hope this colloquium will help us to face up to these problems, which are anything but marginal. Perhaps we shall
discover alternative views to replace the everlasting charge of traduttore/traditore. Perhaps we can decide that the
traditional distinction between original writier and translator should be set aside, since a translator can be both
poetic and original. Translations can teach us how to transcend disjunctive opinions with regard to literature as a
whole. When we manage to clarify our ideas of literary translation, the ill-framed traduttore/traditore may perhsap
be restated into traduttore/Scrittore, or traduttore/autore.

When Chinese translate Chinese to Chinese - Russell Maeth, Elcolegio de Me(/)xico
Traslation East and West: A cross-cultural approach
p.172
In June 1984, Eliot Weinberger, a protege of Nobel laureate Octavio Paz, published a lengthy examination of nineteen
translations of a single poem of Wang Wei (c.700-761) in the Mexican magazine Vuelta (no.91) under the title
Diecinueve maneras de ver a Wang Wei (Nineteen Ways of looking at Wang Wei). There then ensured a brief but
heated polemic that centered on the adequacy, both philological and linguistic, of certain detailed features of
Weinbergers analysis.

p.176
24

Professor David Hawkes of Oxford puts the matter even more succinctly (A Little Primer of Tu Fu, Oxford, 1967, 207):
The result of compressing so many mental happenings into so exiguous a form is that the actual wording of the poem
becomes a kind of shorthand from which the poets full meaning has to be reconstructed. Poetry like this, in short,
invites us to share some of the process of composition with the poet.

To conclude, it would seem that the practice of Chinese translators, of which we have just reviewed five examples,
reconfirms these observations, whereas Weinbergers dos and donts fail to take account both of the nature of the
text and of the genre. Far from constituting an error or a blemish, seeming amplification or reconstruction of the
poets full meaning is a duty imposed by the very nature of the taks, for, as Robert Carter observes in The Tao and
Mother Goose:

Of all the forms of verbal expression poetry alone offers the greatest potential for economy: it can transmit the
maximum message with the most minimal means. Or, to put it another way, poetry can evoke the greatest inner
richness through the greatest outer simplicity.

The translator who, beguiled by a poems apparent simplicity, ignores its inner richness does so at his own and his
readers peril.

------------
Chapter 3 Poetics Translation/History/Culture: A sourcebook
p.27 1st, the translator must understand to perfection the meaning and the subject matter of the author he translates.
2nd,
What was missing
What was interpret
What was meant to be ambiguous - emptiness

The Undefinitive Translation of Poetry - Anne Born

Writing on the problems of translation has any sense at all only if it contributes to our knowledge of the agents which
influence the translators work and its quality, if it contributes to our knowledge of the way in which the resulting
effect on the reader is dependent on the methods chosen by the translator. Jiri Levy

Just as no original-language poem can be said ever to be completely finished, to be the definitive version (some poets
have driven bibliographers mad by constant revisions in successive editions), a translated poem too is always open to
alteration. In fact, even more widely open, for different translators will, as I shall show, produce extremely variant
readings.

Translating the Untranslatable - Yann Lovelock

The questions will always be open. The untranslatable is the mother of invention. p.210

An Introduction to Literary Chinese

Problems of Reading and Understanding (p.1)
highlighting the problem of Grammar is not Enough, one need to consider the context, history +++ to understand
literary Chinese fully. (see the diagram) Hence translating into modern English may not work as well.

Translating Emotion: Studies in Translation and Renewal Between Languages

p.66 John Kinsella
It is as a translator that I write these words and recognise that my own first translations of poets such as Herberto
Helder and Emanuel Felix stand at the axis of a long relationship between distinct latitudes and cultures. What can
finally be achieved in a sense of dialogue (through translation) is perhaps an intermediate world of unusual
juxtapositions, of opposites and yet again a space for creativity. It is in this realm of the human imagination that there
emerges a contrast between the authentic and its potential within a landscape of alternative visions, interpretations,
associations and connections: a spirit of otherness is both transmitted and even transcended in a journey that can
finally share a common axis.

25

Jakobson Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics, Style in Language
p.350
Poetics deals primarily with the question, what makes a verbal message a work of art?
poetic function is not the sole function of verbal art but only its dominant, determining function, whereas in all other
verbal activities it acts as a subsidiary , accessory constituent.

The particularities of diverse poetic genres imply a differently ranked participation of the other verbal functions
along with the dominant poetic function. Epic poetry, focused on the 3rd person, strongly involves the referential
function of language; the lyric, oriented toward the first person, is intimately liked with the emotive function; poetry
of the second person is imbued with the conative function and is either supplicatory or exhortative, depending on
whether the first person is subordinated to the second one or the second to the first.

The question still remains open whether, besides the accentual and the chronemic verse, there exists a tonemic type
of versification in languages where differences of syllabic intonations are used to distinguish word meanings. In
classical Chinese poetry, syllables with modulations tse, deflected tones) are opposed to the nonmodulated syllables,
ping level tones, but apparently a chronemic principle underlies this opposition, as was suspected by Polivanov and
keenly interpreted by Wang Li.; in the Chinese metrical tradition the level tones prove to be opposed to the defelcted
tones as long tonal peaks of syllables to short ones, so that verse is based on the opposition of length and shortness.

Miss Cui takes a Hermeneutic Turn: Yingying zhuan and its various translations and retranslations - Birgit Linder

p.150 From the hermeneutic point of view, every text, be it the original or the translation, carries with it its own
prejudice and meaning, its own horizon. A study of the correlation between texts as transmitted in different cultures
or periods shows how meaning is constructed against the cultural and literary context of the source text and the
target text alike. What this paper is concerned with is, therefore, not the accuracy of a translation, but rather the
cultural significance of a translation and how each text adds to the meaning of the original.

[the hermeneutic approach should not be misunderstood as giving license to faulty translations.]

---------------------
Avoiding Thesis and Dissertation Pitfalls
p.16
S: But site based is better, and its important that people recognise it.
P: that makes your dissertation an advertising tool - a device to get people to buy your product. Its like selling Coke
or Pepsi. By saying your purpose is to prove, youre already committed to something you believe is true.
S: Whats wrong with that?
P: A research dissertation is supposed to contribute to knowledge or to practise by revealing something we dont
already know. The way you phrase your topic should reflect such an intention. If your work is to qualify as research,
you need a different verb than prove. Try discover if or test whether or compare the effectiveness of?

But dont researchers gather inforemation to find out if something they believe is actually true?

Quite so. Thats what a hypothesis is - a statement of a likely outcome. But the aim of such researchers is not to
convince others that the hypothesis is true. Their aim is to test whether it is indeed true, or perhaps to test the degree
to which its true. And the difference between a commitment to convince others and a desire to assess the validity of
an estimate isnt inconsequential, since it can affect the way you do the job.

when you sincerely try to assess a hypothesis, you hunt for -and use- all varieties of evidence that bear on the issue.
Rejecting the hypothesis can be as significant as confirming it. Persuading - seeking to prove - is salesmanship.
Discovering or evaluating is research.

Fit the subject of study??
Will the results of the study make a contribution to knowledge??
Feasible?

Linguistics and the study of Poetic Language - Edward Stankiewicz, Style in Language

Thesis Note Chinese Translation

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Draft by 27.5.14 Thesis Notes 25.5.

""""so dim, so ... ""

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