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Book Reviews
Robert E. Hegel; Christiane Nord; Andrzej Pawelec

Online Publication Date: 01 November 2007

To cite this Article Hegel, Robert E., Nord, Christiane and Pawelec, Andrzej(2007)'Book Reviews',Perspectives,15:4,278 — 285
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 Book Reviews
Translation, Globalisation and Localisation: A Chinese Perspective
Wang Ning and Sun Yifeng (eds). Clevedon, UK, Buffalo, NY, and Toronto,
ON: Multilingual Matters, 2008. (Topics in Translation 35.) Pp 220. ISBN 978-1-
84769-053-1 (hbk): US$99.95.

Translation studies as a discipline is well established in Europe, but it is still

new in North America and in Asia. Some would still dispute its parameters,
but as its proponents define the field, it necessarily includes theoretical and
analytical studies as well as the practice of translation. All of these areas are
developed in Europe, but the USA lags behind in analyses of translations and
China in theoretical formulations of the problems of translation. All areas of
the world move quickly forward with the production of translations, of course;
the increased pace of globalisation necessitates nothing less. Ever since the
‘cultural turn’ in translation studies of the 1990s, it has been a commonplace
that choices made in the process of translation are shaped by the cultural
context of the translator as well as political pressures she might not be fully
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aware of. So, too, is the field of translation studies. The present collection
responds to a need to interject Chinese perspectives into the larger discussions
of translation studies theory, most of which go on in English. Despite the
signal contribution already made by this journal and other such collections,
the essays here make a splendid addition to the field, based on rich experience,
careful theoretical formulation, and incisive analyses of selected texts. The
volume deserves widespread circulation and careful attention by anyone who
is seriously engaged in translation or translation studies; it marks a new
milestone in this rapidly expanding field.
As one might expect, despite its subtitle this volume presents far more than
one Chinese perspective. Like China’s translators and readers, its contributors
come from diverse backgrounds and share little more than deep knowledge of
their field and a sincere desire to contribute to its development. The
distinguished contributors here are based in various parts of China (Chen
Yongguo, Wang Ning, and Xu Yanhong in Beijing, Mu Lei and Wang Dongfeng
in Guangzhou), in Hong Kong (Eugene Chen Eoyang and Sun Yifeng) and in
Macao (Mao Sihui); others write from Europe (Cay Dollerup, Copenhagen),
the United States (Edwin Gentzler, Amherst, Mass.), and Canada (Xie Ming,
Toronto). Their levels and types of engagement in China differ: even so, all are
remarkable for the information they present as well for as their insights.
After an introduction by Wang Ning and Sun Yifeng, its 10 essays are
divided between ‘historical overviews’ and ‘current developments’. But these
divisions should not prompt readers to focus on only one area: Introduction
and essays in both sections all thoughtfully address both the brief history of
self-conscious theorising of translations in China and recent accomplishments
in this area. The divisions are more a convenience than substantive; reading

278
 Book Reviews 279

the essays against each other reveal significant accomplishments as well as

ongoing problems of the field.
In the Introduction, the editors argue for the uniqueness of China’s
contributions to translation studies; appropriately, the process of globalisation
has hardly homogenised scholarly insights any more than it has enforced
one type of translation across international borders. Instead of some vague
‘Westernization’ of translation theory in China, what they present might be
called globalisation with Chinese characteristics, the localisation of trends that
circle the globe but that represent the strengths and theoretical sophistication
of China’s translators and critics. Significantly, many Chinese translators tend
to leave foreign texts ‘foreignized’ in translation, rather than domesticating
them to sound fully ‘natural’ (in the very useful distinction presented by
Lawrence Venuti; see pp. 63 and153
154). In his essay, Xie Ming goes farther to
point out that all representations of the global situation are discursively
constructed; the process of modernisation in China has undergone several
quite different stages of interpretation. Yet at each stage, China’s translators
have generally selected what they felt was most useful for their readers at that
time, whether as inspiration for creating new political structures, a new social
order, or cultural development. Maintaining foreignness in their translations is
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one way for Chinese translators to resist Western cultural dominance
it

localises modernity without simply accepting that dominance, and it en-
courages comparative critical studies of culture and its values. He concludes,
‘The act of translation is thus an act of self-reflection’ (p. 30).
Cay Dollerup engages the difficult question of cultural ‘incompatibility’ in
selecting texts for translation; cultural mediation may be needed to make one
text comprehensible or acceptable in another culture. Sun Yifeng and Mu Lei
address another challenge: the avoidance or even resistance to translation
theory in China (although that phenomenon is certainly not unique to China);
the reasons may range from the ‘impracticality’ of theory compared to the
pressing need for more texts in translation through its lack of empirical basis
to the concern that such theories might be a wholly Western imposition. And
for those who work in this area, Sun and Mu suggest that finding ‘uniquely’
Chinese theory may be misguided, despite the differences to date in theoretical
approaches compared to Western theorists (p. 57). They endorse the trend to
focus on the role of the translator, and on comparative literary approaches in
the study of translations.
Wang Ning carries forward this approach to identify translation as an
‘inseparable’ element in China’s literary and cultural modernisation. Wang’s
view of translation is nuanced; his focus is on the conversation between
author, translator, and reader inherent in the process. Since literary texts are
indeterminate by definition, there can be no simple way to reproduce the
meaning of one text in another. Likewise, Wang Ning convincingly points out
the plurality of Chinese literatures: Chinese national culture is not unitary
(and, as a literary historian, I would add that it never was). Thus, the
‘glocalization’ process (to use Roland Robertson’s term, see p. 171) of adapting
foreign texts into Chinese versions produces hybrids that amalgamate Chinese
 280 Perspectives: Studies in Translatology

with Western literature and culture
which process also preserves and
continues cultural diversity. Xu Yanhong explores the differing approaches to
translation in the 1930s by contrasting Lu Xun’s more literal translations with
the more domesticated versions advocated by Zhao Jingshen and others.
Despite resistance from more cautious cultural figures, she endorses transla-
tion as cross-cultural communication and applauds the recent trend to explore
cultural and ideological factors in translation among China’s theorists (p. 98).
Echoing Wang Ning on the importance of multiple approaches to translation
studies, she endorses the fertilisation that the field in China has received from
the West as the basis for exciting developments in this area.
As he has in other writings, Edwin Gentzler here advocates extending the
purview of translation studies well beyond literature to consider the demands
of global business and the rapid expansion of technology. This should prompt
the development of more university-level translation studies programmes, but
here the US lags behind both Europe and China. From this broader
perspective, Gentzler foresees the simplification of source texts to facilitate
translation, with a resultant limitation of creativity of expression (however, in
such materials as technical manuals, I would see this as a positive step!). His
model of reading translations through a variety of analytical lenses will
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continue to be very helpful in developing interpretive studies of translations.

Chen Yongguo’s essay is probably the most abstract in the collection: it
addresses the concepts of transgression of the limits of language in translation.
His sources are Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari as he concludes, in part:
‘A translator is a critic who takes translation as a form of critique of power
relations that are supposed to be the constants and invariants of language, and
whose task it is to deconstruct the original to see what emerges from the
deconstruction and what new constructions can be formed’ (p. 137). Further-
more, ‘translation is a political-economic activity focusing on the contradiction
between intralinguistic difference and extralinguistic values, intersecting both
the text-appropriating and world-appropriating activities’ (p. 139). Basing his
analysis on Evan-Zohar’s polysystem hypothesis, Wang Dongfeng questions
previous speculations about the ‘cultural strengths’ involved in translation
and their supposed effects on translation strategy. On the basis of historical
experience going back to the translations of Buddhist scriptures from Sanskrit,
Wang concludes that it is the subjective recognition of the position of the target
culture that historically has determined translation strategy in China. This
allows him to periodise translation practice in China with considerable
sophistication.
Mao Sihui presents a very convincing analysis of the ‘popular’ film Dawan
(Big Shot’s Funeral, 2002), directed by Feng Xiaogang. His sensitive
reading of the film’s many levels of cultural critique and artistic parody draws
attention to Linda Hutcheon’s characterisation of audiences as ‘co-creators’ of
the work of art
especially so in this case when cross-cultural intertextuality is
the film’s primary characteristic. Eugene Chen Eoyang concludes the volume
with an excellent comparison of ways that three Asian
American authors
appropriate English to represent other languages (Korean, Japanese, and
 Book Reviews 281

Cantonese). He concludes that it is indeed possible to articulate antihegemo-

nies in a hegemonic discourse like ‘American English’ (which is itself anything
but uniform in use), which complicates earlier readings of postcolonial
literature.
In general, this collection sets a very high standard for scholarship in
translation studies. Every one of these contributions is deeply engaged with
current theoretical discussions around the world, while none of these authors
is limited by any one theorist or perspective. Regardless of the location from
which these scholars write the value of this collection is far more than merely
the sum of its individually very considerable parts: the questions raised here
are pressing and the interpretations are engaging. Yet the cross-fertilisation of
the essays with each other is what makes this collection so outstanding: it is
clearly worth reading every essay, from beginning to end. This is an excellent
contribution to the broad and international field of translation studies.

doi: 10.1080/13670050802278140 Robert E. Hegel

Department of Asian and
Near Eastern Languages and Literatures,
Washington University,
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St. Louis, Missouri, USA

(rhegel@wustl.edu)

Einführung in die Translationswissenschaft, Band I: Orientierungsrahmen

Erich Prunč. Austria: Institut für Theoretische und Angewandte Translations-
wissenschaft, University of Graz, 2003. Pp. 374. (Introduction to Translation
Studies. Vol. 1: A Theoretical Framework) ISBN 3-901-54003-2

When I was a student of translation (and even when I became a teacher of

translation shortly afterwards), more than 40 years ago, the ‘theoretical’ part of
the training programme consisted of some lectures on lexicology and
semantics, and a bit of Stylistique Comparée, and the literature on translation
was almost nonexistent. Since then, translation studies has become a fully
fledged discipline, and German-speaking scholars like Katharina Reiss and
Hans J. Vermeer were indeed pioneers of this development. For today’s
students (and teachers) of translation and interpreting, the then open field has
turned into a jungle full of strange flora and fauna, and they need some
guidelines and signposts to find their way through the confusing but
fascinating world of models, theories and practical advice.
For them, Erich Prunč, Chair of Translation Studies at the University of
Graz, Austria, has written a helpful guidebook, the first of two volumes, that
marks out the theoretical framework(s) for the author’s own approach to
translation and translation studies, which he promises to explain in detail in
Volume 2. The book covers the development of the discipline from the early
days of Vinay/Darbelnet, Nida and the Leipzig school, through skopos theory
and functional approaches, which seem to have the author’s full sympathies,
 282 Perspectives: Studies in Translatology

to deconstruction and postcolonial perspectives. It does not deal exhaustively

with everything that might be worth mentioning in such an introduction (e.g.
the psycholinguistic research into the translation process, the expanding field
of translation pedagogy, corpus-based translation studies or interpreting
studies), which the author leaves to be discussed in the second part of his
opus magnum.
After an introductory exploration of the name(s) of the discipline and some
of its basic concepts (Chapter 1, pp. 9
32), the readers are invited to join a
thematic tour d’horizon based on central topics and paradigms of research:
from the early linguistic approaches and the debate on equivalence (Chapter 2,
pp. 33
104, including the contributions of Roman Jakobson, Vinay/Darbel-
net’s Stylistique Comparée, the Leipzig school, Werner Koller’s equivalence
types and Katharina Reiss’s text type-oriented model of translation criticism),
via the specific (cultural) aspects of Nida’s missionary approach to Bible
translation (Chapter 3, pp. 105
130, under the misleading heading ‘Translation
as Cultural Transfer’), the importance of text linguistics (Chapter 4, pp.
131
153, ‘The Functionality Principle’), the model(s) of translatorial action
(Chapter 5, pp. 155
203), comparative and descriptive translation studies
focussing on literary translation (Chapter 6, pp. 205
268, including the
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discussion of norm concepts, polysystem theory, ‘Cultural Turn’, feminist

and postcolonial aspects), and, finally, deconstruction (Chapter 7, pp. 269
291,
where the theorie is illustrated on the basis of Walter Benjamin’s essay ‘The
Task of the Translator’ and its deconstruction by Jacques Derrida and Paul de
Man). Chapter 8 (pp. 293
295) deals with the so-called Göttingen research
group of literary scholars (Göttinger Sonderforschungsbereich), who investigated
literary translations and the relations between literatures through translation
from a historical and descriptive perspective. Although the members of this
group never regarded themselves as translation scholars in a narrower sense,
it is not quite plausible why this group deserved a chapter of its own instead of
being dealt with, perhaps in the form of an excursus, in the context of Chapter
6. The list of references and sources (pp. 303
351) gives a good impression of
the growth of the discipline, and the index of persons and key words does not
leave much to be desired.
In the concluding remarks (Chapter 9, pp. 297
302), entitled ‘Integration’,
the author tries to outline the general trends of development in translation
studies. For Erich Prunč, this development is characterised by an alternation of
divergence and convergence, symmetry and asymmetry. The first line of
development starts with the supposed symmetry between languages and
extends to the point where the existing asymmetries between languages seem
to make translation impossible. In the second strand of development, the focus
of attention is widened to include asymmetries between cultures. With the
integration of the dimension of power into the concept of culture, asymmetries
of power come to the fore and are dealt with on a historical, local and global
level. Parallel to these first trends, the author follows another line of
development, from the dethroning of the original text, through the death of
the author and the birth of the reader to the death of the original, which is
replaced by and reborn through translation. In this context, the author also
explores the visibility of translators and their sociopolitical status, which is
 Book Reviews 283

essentially changed through the adoption of feminist and postcolonial

perspectives. According to the author, the beginning of the third millennium
witnesses two main trends in translation studies: the increasing convergence
between the linguistically oriented and the literary oriented schools of
research on the one hand, and the call for an abandonment or, at least, a
relativisation of eurocentristic concepts of translation on the other hand.
German academic prose is often difficult to read, especially for students
who are not yet familiar with the terminology and the style conventions of
scholarly literature and for nonnatives of German. This book is one of the rare
exceptions. It is written in an accessible, reader-friendly, sometimes even
amusing style, particularly with regard to chapter and section headings,
whose playful use of language and intertextuality may serve as an incentive to
open the book on a particular page and start reading. As has been mentioned
above, this playfulness sometimes leads to headings or titles in which the
appellative function of reading incentive takes priority over the referential
function of indicating the content of a chapter or section. However, on the
other hand, it may be more important, nowadays, to make students enjoy
reading. Definitions, important quotes, graphs, references for further reading
(grouped according to topics) and the examples are highlighted in grey, which
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helps the reader’s orientation and interrupts the monotony of pages full of
text. The number of footnotes is limited to an absolute minimum. The
languages and cultures covered in the examples, either the author’s own or
borrowed from the literature, cover German (often in the Austrian variety,
sometimes in South Tyrolean dialect), English, Italian, French, Spanish, Latin
(examples from the Bible are quoted from the Vulgate), Croatian, Serbian,
Slovenian, Hungarian, Russian and a great variety of text types and genres.
This is not a book that has to be read from cover to cover but rather selecting
topics or trends in the recent history of translation studies, as they are grouped
in chapters or sections. However, it should be read by every student of
translation and/or interpreting with a reasonable knowledge of German

and, hopefully, not only by students but also by those teachers who with
regard to the theoretical and methodological foundations of their teaching are
often only a few pages ahead of their students, groping their way through the
jungle of convergent and divergent views about translation.

doi: 10.1080/13670050802332640 Christiane Nord

post@christiane-nord.de

Representing Others. Translation, Ethnography and the Museum

Kate Sturge. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing, 2007. Pp. xi 198. ISBN 978-1-
905763-01-6 (pbk): £19.50.

The title of this book hides an ambiguity which the author believes to reveal a
promising meeting ground of translation studies on the one hand and
 284 Perspectives: Studies in Translatology

ethnography (including museum studies) on the other. The English term

‘representation’, as the author explains, is a possible translation of two German
words: Darstellung and Vertretung, and thus, combines here the idea of
‘portraying’ and ‘speaking for’ other people. Since these activities are taken
to be central for translation and ethnography
‘both claim at once to ‘‘show’’
others to the domestic audience and to speak the others’ words in the language
of that audience’ (p. 1)
it may be reasonably expected that critical voices in
anthropology and museum studies addressing the dynamic between Dar-
stellung and Vertretung have much to say to the students of translation. The
task the author sets herself, accordingly, is to identify and present relevant
areas of scholarship. As she modestly (and somewhat surprisingly) ends her
introduction, ‘this book doesn’t claim to offer either great depth or complete
coverage’ (p. 4).
I will tackle the central issue of ‘depth’ in a moment. As for the ‘coverage’,
from the point of view of this (admittedly, untutored) reader it is exhaustive
and perhaps even too wide-ranging. The first two chapters
‘Translation as
Metaphor, Translation as Practice’ and ‘The Translatability of Cultures’

substantiate the claim that the notion of ‘translation’ makes sense not only in
reference to texts, but also to cultures. The subsequent three chapters

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‘Historical Perspectives’, ‘Critical Innovations in Ethnography’ and ‘Ethno-

graphic Translations of Verbal Art’
show in many ways that ethnography is a
kind of translation and discuss the uses of translation in various ethnographic
ventures. The last two chapters
‘Museum Representations’ and ‘Ethical
Perspectives’
focus on the museum: first, as a vehicle of cultural translation,
and then as a locus of ethical challenges. All these chapters are divided into
several sections devoted to narrower issues and containing brief presentations
and discussions of numerous works. This summary may sound quite super-
ficial but the present reader
faced with the wealth of detail and loosely
related material
admits helplessness.
Thus, we return to the disclaimer concerning ‘depth’. On one level, the
author is too modest: she does take up many intricate subjects which she
discusses with great expertise (highly impressive for a student of translation).
From a more general perspective, however, she largely limits herself to the
presentation of literature and does not provide enough argumentative
structure for the book to have a convincing message. What is missing, I
believe, is not some highfalutin ‘depth’ but rather greater clarity about the key
issue: what is the relationship between the ‘translation of cultures’ and
translation sans phrase? I do not question the use of the term ‘translation’ in
reference to ethnography and the museum, for there is an intuitive link
between providing access to foreign texts and foreign cultures. I would simply
expect that the nature of this link should be elucidated (or only put into
question) and provisional conclusions (or doubts) serve as the backbone of the
book. It is certainly not enough to say that both translation and ethnography
‘claim at once to ‘‘show’’ others to the domestic audience and to speak the
others’ words in the language of that audience’. This may be true of
ethnography but it misses what I feel to be the crucial feature of translation:
it lets others speak for themselves (even if through an intermediary), it lets
them cross the threshold of our community.
 Book Reviews 285

Of course, we would need a more elaborate ‘anthropology of translation’ to

see better the similarities and differences between translation as such and the
translation of culture (or, more narrowly, translation in anthropology). The
material so skillfully presented by the author will be of great help in this task
and she herself is uniquely qualified to venture in this direction.

doi: 10.1080/13670050802331873 Andrzej Pawelec

Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
apa@vela.filg.uj.edu.pl
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