Investigating Specialized Translators of Minority Literary Works: Corpus and Documentary Sources in the English Journal Pathlight (2011-2018) ()
1. Introduction
Ethnic minority literature is an important part of Chinese literature. China’s ethnic minorities have formed their unique cultures in the long process of historical development, highlighting the diversity of Chinese culture. Cultural diversity makes an urgent request for taking the ethnic minority literature to the global stage. Therefore, the translation and communication of minority culture is of great and far-reaching significance to the integration of the Chinese nation, to help the world reach a deeper understanding of China in a more comprehensive and true way.
As a “bridge” between the original text and the target text, translators shoulder important responsibilities in the process of minority literature going global. At present, a large number of translators have been engaged in the translation of ethnic minority literary works, translating a large number of excellent works, making important contributions to the promotion of ethnic cultural communication around the world. Translator study plays an important role in the study of ethnic literature translation. Excellent works cannot be separated from excellent translators. In order to promote Chinese literature around the world, more attention should be devoted to the cultivation and research of translators.
Periodical is one of the important ways to transmit Chinese culture. By virtue of its continuity and timeliness, periodical plays a special role in the communication of culture and literature. The English version of People’s Literature (《人民文学》), Pathlight (《路灯》), was started its publication to spread Chinese literature to the English-speaking world in 2011. People’s Literature is the first national literary magazine in China, and Pathlight is government-sponsored by People’s Literature Magazine, with translation support from Paper Republic (纸托邦). It is named “Path Light”, whose initials “PL” are the same as “People’s Literature”, to be like a lamp, providing light on the way for Chinese literature to “go global”.
Thus, it can be seen that this study selects the translator group of ethnic minority writers in Pathlight (2011-2018) for the research of the translators’ subjectivity, which is representative to a certain extent and is helpful to cultural exchange, in order to enrich the diversity of the research field of translators in ethnic literature works.
2. Literature Review
2.1. Relative Research on Ethnic Minority Literature in Pathlight
Since its publication in 2011, Pathlight has made great contribution to the international communication of Chinese contemporary literature, which has also attracted the attention of academic circles. Take the “the English version of People’s Literature”, “Pathlight” as the theme, 12 articles were retrieved on CNKI, including 6 journal articles, 3 newspaper articles and 3 academic papers.
Relative research can be mainly divided into two categories: publication and translation. Zhang (2019) summarized the translation strategies of neologism through the investigation of short stories in Pathlight. Based on detailed data, Wang (2015) examined the translation and international dissemination of Chinese contemporary literary works by Paper Republic, a spontaneous overseas non-governmental network translation organization, and its translators. Wang (2014) summarized the process of translation of the periodical through an interview with Eric, an editorial director of Pathlight. There is the study on the ethnic minority literature in Pathlight (Luo & Yan, 2020) , which summarized in detail the translation and characteristics of ethnic minority works in Pathlight (2011-2018) , as well as the experience and inspiration for Chinese literature to “go global”, filling the gap in the research on the translation of ethnic minority literary works in Pathlight. However, the study of translator group in Pathlight has not received the attention of academic circles so far. More attention could be paid to the study of ethnic minority literary works and the translator group in Pathlight, in order to promote Chinese ethnic minority literature.
2.2. Relative Research on Translator Group
As the focus of translation studies shifts from the original text to the target text and then to the translator, the central position of the translator in all previous translation activities has been paid more and more attention by researchers.
In the 1990s, there was a “cultural turn” in translation studies. Foreign scholars, such as Bassnett (2014) , studied the translator as cross-cultural mediator in text translation. Literature translation has attracted the attention of scholars, such as Toury (1995) , Even-Zohar (1990) and Hermans (1985) , who have made great contributions to the study of “cultural turn” in translation studies. After Lefevere (1992) put forward the theory of translation, rewriting, and the manipulation of literature, these views have also been applied to the study of translators. Venuti (1986) proposed that the revelation of the translator’s identity could make translation a kind of dialogue. Venuti’s views have made outstanding contributions to the improvement of the translator’s status, but he has not deeply studied the translator’s behavior. Robinson (1991) turned his research perspective to the translator, highlighting the dominant position of the translator through various transformations from the original text to the target text. Compared with the study of translator groups, individual translator research has attracted more attention from scholars.
In recent years, many researches on individual translator and translator groups have emerged in China. Feng (2022) discussed the overall approach on the study of translator groups and suggested that emphasis should be placed on the investigation of shared features of translator groups. Fang (2021) explored translators’ spiritual ethics as an inner power for translation work. Liu & Xu (2020) also pointed out that the study of translators needs to be strengthened. Obviously, scholars have devoted increasing attention to translator studies. However, in addition to the study of individual translator, more attention should also be paid to the study of translator groups. Shan, Fang, & Cai (2019) , by collecting relevant data from CNKI and Web of Science, found that there are more individual researches on translators than group researches in China, and most of these individual researches introducing the life and main achievements of a translator. We study a translator not only to review his or her translation process and display his or her translation achievements, but also to explore his or her translation strategies or thoughts and the reasons for the formation of such strategies or thoughts (Yuan, 2022) . H. Goldblatt, a famous translator, has attracted the attention of most researchers. Since 2000, more than a thousand journal papers have been retrieved with “Goldblatt” as the subject word (Zhu, 2020) . Yu & Tang (2021) focused on the group of translators in the China’s The Communist (Monthly), the first theoretical journal in the history of the Communist Party of China (CPC), including Li Da, Mao Dun and two unsigned translators. In this case, though the research of renowned translators is important, we should not ignore the contribution of unknown translators. The translator group in Pathlight also includes both renowned translators and unknown translators. Taking Bruce Humes, one of the six translators selected in this study, as an example, some scholars (Wang & Hu, 2015) had explored how Bruce Humes’ national ideology influenced the whole process of the translation of Last Quarter of the Moon (《额尔古纳河右岸》). By contrast, studies of the translator Roddy Flagg could not be found. Therefore, both renowned translators and unknown translators are selected in this study to provide a necessary frame of reference for the study of translators and fills the research gap in translation history.
3. Theoretical Framework
From the perspective of the study of reading history, this paper explores the subjectivity of the translator group of ethnic minority literary works in Pathlight (2011-2018) , and summarizes the use of translation strategies.
The history of reading arose under the background of the “cultural turn” of Western historiography. Since 1960s and 1970s, contemporary western historiography began to turn from “social history” to “cultural history”, and this kind of cultural history orientation was also called “new cultural history”. After the emergence of the new cultural history, a large number of scholars, led by American scholar Robert Darnton and French scholar Roger Chartier, devoted themselves to the study of reading history. The earliest introduction to the study of foreign reading history in China is the two articles From Audio Reading to Silent Reading and Book · Reading · History of Reading published by Li Changsheng (Xu & Zhang, 2022) . The study of the history of reading is more concerned with the feedback of the readers themselves and the impact of it. The process of readers’ reading process is a re-interpretation and re-shaping of texts. Manguel (1997) , a Canadian scholar, put forward the view that “translators are readers”, which provides a new perspective for the study of reading history and translators. The text of a book can form a huge reading group. As members of the reading group, translators transform and enrich books while reading, so as to reflect a certain degree of translators’ subjectivity.
It was not until the “cultural turn” of translation study in the 1970s that translator’s subjectivity began to come into the view of researchers. “Cultural turn” provides a new perspective for translation studies. After The Translator’s Turn (Robinson, 1991) was published, translation study began to pay more attention to translators and works, and the subjectivity of translators was gradually recognized. The study of translator’s subjectivity has become a hot topic in China. Translator’s subjectivity means that on the premise of respecting the translation object, the translator, as the subject of translation, shows the subjective initiative in the process of translation for the purpose of translation (Zha & Tian, 2003) . In the whole process of translation, translators may transform the original language text due to the influence of their own cultural background, their own vision and other factors. A correct understanding of the original text is a prerequisite for translation activity to proceed smoothly, while the understanding of the original text requires repeated reading. Therefore, a translator is not only a reader who can selectively read a certain meaning in the source text, but also needs to clarify his or her identity as a translator to accurately interpret the linguistic meaning and non-linguistic meaning of the source text. Therefore, Baker (2004) proposed that the necessary preparatory work before translation should be careful reading, re-reading and corresponding research of the original text and other works of the author. Fu Lei also pointed out that he will not translate any text without reading it four or five times in depth, and this is the most basic method of translation (Xu, 1992) . However, for different translators, the understanding and interpretation of the original text are different, which is due to translators’ different history and culture, social consciousness, aesthetic style etc. and is influenced by different degrees of subjectivity.
4. An Introduction of Pathlight and the 6 Selected Translators
People’s Literature was started its publication in October 1949 under the supervision of Chinese Writers Association and sponsored by China Writer Press Group. It is the first and one of the most influential literary periodical in China. With the acceleration of Chinese culture going global, Pathlight, the English version of People’s Literature, was published in 2011 (Figure 1). “Pathlight” means “light on the road of cultural exchange between China and the West”, aiming to translate excellent Chinese literary works overseas. The initial plan is to publish the magazine in the form of a quarterly journal, which will adopt the form of cooperation between the public and the government. It is government-sponsored by the People’s Literature Magazine, and Paper Republic provides translation support in the publication process. The List of Themes in Pathlight (2011-2018) can be seen in the following Table 1.
Based on a review of 21 periodicals published in Pathlight from 2011 to 2018, 56 works written by ethnic minority writers have been translated overseas, including 30 authors and 23 translators. The 30 authors are from the Manchu,
Tibetan, Mongolian, Kazak, Uygur, Hui, Tujia, Yi, Primi, Va, Gelao and Korean. The works of Manchu are the most translated, followed by those of Tibetan, Mongolian and Kazak. Among the 21 periodicals, 14 issues have published the translations of contemporary ethnic minority literary works. In particular, the spring issue of 2014, whose theme is “Peoples” (“民族”), translated literary works of 18 writers from 13 ethnic minorities. It can be seen that the literary works of ethnic minorities translated in Pathlight have a wide ethnic distribution and source, and care about the diversity and representation of ethnic literature.
The selected 6 translators are all foreign translators and native English speakers from Paper Republic, including well-known translators such as American Sinologist Bruce Humes, Chinese-American translator Ken Liu, female translator Cara Healey, etc. By studying these translators, some common and individual characteristics in translation will be shown. Through the investigation of 14 original texts translated by 6 translators (Table 2), it can be concluded that the original works were mostly published in famous domestic periodicals, such as People’s Literature, National Literature; Most of them are selected from award-winning novels and poems, such as Deng Yiguang’s Wolves Walk Atwain (《狼行成双》), which won the 8th Hundred Flowers Award and the National Top Ten Short Stories Award; Some works were first translated from minority languages into Chinese and then into English, such as Artai’s two Mongolian poems In the Depths of the Grasslands (《草原深处》) and Old Man (《老人》), which were first translated into Chinese by Zha Keqin (查刻勤). Therefore, the study of the translator group composed by these 6 translators is representative to the translation of ethnic literary works, and it is also revelatory to the selection of the translators for periodicals.
5. Study of Translator’s Subjectivity from the Perspective of Reading History
The translator, as the reader at the same time, can penetrate his or her own ideas into the translation according to his or her reading and understanding of the original text, and the translator’s subjectivity can be reflected to a certain extent. The purpose of the translation of ethnic minority literature is to truly reflect the cultural characteristics of ethnic minorities, and promote the pluralistic Chinese culture. However, in case of its distinctive ethnic language features and cultural symbols, there are some difficulties in the translation of ethnic literature. Therefore, on the premise of being faithful to the original work, translators may do some creative work which shows the subjectivity.
Take Bruce Humes, an American Sinologist who has been translating Chinese literature for more than 20 years, with works such as Wei Hui’s Shanghai Baby (《上海宝贝》) and Chi Zijian’s Last Quarter of the Moon (《额尔古纳河右岸》). The latter book was republished by Penguin Random House in July 2022. Bruce has been paying close attention to Chinese minority literature and some social problems of China. In 2009, he launched his blog to promote Chinese ethnic
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Table 2. List of 14 selected ethnic minority works.
minority literature, hoping to give overseas readers a better understanding about the living conditions of ethnic minorities. Bruce’s translation of The Back Quarters at Number Seven (《后罩楼》) in Pathlight was written by the Manchu writer Ye Guangqin, who is a national first-class writer and has won many literary awards, such as the Luxun Literature Prize, the National Minority Literature Horse Prize and the Hundred Flowers Literature Prize. The Back Quarters at Number Seven, from children’s angle of view, tells a royal princess’s gap of fate after social change, showing the history and culture of the Manchu people and the delicate emotion of the declining nobility. As Bruce commented on the original work: “In Back Quarters at Number 7, Ye Guangqin recreates what it was like growing up Manchu in a traditional Beijing hutong during the early years of the New China.”
Bruce’s subjectivity is also reflected in the decision of the translation strategy of the The Back Quarters at Number Seven. One is to reproduce Ye’s description of the Manchu, and the other is to highlight the culture and history of Manchu based on the fidelity of the original text. This fidelity can be seen in the translation ratio of sentences from the target text and the original text. The clean text is obtained by denoising the electronic text. Using period, exclamation mark, question mark and ellipsis as sentence markers, the two texts are divided into sentences to get the original sentence series and the translated sentence series. Table 3 shows that Ye’s original text contains 340 sentences, while Bruce’s translation contains 647 sentences, with a translation ratio of 190.29%. It can be seen that Bruce adheres to the attitude of faithfully reproducing the original text, trying to give foreign readers a complete version. How does the translator choose translation strategies and exert the subjectivity in translating ethnic literature? The following cases will discuss the questions in detail.
5.1. Domestication and Foreignization
“Domestication” is the strategy of making text closely conform to the culture of the target language, which may involve the loss of information from the source text. For some expressions are unique to minority cultures and cannot be understood by foreign readers, translators adopt “domestication” to make the expressions easier to understand. As we can see in Table 4, “凹形” is a shape used in Chinese characters as the vehicle in a metaphor to describe the courtyard. Chinese readers know what does this shape look like for they know the meaning of “凹”, which means high around and low in the middle. On the contrary, English
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Table 3. The translation ratio of sentences from ST to TT in the back quarters at number seven.
readers may not understand this word’s meaning. Bruces here uses English letter “U” to explain “凹”，which gives a good example of the shape and retains the meaning of the original word. For the consideration of target language readers, it is a good way to make them understand the meaning.
“Foreignization” is the strategy of retaining information from the source text, which may involve deliberately breaking the conventions of the target language. There are some culture-specific words in ethnic minorities. In this case, “foreignization” can meet target readers’ expectation of foreignness and enhance cultural communication among different nations. The “jangkulembi” in Table 5 is originated from Manchu culture. To preserve the exotics of ethnic literature, the translator uses Manchu pronunciation to transliterate this word. Bruces gives the explanation of “jangkulembi” in Humes’ blog : “jangkulembi (撞客), a sudden and inauspicious encounter with a spirit that can engender illness or bad fortune”. The “jangkulembi” is translated into as it is in Manchu pronunciation in consideration that the culture of Manchu can be reserved, which has clearly clarified that the author is from Manchu and she speaks mother tongue with other people. It is their way of saying bad fortune.
5.2. Amplification and Omission
“Amplification” is one of the commonly used translation strategies that properly adds certain words to the target text according to the demand of meaning, rhetoric and logic. Some words that relate to minority cultures may require “amplification” to make them better understood by foreign readers. The translator takes this translation strategy in most cases, such as the translation of the title “后罩楼”、“上三旗”、“李慧娘”、“慈禧”、“两官”、“贝子”、“牛郎织女”、“白无常”、“三种人” and so on. Here is an example of “珍妃” (Table 6). She was known as the Pearl Concubine, favourite consort of Emperor Guangxu, and was said to have been thrown down a well and killed on orders from Empress Cixi. The Well of the Pearl Concubine can be found in the northeastern section of the Palace Museum at the Forbidden City. The translator not only translates “珍妃”
into “the Pearl Concubine”, but also explains it as “the Emperor Guangxu’s favorite consort”, which makes the concept of the original text clearly expressed in the target text.
“Omission” is a translation strategy that refers to some words in the original text that are not translated in the target text. In the historical process of the development of minority culture, many special words are constantly developed in the process of evolution. So “omission” is often used in the translation of some ethnic minority cultural texts with historical and cultural background. In Table 7, the translator omits the names of these two Princes and replaces them with the titles of the Princes to make the translation concise and smooth. The two Princes’ names come up only once in the original text, the translation here emphasizes the two Princes are high and mighty Princes of the First Rank at the Empress Dowager Cixi’s side, so the real name of them is not so important and the real purpose of translator is to compare these two Princes with “our hutong’s price” to highlight the hutong’s price is anonymous. Without names, the target readers do not need to care more about other names except for important roles in the original text.
5.3. Paraphrase and Division
“Paraphrase” is a translation strategy that translates according to the general meaning of the original text rather than conducting word-for-word translation. In Chinese, some expressions would deviate from the original meaning if translated directly into English. So the translator should paraphrase the meaning sometimes. The original sentence in Table 8 “是后来在里头硬搁死了” may lead
readers to confusion if it were literally translated as “She was later shelved to death in it”. We may see that this sentence is to explain the reason of her death. What does it mean by saying that “shelved to death”? Thinking from the real life, once a person is left there alone and nobody cares, she will be exhausted one day, and that’s the meaning of the translation “she just wasted away down there”. It is the translator’s responsibility to perform the subjectivity to elucidate the meanings that are hidden in the logic between the lines, so that the impediments occurring in the reading process can be maximally eliminated for the readers.
“Division” is an often-used translation strategy that extracts the words, phrases or clauses from its original sentences and reproduce them in a separate new sentence or translate one sentence into two or more sentences. This translation strategy is often used for Chinese has more short sentences while English has more long sentences. ST in Table 9 is a long sentence in which nouns like “灯光”、“头发”、“头皮”、“气息”、“图案” all are modified by adjectives. In English, however, there must be one subject in a sentence. Thus the division method is applied here and the sentence is split into four short sentences where more subjects can be avoided. A cleaner logic can be given to the readers.
From the analysis of the cases, we may see that the subjectivity of the translator has a great influence on the translation. Bruce has translated many ethnic minority literature works and paid great attention to the development of ethnic minority literature. In this case, his translations mostly reflect the minority culture truthfully and are helpful to promote the minority culture overseas. In terms of the selection of translation strategies in The Back Quarters at Number Seven, the original text is mostly composed of long sentences, which are divided into short sentences with clear logic and detailed narration. When dealing with the words and phrases of cultural phenomena in the original text, Bruce adopts the translation strategies such as amplification, domestication, foreignization, paraphrase, etc., to not only retain the ethnic minority characteristics of the source text, but also make it easier for readers to understand the Chinese ethnic minority culture. These strategies of minority culture’s translation also play a positive role in foreign readers’ understanding of Chinese culture.
6. Conclusion
Pathlight contains a large number of translators, various sources and rich forms of original text, which shows readers the unique linguistic charm demonstrated by different translators, and fully reflects the richness and diversity of Chinese culture. Ethnic minority literature is an indispensable construction of Chinese culture, and its international communication is helpful for promoting Chinese culture to go abroad, so that the excellent culture is not limited to domestic digestion, but read by more foreign readers and accepted with a more positive attitude. From the perspective of reading history, this study regards translators as readers and explores the translator’s subjectivity in the selection of translation strategies through individual cases. Pathlight is one of the important journals in the external communication of Chinese culture. As it has rich translation resources, more researches besides material selection and communication can be further explored, such as paying attention to the translator group and their translation behaviors. The study of the translator group and the translator’s subjectivity of ethnic minority literary works on Pathlight can not only deepen our understanding of ethnic literature, but also is of great significance for promoting the minority culture to go global through periodicals and translator group, so that foreign readers learn more about Chinese culture. Moreover, the study of ethnic minority literature could pay more attention to English periodicals and more research could focus on translators, which may help Chinese culture go global.
NOTES
*This paper marks a stage in a research that was made possible by the funding supported by The National Social Science Fund of China (grant #20BYY027), and of Basic Scientific Research Program of Universities directly under the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (2022).
#Corresponding author.