Abstract
This chapter starts with a discussion about the nature of translation. It argues that this is a process of rewriting and that translation issues are cultural in nature. It relates the multitude of translation activities since premodern times to the desperate need to modernize Chinese by introducing Western technology, social institutes, and essentially Western culture. A comparative approach is taken to the argument that translations into classical Chinese (wenyan) give Chinese versions a flavor of antiquity while translations into baihua give a modern flavor. It is translation that has introduced such basic modern terms and concepts as freedom, democracy, politics, economy, human rights, and so on. This chapter articulates the dialectical relation between transference and assimilation during the process of translating Western literary works. It argues that the dynamic interaction between transference and assimilation qualifies modern Chinese literature as a third type, not a transplantation of Western literature, nor a continuance of classical Chinese literature.
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Gao, Y. (2018). Foreignization and Assimilation: Translated World Literature and Modern Chinese Literature. In: The Birth of Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55936-4_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55936-4_5
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