An exchange on translation

Abstract

The exchange between Qu Qiubai and Lu Xun during 1931–1932 shows their disagreement about which translation strategy might best serve the Chinese language and culture in the early 1930s. They concur that the vernacular (baihua) is in need of a more developed lexicon and syntax, and they see translation as a practice that can advance it. Yet Qu Qiubai criticizes Lu Xun’s 1931 version of Alexander Fadeyev’s novel The Rout because “it is not absolute baihua.” Lu Xun’s remedy for the “sickness” of imprecision that afflicts the vernacular is “to incorporate different kinds of syntax, whether from archaic Chinese or from other regions, other countries, which we can then make our own.” But for Qu Qiubai this view is elitist and therefore ineffectual. Lu Xun retains his belief that a “Frankenstein vernacular,” a mix of vernacular, classical Chinese, and Euro-Japanized constructions, “will thrive because it is of the people and for the people.”