Homogenized literary co-translation: A Hero Born and A Bond Undone

Abstract

Abstract Although co-translation has received considerable scholarly attention recently, how co-translated texts converge and diverge stylistically, and how co-translators affect translated texts and each other remain under-researched. Based on two specialized corpora, this paper innovatively employs L2SCA and MAT to investigate the various stylistic and linguistic features of A Hero Born (translated by Anna Holmwood) and A Bond Undone (translated by Gigi Chang), English translations of the two consecutive volumes of “射雕英雄传” (shè diāo yīng xióng zhuàn), a Chinese wuxia novel by Jin Yong. It then explores the dynamics of collaboration between the two translators in translating and promoting Jin Yong's wuxia novels, based on interview records, email exchanges, and public discourses. The study reveals that the two translations are homogenized to a considerable degree and at various syntactic and lexico-grammatical levels, and that the two translators' discourses concerning Jin Yong's wuxia are also essentially identical. These similarities are attributed to several factors. In particular, Holmwood, as the principal translator and co-literary agent of the translation project, has played a dominant role and has put her “fingerprints” on Chang's translation, thus considerably smoothing out stylistic divergences of their translated texts. The two translators have deftly co-projected Jin Yong's wuxia as modern, cosmopolitan, and entertaining, thus facilitating the reception of their translations. This study sheds new light on the dynamics of collaboration between literary translators and contributes to the research methodology of translation style.