Translating Journals into Chinese: Toward a Theoretical (Re)Construction of Chinese Critical Discourse

Abstract

Translation has played a very important role in Chinese literature, theory, and criticism. Modern Chinese literature is almost a translated literature, for, through a sort of cultural translation, traditional Chinese literary and critical discourse was deconstructed and has manifested itself in a new form. But translating Western journals into Chinese is only a recent practice, adopted since the turn of the century, because Chinese theorists realize that many insightful theoretical concepts and ideas first appear in journal articles. The article lays more emphasis on why Chinese scholars take the initiative of translating some leading Western humanities journals, such as New Literary History, Critical Inquiry and boundary 2, into Chinese. To the author, founded earliest among all the three above-mentioned and having close relations with Chinese literary scholarship, New Literary History most strongly influences Chinese scholars' literary study and critical thinking. And its academic norms and strict selection of manuscripts have certainly set a fine example in China's literary study and theory and criticism as well as the editing of journals of literary and cultural studies in the Chinese context. Chinese literary and cultural studies, due to the translation of these journals, will move closer and closer toward the international community, thereby having equal dialogues with the latter. Since most of the articles published in the above-mentioned journals anticipate their authors' substantial research and profound thinking of cutting-edge theoretical issues, they will certainly provide illumination to Chinese scholars' theoretical reflections. The article also points out that globalization has broken through the demarcation between nations and countries, and between center and periphery, with transnational corporations functioning as an "empire" everywhere. In this way, globalization has also benefited people who want to get out of their isolated domain, enabling them to communicate more effectively in such a "global village." It has therefore enabled Chinese scholars to more conveniently communicate with the international scholarship on any theoretical and academic topic, including literary and cultural studies. In today's context, they translate Western and international theoretical journals into Chinese, for the purpose of making China's literary and theoretical studies closer to the international community and allowing it to communicate more easily with the same. Maybe in the near future, when the Western and international colleagues want to know what has been going on in China's literary and cultural studies, and what new ideas we Chinese theorists have put forward, they will also start, in collaboration with their Western colleagues, to translate some excellent Chinese theoretical journals into the major Western and international language: English.