Translation, Manipulation and the Transfer of Negative Cultural Images

Abstract

This article explores the long-ignored yet powerful role played by missionary translation in constructing the images of Chinese women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Using the missionary Anna Safford’s translation Typical Women of China, it illustrates how images of women from classical Chinese literature were selected and manipulated to meet the translator’s own religious, cultural and political purposes, and how the translation reinforced the existing stereotypes created by other missionary writers. The author examines the historical and cultural contexts in which Safford’s translation was produced and analyzes the problematic relationship between the translated text and its originals. The article identifies the actual sources Safford used and investigates the translational and cultural strategies she developed. Additionally, it discusses the function and significance of missionary translation, as reflected by Safford’s work, in Chinese-American cross-cultural encounters.