ABSTRACT This paper presents a comprehensive review of Joseph Lambert’s Translation Ethics. The book explores the nature of ethics, its philosophical underpinnings, and the development of ethical theory, emphasizing translators’ social obligations. With 9 chapters featuring thematic discussions and case studies that encourage critical thinking, the book also tackles crucial aspects like machine translation, post-editing, ecological translation practices, and their effects on translators’ digital carbon footprint. While making significant contributions (theoretical contributions, practical contributions, and distinctive role among similar works), the book also has limitations. It fails to clarify the subject attributes and research methods of translation ethics, lacks a clear consensus on the “ethical” approach in translation, and inadequately distinguishes different ethical stances. Additionally, it scarcely addresses certain issues such as evaluating machine translation quality, maintaining translator subjectivity with AI tools, guiding translator decisions in cultural conflicts, and resolving copyright and confidentiality concerns in the context of AI-assisted translation. Nevertheless, the book overall plays a substantial role in promoting the understanding and development of translation ethics, and calls for further in-depth discussions on ethical matters both within and outside the industry to achieve sustainable growth and the well-being of professionals.

ABSTRACT Exploring the interactions of female sexuality and spirituality from a feminist lens, Othappu by Sara Joseph, is influential in the genre of women’s writing in Malayalam. Through a textual analysis of the novel’s prize-winning translation by Rev. Valson Thampu, the paper examines how the author’s voicing of female resistance to patriarchal institutions gets effaced in the translation process. The translation appears to be stripped of its explicitly feminist authorial voice, where the specific articulations of female subjectivity get replaced by a universally-appealing critical voice, accenting the translator’s ideology. Contrary to Joseph’s emphasis on the text’s engagement with a woman’s response to religion, Thampu voices his reading of the text as an “individual’s” conflict with faith. The attempt is to locate the discursive presence of the translator and how the translator’s ideological leanings influence the transference of the feminist politics of the source text. Apart from closely comparing the original text to the translation in terms of the specificities of the language and analysis of the paratextual elements, a macro-dimension approach which locates the social context and ideological premise examining the translator’s role as creator of a new social narrative through translation is also employed.

ABSTRACT In the 1860s, George Gardner Alexander translated the story of Diaochan from the Chinese classical novel Sanguo yanyi (Romance of the Three Kingdoms) and then adapted it into a five-act play, Teaou-shin. This adaptation is the most typical example of textual transformation in the English transmission history of the novel over the past two centuries, showcasing how textual intervention can reflect and engage with contemporary social issues of the recipient society. Through an art form that was popular with the British audience at the time, the play made effective use of the British theatrical tradition. On the basis of adopting the general plot of the story of Diaochan, the play adapted to the social realities of Victorian England and remodeled the characters. By manipulating the theme of the story, Alexander showed solidarity with the women’s rights movement of the time. Through changes in form and content, the story adapted to the literary tradition of England and the gender ideology of the time, catered to the tastes and expectations of Victorian readers and audiences, and conveyed Alexander’s stance on the “woman question”.

ABSTRACT Nick Admussen is an associate professor of Chinese literature at Asian Studies Department, Cornell University, where his research and translation focus on contemporary Chinese poetry. He is an acclaimed poetry scholar and translator as well as a prolific essayist and poet. In this interview, which took place via email in April – May 2024, Admussen reviews his career path and shares his observations about the study, translation and reception of contemporary Chinese poetry in the West. The conversation focuses on such intriguing topics as Lu Xun’s prose poem collection Yecao野草in English translation, the translating, publishing, and reception of Floral Mutter: Selected Poetry of Ya Shi, Admussen’s theorization about translating contemporary Chinese poetry into English, and the status quo of this Chinese genre in English translation. Informative, insightful, and sometimes inquisitive, it should be of much interest to those pursuing Chinese literature studies and literary translation studies.

ABSTRACT The influence of ideology on the process of translation has been one of the most controversial debates among scholars and translators who may undergo multiple challenges due to certain ideological demands, whether they be political, cultural or religious. In the Arab world, the socio-political scene has been dominated by ideological shifts since the outbreak of the Arab Spring. These shifts have influenced Arab scholars and translators in many possible ways, one of which is the reproduction of incisive narratives that not only account for the causes and effects of revolutions that swept different regions in the Arab world but also provoke political reform. In this vein, this article investigates Shamel Abatha’s translation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945) to Arabic. It specifically explores Abatha’s political orientations which result in daring textual manipulations of Orwell’s text before the Arab Spring in Egypt in 2011. Following Mona Baker’s narrative theory, the article demonstrates how Abatha’s target text turns into a socio-political national allegory that embodies critical ideological implications. The corpus consists of selected comparisons between Orwell’s Animal Farm and Abatha’s مزرعة الحيوانات [mazraat alḥywānāt] (2009) to show how translation strategies expound the impact of the latter’s political environment on his translation.

ABSTRACT Scholars of translation studies have hypothesized that translated texts tend to show simplification at lexical and syntactic levels compared to non-translated native texts. The present study examined simplification at the sentence level between translated and native English texts from the perspective of syntactic complexity. The research finds that the English translations of Chinese academic works tend to be simpler than their non-translated counterparts on 8 of 14 widely accepted indices of syntactic complexity. The study reveals that simplification at the sentence level exists and tends to occur at indices related to linguistic structures or units with more complex semantic or syntactic relationships. In contrast, complexification tends to occur at indices related to linguistic structures or units with less complex relationships. We suggest future research focus on investigating the extent, ways, and indices at which syntactic simplification occurs in translation, along with its effects and implications, rather than debating its existence.

ABSTRACT In the 19th century, the American Tract Society (ATS) published The Child’s Paper (1852–1871) in the United States. Amid the noteworthy Eastward Transmission of Western Learning movement three eponymous Xiaohai Yuebao(hereinafter referred to as TheXHYB）were published in Late Imperial China with the Eastward Spread of Western Learning. By exploring the relationship between the American periodical The Child’s Paper and three editions of The XHYB in the course of Late Imperial China, this study attempts to shed light on the Sinicization characteristics of The XHYB and its effects in Late Imperial China. The study has found that there existed transplantation and translation by tracing back to their historical origins and XHYB in Late Imperial China. In the process of transplanting, translating, and dissemination of ATS’s The Child’s Paper in Late Imperial China, it highlights the Sinicization characteristics: waning of religious indoctrination, nativization of the periodical management, localization of language selection and secularization of illustrated narrative, which had deep effects on children’s education, thoughts andviews on children and children’s literature in Late Imperial China.

ABSTRACT This paper explores the colexification of “thunder” and “dragon” in languages spoken in the Qinghai-Tibetan region. A sample of 372 languages from Sino-Tibetan, Dravidian, Indo-European, Mongolic-Khitan, Tungusic, and Turkic was collected. These languages were classified into colexifying and dislexifying languages, depending on whether the two concepts are associated with shared lexical forms. The findings reveal that 47 languages in the sample exhibit thunder-dragon colexification; most of them are Bodic and Na-Qiangic languages, with a few Sinitic, Mongolic, and Turkic languages. This areal pattern results from both inheritance and language contact. For the latter factor, Tibetan influence plays a significant role, as evidenced by the borrowing observed in non-Bodic languages. The linguistic boundary of thunder-dragon colexification aligns with the territory of the historical Tibetan Empire. Moreover, based on historical linguistic reconstruction from Old Chinese, the colexification is a likely feature of Proto-Sino-Tibetan, well preserved in Bodic languages but lost in Sinitic ones. However, some modern Sinitic dialects, particularly the Wu dialects, still maintain the relic connection between “dragon” and “lightning.” Finally, the findings suggest that thunder-dragon colexification originated from North China, and dragon is the mythologized form of thunder and lightning by the Proto-Sino-Tibetan people during the Neolithic period.

ABSTRACT This paper delves into the genre differences between Legge’s two Shijing translations published in871 and876, employing a multidimensional analysis approach developed by Biber for studying genre variation. This approach groups sixty-seven linguistic features in six dimensions of linguistic variation. Utilizing the Corpus of English Shijing by James Legge, the study unveils significant differences in dimension “involved versus informational production” and dimension 3 “explicit versus situation-dependent reference.” These discrepancies manifest in twenty-eight linguistic features in dimension, and five linguistic features in dimension 3. The primary factor contributing to the observed dimensional and linguistic distinctions is traced to Legge’s translation strategies. The871 version predominantly employs literal translation, while the876 version adopts poetic rewriting, resulting in distinct language features and functions. Another plausible explanation lies in the underlying poetics guiding these translation endeavors. The initial version primarily targets an academic readership interested in acquiring proficiency in the Chinese language and culture, thereby necessitating a literal translation approach. In contrast, the subsequent version is crafted for an English audience in the UK, making a metrical rendition a more fitting choice.

ABSTRACT Wu Mi, a notable scholar and translator in early 20th-century China, possessed a profound knowledge of Western literature and culture. While there has been extensive research on his conservative views and cultural propositions, his translation agenda has received limited attention. The paper employs Theo Hermans’ theoretical framework of translation as intervention to analyse Wu Mi’s translation of William Makepeace Thackeray’s novels. Through a tactical reading of his translation, the paper argues that Wu Mi utilised translation to modernise Chinese literature, and it further identifies three levels of intervention within the terrain of the New Culture Movement, especially focusing on the themes of modern Chinese fiction, its proper form, and the most effective approach to localising Western literature and modernising Chinese literature. The case study sheds light on the contributions of cultural conservatives to the Chinese modernisation program and invites reflection on the interplay between tradition and modernity, as well as dynamics between local legacy and global influences.