Translating the Translational: A Comparative Study of the Taiwanese and Mainland Chinese Translations of Xiaolu Guo's A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Flair Donglai Shi
Keyword(s):  
World Literature ◽  
English Language ◽  
Chinese Literature ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Chinese Student ◽  
Visual Design ◽  
Student Writing ◽  
Minor Literature ◽  
Mainland Chinese ◽  
Translational Strategies

The untranslatability of this particular novel does not come from the ‘resistant singularity’ claimed by world literature scholars like Emily Apter, but has to do instead with its inherently translational nature as a novel about intercultural (mis-)communication. Comparative close readings of the three versions published in Britain, Taiwan, and mainland China focus on paratexts, intra-textual visual design, and specific translational strategies. Caught between the established traditions of diasporic Chinese literature and liuxuesheng wenxue (‘overseas Chinese student writing’), A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers and its Chinese-language translations offer insights into the dialectic between ‘minor’ literature and ‘world’ literature, discussed here with a particular focus on the global hegemony of the English language.

“From Postcolonial Literature to World Literature”

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 467-487
Author(s):  
Kuei-fen Chiu
Keyword(s):  
World Literature ◽  
Documentary Film ◽  
Chinese Literature ◽  
Japanese Literature ◽  
Postcolonial Literature ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Mainland Chinese ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Literary Historiography ◽  
Award Winning

Abstract Starting with an analysis of the award-winning literary documentary Le Moulin, this paper argues that the film’s reconstruction of Le Moulin Poetry Society in colonial Taiwan suggests world literature as an alternative framework for studying Taiwan literature within cross-cultural contexts. Taiwan literature has been predominantly studied as “postcolonial literature” vis-à-vis Japanese literature and, more recently, “Sinophone literature” in relation to mainland Chinese literature. Instead of deliberating on the subjugated position of Taiwan literature in relation to dominant literatures, the documentary film celebrates the avant-garde experimentation by Le Moulin Poetry Society and underscores the connection of Taiwan literature to world literature through the mediation of Japanese writers. Its employment of what can be called “performative historiography” to fulfill this task raises significant questions about the reinvention of literature, literary canonization, and literary historiography in a new age.

Diasporic literature

2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-318
Author(s):  
Melissa Lam
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Culture ◽  
English Language ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mainland Chinese ◽  
Asian Diaspora ◽  
Diasporic Literature ◽  
Ha Jin ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Historical Movement

Only since the 1960s has the Asian Diaspora been studied as a historical movement greatly impacting the United States — affecting not only socio-historical cultural trends and geographic ethnography, but also culturally redefining major areas of Western history and culture. This paper explores the reverse impact of the Asian America Diaspora on Mainland China or the Chinese Motherland. Mainland Chinese writers Ha Jin and Yiyun Li have left China and today teach in major American universities and reside in America. However, the fiction of both authors explores themes and landscapes that remain immersed in Mainland Chinese culture, traditions and environment. Both authors explore the themes of “cultural collisions” between East and West, choosing to write in their adopted English language instead of their mother Putonghua tongue. Central to this paper is the idea that ethnicity and race are socially and historically constructed as well as contested, reclaimed and redefined

scholarly journals Guarding the Space In-between

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 36-52
Author(s):  
Ling Tang
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Chinese Student ◽  
Mainland Chinese ◽  
Chinese Nationalism ◽  
Mainland Chinese Students ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Depth Interviews

Based on eight in-depth interviews, this article analyses the quandary faced by liberal mainland Chinese student migrants in Hong Kong. On the one hand, the liberal pro-democracy movements in Hong Kong are deeply intertwined with the rise of localism, which is based on a dichotomy between Hong Kong and mainland China. On the other hand, a rising, development-centric nationalism in mainland China reduces Hong Kong protesters to unemancipated British colonial subjects. However, in the context of this “double marginalisation,” liberal Mainland students guard a form of liberalism that transcends both Hong Kong localism and Chinese nationalism. They debunk the stereotype of mainland Chinese students being apolitical and therefore provide an alternative definition of being Chinese. They challenge the view that mainland Chinese can only be emancipated outside mainland China to destabilise a Fukuyamian linear interpretation of history. They use four tactics to cope with double marginalisation: understanding localists, befriending expatriates, assuming professionalism, and becoming apolitical. Image © Ling Tang

The many faces of suzhi in the Chinese organization and society

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Upton-McLaughlin
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Chinese Society ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Mainland Chinese ◽  
Foreign Companies ◽  
Expatriate Managers ◽  
The Many ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper was to explore the Chinese concept of suzhi and how it relates to behavioral standards within mainland Chinese society and the workplace. The article provides a general discussion of suzhi and its inherent elements to act as a foundation for the education of expatriate managers and executives and for future research by Chinese human resource management (HRM) scholars. Design/methodology/approach – This paper draws on the author's first-hand experience and observations from five years of living and working abroad in mainland China with Chinese companies and executives. Findings – The concept of suzhi in China is a reflection of multiple behavioral standards throughout China. And while suzhi's roots are in ancient Chinese culture and Confucianism, it is also subject to influence and change. Practical implications – The paper may serve as a foundation both for expatriate managers seeking to improve HRM practices in foreign companies in China and future scholars who wish to conduct further research on suzhi and Chinese behavioral standards as they can be applied to the workplace. Originality/value – This is an attempt to enlighten expatriate managers and executives in China on the concept of suzhi and its implication for HRM in China.

The “other(ing)” costs of ESL

2008 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ena Lee
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Language Education ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Secondary English ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
Student Identities ◽  
Global Language

While the commodification of English as a global language may give rise to varying degrees of political and economic benefits for language learners, a simultaneous “cost” of this return may be a continued perpetuation of various forms of hegemony. In this vein, this one-year case study investigated a Canadian post-secondary English as a Second Language (ESL) program that analyzed the interconnections between language and culture through a critical dialogic approach. Classroom observations, however, revealed that disjunctions existed between the pedagogy as it was conceptualized and the practices of the instructors teaching there and suggested that the “critical” discourses mediated within the language classrooms essentialized culture and, subsequently, the identities of the students. This paper presents the voices of students from Mainland China as they attempted to negotiate their local and global identities within the larger sociopolitical contexts of the English language, generally, and English language education, in particular. I argue that classroom discourses can (re)create subordinate student identities, thereby limiting their access not only to language-learning opportunities, but to other more powerful identities. This paper thus highlights how ESL pedagogies and practices might address and contest hegemonic discourses and concomitantly reimagine student identities in more emancipatory ways.

Alignment, persuasiveness and the putative reader in opinion writing

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-273
Author(s):  
Peter R. R. White
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
English Language ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
The Other ◽  
Virtual Model ◽  
Language Version ◽  
Yasukuni Shrine ◽  
Beliefs And Attitudes ◽  
China Daily ◽  
Opinion Writing

Abstract This paper explores a new line of analysis for comparing opinion writing by reference to differences in the relationships being indicated between author and addressee. It draws on recent work within the appraisal framework literature to offer proposals for linguistics-based analyses of what has variously been termed the ‘intended’, ‘imagined’, ‘ideal’, ‘virtual’, ‘model’, ‘implied’ and ‘putative’ reader (the ‘reader written into the text’). A discussion is provided of those means by which beliefs, attitudes and expectations are projected onto this ‘reader in the text’, formulations which signal anticipations that the reader either shares the attitude or belief currently being advanced by the author, potentially finds it novel or otherwise problematic, or may reject it outright. The discussion is conducted with respect to written, persuasive texts, and specifically with respect to news journalism’s commentary pieces. It is proposed that such texts can usefully be characterised and compared by reference to tendencies in such ‘construals’ or ‘positionings’ of the putative reader – tendencies in terms of whether the signalled anticipation is of the reader being aligned or, conversely, potentially unaligned or dis-aligned with the author. The terms ‘flag waving’ and ‘advocacy’ are proposed as characterisations which can be applied to texts, with ‘flag waving’ applicable to texts which construe the reader as largely sharing the author’s beliefs and attitudes, while ‘advocacy’ is applicable to texts where the reader is construed as actually or potentially not sharing the author’s beliefs and attitudes and thereby needing to be won over. This line of analysis is demonstrated through a comparison of two journalistic opinion pieces written in response to visits by Japanese politicians to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, one published in the English-language version of the mainland China newspaper, China Daily and one in the English-language version of the Japanese Asahi Shimbun. It is shown that one piece can usefully be characterised as oriented towards ‘flag waving’ and the other towards ‘advocacy’.

scholarly journals Living in the Shadow of Mainland China - On Delineating Social and Political Constrains Among Southeast Asian Chinese Entrepreneurs

2008 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 28-49
Author(s):  
Michael Jacobsen
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Chinese Economy ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Mainland Chinese ◽  
Ethnic Chinese ◽  
East And Southeast Asia ◽  
Chinese Entrepreneurs ◽  
The Individual

Abstract Taking a point of departure in the fluid political and economic landscape of East and Southeast Asia, this paper focuses on ethnic Chinese SME entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia, who are gradually becoming the focus in a discussion of whether a rising Mainland Chinese economy is a positive or negative force in Asia. Contrary to the coherent nature usually associated with this particular ethnic group, this article argues, that in fact it is divided into many smaller factions. This differentiation of the ethnic Chinese community in Southeast Asia, it is argued, is a reflection of many different influences from, especially, colonialism, and different contemporary social and political developments within the individual Southeast Asian countries. This increasing societal complexity makes ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs vulnerable in the wake of a rising Mainland Chinese economy, as they await to see if the latter impacts positively or negatively on the various Southeast Asian economies, thus indirectly influencing how they are embedded within their societies. Keywords: China, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Chinese entrepreneurship, national politics, ethnicity.

scholarly journals Investigating the spatiotemporal variation of fish choruses to help identify important foraging habitat for Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins, Sousa chinensis

2017 ◽  
Vol 75 (2) ◽  
pp. 510-518 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew K Pine ◽  
Ding Wang ◽  
Lindsay Porter ◽  
Kexiong Wang
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Spatiotemporal Variability ◽  
Marine Spatial Planning ◽  
Separate Species ◽  
Mainland Chinese ◽  
Predator Prey ◽  
Chinese Waters ◽  
New Information ◽  
Hong Kong Waters

Abstract Given the common physical overlapping between coastal developments and important marine mammal habitats, there is a need to identify potentially important foraging grounds for dolphins when informing marine spatial planning and management of underwater noise. Hydrophones were deployed at four locations either side of the mainland China–Hong Kong Special Administrative Region border to monitor the presence of soniferous fishes; a key prey item for Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins. Five distinct chorus-types were identified; each showing spatiotemporal variability. Each chorus-type was assumed to represent a separate species. Chorus-type diversity also differed between sites, with SP4 and SP5 types only being detected within Hong Kong waters where bottom trawling is illegal. Chorus-type SP1 was only detected at the recording sites in mainland Chinese waters. Call rates and chorus duration were highest during the spring and summer months. Given these dolphins show a predator-prey relationship, these data provide new information on the local fish communities at a much finer-scale than fish landing records and a baseline of fish activity in an environment that is challenging to explore. Overlaid with acoustic detections of foraging dolphins, these data form a basis for identifying potentially important foraging habitats that should be afforded the highest priority for protection.

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