New interpretation and techniques of transcreation

This article points out some “loopholes” in the traditional Chinese-English translation theories, and proposes several transcreation theories to countermeasure the “loopholes”, illustrating non-equivalences. In particular, the article proposes a novel translation/transcreation theory that incorporates the writing field, in both the source and target languages, into the traditional translation field. This is for the purpose of cultural transmission and integration. In addition, the article illustrates the relationship between translation and writing by dissecting the translation/transcreation process into two processes: understanding and writing. Moreover, it suggests that the transcreation field develop some criteria, such as: fidelity, flexibility and creativity, and that all the science, social science and humanities subareas in the transcreation field are categorized according to these criteria. In order to support the transcreation theories and multidisciplinary translation theories proposed in this article, some typical examples and transcreation techniques that push the envelope of existing transcreation theories are provided. This article may shed new light on the limitations of, and possible solutions to, machine translation. It may also answer questions like: “Is understanding unimportant to machine translation?”

Published online: 17 August 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00178.che