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Article published In:
Translation and Interpreting Studies
Vol. 13:2 (2018) ► pp.293–316
Thematic cluster: Understanding Chinese culture through key concepts

Consequences of the conflation of xiao and filial piety in English

| The Chinese University of Hong Kong

This article examines the development over time of the English expression “filial piety” in order to document how, at least partly in response to pressure from an equivalence that is established with the Chinese term xiao (孝) in the seventeenth century, the term takes on new and increasingly negative connotations in English. As an important concept in Chinese philosophy, xiao occurs in many important early texts, including the Confucian Analects and, although the way the term is interpreted varies over time, remains central to many debates about Chinese culture right to this day. As the link between filial piety and xiao strengthens through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, “filial piety” thus unsurprisingly becomes identified as one of a small group of key terms that were increasingly thought to explain all differences between the British and the Chinese. This article examines how the term “filial piety” evolves from a natural and universal impulse due to its connection with Christianity, with China initially as a particularly good example of this universal from whom everyone can learn, through various increasingly negative shifts due to the perceived conflict between filial piety and romantic love, as well as its increasing association with the Chinese, who by the end of the nineteenth century were seen as held back by the extreme nature of their practices. Today, filial piety as a term is seen as mainly or entirely local and specific to China, and by extension, something potentially holding it back from modernity.

Keywords: filial piety, Chineseness, key concepts, Chinese modernity, Anglo-American perception of China
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Earliest use of “filial” and “filial piety” in English
  • Filial piety and China in English
  • The long eighteenth century
  • Translations of filial exemplars from Chinese
  • The modern era
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 12 October 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tis.00017.sta
References

Early examples of “filial” cited in the text of my paper (by first date of publication)

More, Thomas, Sir, Saint
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Early examples of “filial piety” in works published between 1590 and 1699 cited in the text of my paper (by first date of publication)

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2008 China Tidal Wave. Translated by Anton Platero. Folkestone, Kent: Global Oriental. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wang, Wenxing
1995 Family Catastrophe. Translated by Susan Wan Dolling. Hawaii: University of Hawai’i Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Xiao, Lu
2010 Dialogue. Oxford University Press. Translated by Archibald McKenzie. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yan, Lianke
2011 Dream of Ding Village. Translated by Cindy Carter. New York: Grove Press.Google Scholar
Yu, Hua
1996 The Past and the Punishments. Translated by Andrew Jones. Hawaii: University of Hawai’i Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zhu, Wen
2007 I Love Dollars. Translated by Julia Lovell. New York: Columbia University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zhu, Lin
1998 Snake’s Pillow and Other Stories. Translated by Richard King. Hawaii: University of Hawai’i Press.Google Scholar

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Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

He, Longtao
2021. A Historical Trajectory of Filial Piety. In Care Work, Migrant Peasant Families and Discourse of Filial Piety in China, ► pp. 27 ff. DOI logo
He, Longtao
2021. Findings: The Burden of Care for Migrant Peasant Workers and Filial Piety’s Mediating Roles. In Care Work, Migrant Peasant Families and Discourse of Filial Piety in China, ► pp. 153 ff. DOI logo

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