Between the translator and norms: A habitus-mediated case study of a Chinese translation of Looking Backward: 2000–1887

Huarui Guo
Southwest Minzu University

Abstract

The paper explores the tension between the translator and target-cultural norms, using the British missionary, Timothy Richard (1845–1919), and his translation of Looking Backward: 2000–1887 in the late Qing dynasty as a case study. The study integrates a sociological framework as proposed by Pierre Bourdieu into Descriptive Translation Studies as developed by Gideon Toury. The related concepts include ‘norms’, ‘habitus’, ‘field’, and ‘capital’. Given that the translator was a professional missionary and not a professional translator, the dynamics of the translator’s habitus are connected with his professional role as a missionary and his position-taking in the broader social, cultural, and political contexts of the late Qing dynasty. The translator’s translation strategy at both the macro and micro levels are analyzed and interpreted. Interpretations are based on the translator’s habitus reconstructed from his early experiences and his position-taking in the broader context. The case study reveals the tension between the translator’s habitus and target-cultural norms, which in turn sheds some light on the situation in which missionaries found themselves in late Qing society.

Keywords:
Publication history

Date received: 15 January 2020

Date accepted: 13 December 2020

Published online: 28 January 2021

Table of contents

Norm theory as developed by Gideon Toury (1995) has been an important milestone in the history of Translation Studies, as it drew attention away from the traditional prescriptive paradigm to a modern descriptive paradigm bearing on translating practices. Norm theory shifted the focus of Translation Studies from source-orientedness to target-orientedness, from language-centeredness to culture-centeredness, and from seeking sameness to preserving differences (Chu 2015, 159).

Full-text access is restricted to subscribers. Log in to obtain additional credentials. For subscription information see Subscription & Price. Direct PDF access to this article can be purchased through our e-platform.

References

Bays, Daniel H.
2012 A New History of Christianity in China. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bellamy, Edward
1889 Looking Backward: 2000–1887. London: William Reeves.Google Scholar
1891 “回头看纪略 Hui tou kan jilüe [What I saw back].” Translated by Timothy Richard. 万国公报 Wanguo gongbao [Review of the times] 35: 15–16.Google Scholar
1892a “回头看纪略 Hui tou kan jilüe [What I saw back].” Translated by Timothy Richard. 万国公报 Wanguo gongbao [Review of the times] 36: 19–21.Google Scholar
1892b “回头看纪略 Hui tou kan jilüe [What I saw back].” Translated by Timothy Richard. 万国公报 Wanguo gongbao [Review of the times] 37: 17–19.Google Scholar
1892c “回头看纪略 Hui tou kan jilüe [What I saw back].” Translated by Timothy Richard. 万国公报 Wanguo gongbao [Review of the times] 38: 14–20.Google Scholar
1892d “回头看纪略 Hui tou kan jilüe [What I saw back].” Translated by Timothy Richard. 万国公报 Wanguo gongbao [Review of the times] 39: 16–17.Google Scholar
1894 百年一觉 Bainian yijiao [Asleep for a hundred years]. Translated by Timothy Richard. Shanghai: Christian Literature Society.Google Scholar
1904 “回头看 Hui tou kan [Looking back].” Translated anonymously. 绣像小说 Xiuxiang xiaoshuo [Embroidery novel] 25–36.Google Scholar
1940 Religion of Solidarity. Yellow Springs: Antioch.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre
1977 Outline of a Theory of Practice. Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1980 Le sens pratique [The logic of practice]. Paris: Minuit.Google Scholar
1985 “The Genesis of the Concepts of Habitus and Field.” Sociocriticism 2 (2): 11–24.Google Scholar
(1986) 1997 “The Forms of Capital.” Translated by Richard Nice. In Education: Culture, Economy, and Society, edited by A. H. Halsey, Hugh Lauder, Philip Brown, and Amy Stuart Wells, 46–48. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre, and Loic J. D. Wacquant
1992 An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bowman, Sylvia E.
1958 The Year 2000: A Critical Biography of Edward Bellamy. New York: Bookman.Google Scholar
1962 Edward Bellamy Abroad – an American Prophet’s Influence. New York: Twayne.Google Scholar
Chang, Hao
1980 “Intellectual Change and the Reform Movement, 1890–1898.” In The Cambridge History of China: Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911, edited by John K. Fairbank and Kwang-Ching Liu, vol. 11, part 2, 272–338. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chen, Pingyuan
2010a 中国现代小说的起点 Zhongguo xiandai xiaoshuo de qidian: Qingmo Minchu xiaoshuo yanjiu [The development of modern Chinese fiction]. 2nd ed. Beijing: Beijing University Press.Google Scholar
2010b 小说史：理论与实践 Xiaoshuo shi: lilun yu shijian [Novel history: theory and practice]. 2nd ed. Beijing: Beijing University Press.Google Scholar
Chu, Chi Yu
2015 “求同与存异 Qiutong yu cunyi [Seeking common ground and retaining the differences].” In 当代翻译研究论集 Dangdai fanyi yanjiu lunji [Current issues in Translation Studies], edited by Chi Yu Chu and Minhui Xu, 156–163. Chengdu: Sichuan People’s Press.Google Scholar
Cliff, Norman H.
1994 A History of the Protestant Movement in Shandong Province, China, 1859–1951. Buckingham: The University of Buckingham.Google Scholar
Cohen, Paul A.
1957 “Missionary Approaches: Hudson Taylor and Timothy Richard.” In Papers on China, edited by John K. Fairbank, vol. 11, 29–62. Harvard: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
1978 “Christian Missions and Their Impact to 1900.” In The Cambridge History of China, edited by John K. Fairbank, vol. 10, 543–590. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dai, Sheng
ed. 2016 礼记 Li Ji [Book of rites]. Annotated by Hao Chen and checked by Xiaodong Jin. Shanghai: Shanghai Classics Publishing House.Google Scholar
Feng, Guifen
1953 “校邠庐抗议（选录） Jiaobinlu kangyi (xuanlu) [The protest of Jiaobinlu (excerpts)].” In 戊戌变法 Wuxu bianfa [The reform movement of 1898], edited by 中国史学会 Zhongguo shixuehui [Chinese historical society], vol. 1, 1–38. Shanghai: Shenzhou Guoguang Society.Google Scholar
Gouanvic, Jean-Marc
2005 “A Bourdieusian Theory of Translation, or the Coincidence of Practical Instances: Field, ‘Habitus’, Capital and ‘Illusio’.” Translated by Jessica Moore. The Translator 11 (2): 147–166. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014 “Is Habitus as Conceived by Pierre Bourdieu Soluble in Translation Studies?” In Remapping Habitus in Translation Studies, edited by Gisella M. Vorderobermeier, 29–42. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Hanan, Patrick
2004 Chinese Fiction of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century: Essays by Patrick Hanan. New York: Columbia University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Huang, Libo, and Zhiyu Zhu
2017 “晚清时期翻译的选材 Wan-Qing shiqi fanyi de xuancai [Choice of texts for translation during the late Qing dynasty].” 亚太跨学科翻译研究 Yatai kuaxueke fanyi yanjiu [Asia-Pacific interdisciplinary Translation Studies] 4: 136–150.Google Scholar
Inghilleri, Moira
2003 “Habitus, Field and Discourse: Interpreting as a Socially Situated Activity.” Target 15 (2): 243–268. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2005 “The Sociology of Bourdieu and the Construction of the ‘Object’ in Translation and Interpreting Studies.” The Translator 11 (2): 125–145. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kang, Youwei
1985 南海康先生口说 Nanhai Kangxiansheng koushuo [Lectures given by Mr. Kang]. Edited by Xizhao Wu and Zhonghao Deng. Zhongshan: Zhongshan University Press.Google Scholar
Liang, Qichao
1896 西学书目表 Xixue shumu biao [Western studies booklist]. Edited by Gan Pengyun. Wuchang: Zhixuehui.Google Scholar
Liao, Qiyi
2011 “从‘信’的失落看清末民初文学翻译规范 Cong xin de shiluo kan Qingmo Minchu wenxue fanyi guifan [Translation norms at the end of the late Qing dynasty].” 外语与外语教学 Waiyu yu waiyu jiaoxue [Foreign language and their teaching] 1: 53–56.Google Scholar
Liu, Shusen
1999 “李提摩太与《回头看记略》：中译美国小说的起源 Liti motai yu Hui tou kan jilüe: zhongyi Meiguo xiaoshuo de qiyuan [Timothy Richard and Hui tou kan jilüe: the pioneer in translating an American novel into Chinese].” 美国研究 Meiguo yanjiu [American studies] 1: 122–138.Google Scholar
Lytton, Edward B.
1873–1875 “昕夕闲谈 Xinxi xiantan [Idle talk morning to evening].” Translated by Jiang Qizhang and Ernest Major. 瀛寰琐记 Yinghuan Suoji [Wide world news gleanings].Google Scholar
Mannheim, Karl
1954 Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge. Translated by Louis Wirth and Edward Shils. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Meylaerts, Reine
2008 “Translators and (Their) Norms: Towards a Sociological Construction of the Individual.” In Beyond Descriptive Translation Studies: Investigations in Homage to Gideon Toury, edited by Anthony Pym, Miriam Shlesinger, and Daniel Simeoni, 91–102. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010 “Habitus and Self-Image of Native Literary Author-Translators in Diglossic Societies.” In Profession, Identity and Status: Translators as an Occupation Group: Part II: Questions of Role and Identity, edited by Rakefet Sela-Sheffy and Miriam Shlesinger, special issue of Translation and Interpreting Studies 5 (1): 1–19.Google Scholar
Richard, Timothy
1916 Forty-five Years in China: Reminiscences. New York: Stokes.Google Scholar
Roemer, Kenneth M.
2003 Utopian Audiences: How Readers Locate Nowhere. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.Google Scholar
Rooney Jr., Charles J.
1968 Utopian Literature as a Reflection of Social Forces in America, 1865–1917. Washington: The George Washington University.Google Scholar
Sapiro, Gisèle
2004 “Une liberté contrainte. La formation de la théorie de l’habitus [Constrained liberty: the formation of the habitus theory].” In Pierre Bourdieu, Sociologue, edited by Louis Pinto, Gisèle Sapiro, and Patrick Champagne, 49–69. Paris: Fayard.Google Scholar
2013 “Translation and Identity: Social Trajectories of the Translators of Hebrew Literature in French.” TTR: Traduction, Terminologie, Rédaction 26 (2): 59–82. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sela-Sheffy, Rakefet
2005 “How to Be a (Recognized) Translator: Rethinking Habitus, Norms, and the Field of Translation.” Target 17 (1): 1–26. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Simeoni, Daniel
1998 “The Pivotal Status of the Translator’s Habitus.” Target 10 (1): 1–39. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stowe, Harriet B.
1852 Uncle Tom’s Cabin. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics.Google Scholar
Swartz, David L.
2002 “The Sociology of Habit: The Perspective of Pierre Bourdieu.” OTJR: Occupation, Participation and Health 22 (1_supp): 61S–69S. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tan, Sitong
1981 谭嗣同全集 Tansitong quanji [Complete works of Tan Sitong]. Edited by Shangsi Cai and Xing Fang. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles
2007 A Secular Age. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Toury, Gideon
1995 Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wallace, Lewis
1880 Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. New York: Harper & Brothers.Google Scholar
Walton, Catherine A.
1882 安乐家 Anle jia [Sweet home]. Translated by Mary Harriet Porter. Shanghai: Chinese Holy Educational Society.Google Scholar
Wang, Shuhuai
2011 基督教与清季中国的教育与社会 Jidujiao yu Qingji Zhongguo de jiaoyu yu shehui [Christianity and its influence on education and society in the late Qing dynasty]. Guilin: Guangxi Normal University Press.Google Scholar
Xiong, Yuezhi
1994 西学东渐与晚清社会 Xixue dongjian yu Wan-Qing shehui [The dissemination of Western learning and the late Qing society]. Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Press.Google Scholar
Zou, Zhenhuan
1996 影响中国近代社会的一百种译作 Yingxiang Zhongguo jindai shehui de yibaizhong yizuo [One hundred influential translations in modern China]. Beijing: China Translation & Publishing Corporation.Google Scholar