Publications

Publication details [#11800]

Chen, Chapman and Audrey Ma. 2000. 《近親戀日記》的情色翻譯 [Translation of erotic passages in Incest: A Journal of Love]. Journal of Translation Studies 4 : 95.
Publication type
Article in jnl/bk
Publication language
Chinese
Source language
Target language
Person as a subject
Title as subject

Abstract

In her Incest: a Journal of Love , American woman writer, Anais Nin, in her elegant, lyrical style, describes her polygonal erotic relationships, including how she fell passionately in love with her father, from whom she had been separated since childhood, and broke the incest taboo. This paper first translates passages from the journal, which involves father-daughter sexual love, and discusses the translation strategy and effects. The target of this translation of Nin's incest diary is to preserve the original lyrical and elegant style, and to produce dynamic equivalence, in Eugene Nida's sense. The method is to borrow amorous phrases from traditional Chinese erotic literature, especially banned fiction of the Qing and Ming dynasties. For traditional Chinese erotic literature has a whole set of elegant phrases and images which could easily trigger off amorous associations on the part of the Chinese reader, while American literature does not have so many elegant sexual phrases and images. The sexual phrases in American literature cannot usually be understood and appreciated very deeply by Chinese readers. When borrowing the erotic language of traditional Chinese literature, one has to carefully integrate it into vernacular Chinese.
Source : Abstract in journal