日韩精品久久一区二区三区_亚洲色图p_亚洲综合在线最大成人_国产中出在线观看_日韩免费_亚洲综合在线一区

US EUROPE AFRICA ASIA 中文
World / Reporter's Journal

Unlocking China's literary gems through translation

By Chris Davis (China Daily USA) Updated: 2014-06-11 07:57

Chinese novelist Mo Yan winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2012 sparked a discussion in the publishing world. How many other top-notch fiction writers did China have hidden behind that formidable language barrier? How many more Noble Prizes for Literature could China be winning if only their writers could get more international audiences through translation?

At the time, China Daily reported that there were about 60,000 translators in China, with 10,000 more employed in work related to translation. Yet of those, according to the China Press and Publishing Journal, less than 10 percent were fully capable of translating from Chinese.

"It is perfectly true that many great Chinese works of literature are not available in translation in English, which is a great shame," Olivia Milburn, a professor of Classical Chinese at Seoul National University and a translator, told China Daily this week.

Milburn said there were a couple of factors at work. One is that translation work is often paid very low. One report said that translators earn less than $11 per 1,000 Chinese characters, and even the most experienced pro can grind through no more than 5,000 characters a day — in other words, earn about $275 a week.

"Books that require more than a basic knowledge of the language and culture cannot be done properly," Milburn said. "If a translation does appear, the standard is often low."

Unlocking China's literary gems through translationHuang Youyi, vice-chairman of the Translators Association of China, said there were many translation "assembly lines" where a group of inexperienced translators work to meet publication deadlines at cheap rates.

While some 57 Chinese universities offer undergraduate and postgraduate courses in translation, students complain that the focus is all on the classics and not enough on contemporary genres like fiction, drama, poetry and literary prose. Translation majors tend to migrate to jobs that pay better for the same workload.

People who have jobs that allow them to work on translations in their spare time, especially academics, tend to be interested in translation work which furthers their own careers or a work that has made a big splash. "This is not a good situation for allowing a wide range of high quality literature to be translated from Chinese into English," Milburn said.

"So either the translator works in a real hurry (and is unwilling to handle anything that requires too much research time) or they have another job, usually academic, in which case mostly they want to translate avant-guard stuff which is often of minimal interest to readers," Milburn said.

The other hurdle a book has to get over is even more basic: Publishers in general think people don't like to read translations.

Milburn mentions another trend where well known Chinese novels have been translated into English and appear in abridged versions, a process she calls "horrifying". She cited Jiang Rong's Wolf Totem and Jin Yong's The Deer and the Cauldron as two recent examples.

"If these book were available translated into English in full with an extra abridged version, that would be one thing," she argued. "But the decision to simply publish short versions is (in my opinion) shocking. If the publishers of these translations thought that the historical details were too difficult for English readers, they should have arranged to translate a different type of book."

Some commentators have suggested that the Chinese language is just too subtle and complex to ever be truly understood by outsiders, a notion that Milburn dismissed out of hand. "There are many people of non-Chinese ancestry with a fantastic knowledge of the language, and this has been true for many centuries," she said.

Translation is work that should not be limited by what it says on someone's passport, she said. "A good translator is a good translator, with a strong knowledge of both languages and a grasp of idiom," Milburn said. "There has to be room for both native Chinese speakers and native English speakers translating from Chinese into English."

As for Nobel Prizes waiting to be won, Milburn finds the fixation "deeply disturbing, and probably as damaging for Chinese literature as the quest for Best Foreign Film has been to large sections of the Chinese film industry."

"A great work of literature is wonderful in and of itself, and does not require the validation of any award," she said. "Furthermore, a Nobel Prize for Literature tells you nothing. Looking back over the list, there are some appalling choices there, clearly motivated by political considerations. This is not a good standard to work to."

Contact the writer at chrisdavis@chinadailyusa.com.

Trudeau visits Sina Weibo
May gets little gasp as EU extends deadline for sufficient progress in Brexit talks
Ethiopian FM urges strengthened Ethiopia-China ties
Yemen's ex-president Saleh, relatives killed by Houthis
Most Popular
Hot Topics

...
主站蜘蛛池模板: 久久免费看少妇高潮A片特黄多 | 亚洲午夜在线 | 久久草在线视频 | 2021中文字幕亚洲精品 | 久久久久久久久久久9精品视频 | av免费在线观看国产 | 波多久久夜色精品国产 | 久草论坛 | 日日麻批免费视频 | 精品欧美一区视频在线观看 | 成人黄色片网站 | 国产成人19禁在线观看 | 日韩精品一区二区三区在线观看 | 在线视频综合视频免费观看 | 亚洲黄网视频 | 久草免费网站 | 亚洲福利视频网 | 国产成人免费全部网站 | 999久久久久久久久6666 | 操免费视频 | 国产精品久久久999 午夜免费 | 欧美在线观看视频 | 天天操天天插 | 久久久久久久免费视频 | 一级做a爱片特黄在线观看yy | 男人激烈吮乳动态图 | 91精品国产综合久久久久久 | 久久久久网站 | 久草在线国产 | 日本在线看| 日本在线播放不卡一区二区三区 | 免费无遮挡www小视频 | 黄色片av | 免费看成年视频网页 | 亚洲国产成a人v在线观看 | 日本高清无卡码一区二区久久 | 在线观看高清免费 | 欧美一级做a爰片免费视频 亚洲男人的天堂久久精品 色吟av | 台湾三级无遮挡在线播放 | 五月婷婷开心综合 | 久久综合玖玖爱中文字幕 |