Abstract
This chapter aims at reflecting and analyzing the role of “culturemes,” as both a hindrance and an asset in translating modern Chinese literature, through the case study of my recent retranslation of Lu Xun’s fiction and a brief comparison with some previous renditions into both Italian and other European languages. Lu Xun 鲁迅 (1881–1936) is by large considered as a “modern classic” both in China and abroad. After an overview of the history, frequency, and motivations of the translation of his works in Italy, I will reflect upon how the translator can accommodate the contradiction between meeting the readership as well as the publisher’s expectations and producing a piece of “dialogic translation.” The translated text should enhance cultural differences while respecting the linguistic norms of the receiving culture and being readable for the average contemporary reader. In order to illustrate the translation strategy adopted, I will display a range of translation issues mainly related to the so-called “culturemes” or “rich points”—in Michael Agar’s words—which pose to the translator the challenge of “making sense out of human differences in terms of human similarities,” of identifying and negotiating on what provides Lu Xun’s works with their unique value and flavor.
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- 1.
Unless otherwise noted, all translations are mine.
- 2.
One of the basic tenets of translation theories, the dominant of a text is “the focusing component of a work which both guarantees the integrity of its structure and specifies it” (Tobin 1988, xxi).
- 3.
“Si propone di considerare il testo letterario classico o moderno da tradurre non come un rigido scoglio immobile nel mare, bensì come una piattaforma galleggiante, dove chi traduce opera sul corpo vivo dell’opera, ma l’opera stessa è in costante trasformazione o, per l’appunto, in movimento”.
- 4.
Enciclopedia Italiana - II Appendice (1949) http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/lu-hsun_%28Enciclopedia-Italiana%29/Last access Aug. 29.
- 5.
“Quanto a Lu Hsun non ho avuto dubbi da quando nel 1955 a Pechino lessi alcuni suoi racconti e poi tanti altri suoi scritti, nei primi anni Sessanta: non solo un grande scrittore e un intellettuale maestro, ma anche una mente molto prossima a quelle del medesimo periodo in Occidente” (Fortini and Jachia 1993, 77).
- 6.
It can be defined as the focusing component of a text, which guarantees the integrity of its structure. The definition evokes something very specific, yet in a text there might be more than one dominant, and these can be put in a hierarchy according to their importance: a dominant followed by all the sub-dominants (Osimo 2010, 93).
- 7.
“Una delle ragioni per cui la narrativa suscita le nostre emozioni è che si colloca sempre in rapporto al repertorio dei copioni emotivi di una particolare cultura”.
- 8.
The complicated system of examinations that for centuries provided the Empire with a hierarchy of officials at all levels was based on the county level examination, in order to receive the title of xiùcai, then that of jǔrén at the provincial level and, finally, the highest level of examinations was the one at the capital, through which the candidate could enter the court with the title of jìnshì 進士.
- 9.
According to Zhou Zuoren it is a true story, but in his literary creation Lu Xun deliberately changed the name of the German doctor—whose real name, according to Zhou Zuoren (2013, 243) himself was Diboer (probably referring to Edmund Dipper 1871–1933)—into a quite allusive surname.
- 10.
“Person deixis assigns first-, second and third-person roles, while social deixis marks the degrees of respect the sender conceives as being demanded or manifested by various parties. Both these types of denotation help to establish the sender and receiver personae as communicative latching-on points, and they are reinforced by time deixis and place deixis, which offer to set the virtual sender, the virtual reader, and the worlds and people under discussion within temporal and space relationiship as well” (Sell 2000, 165).
- 11.
“Modality is the linguistic means by which senders indicate to recipients some degree of commitment or hesitation as to the truth, probability or desirability of whatever they happen to be talking about” (Sell 2000, 166).
- 12.
“That extreme intimacy of bonding which results from allusiveness, at points where the writer deliberately seeks to raise an intertextual relationship to consciousness.” (Sell 2000, 169).
- 13.
“L’abolizione della lontananza non genera maggiore vicinanza, bensì la distrugge”.
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Pesaro, N. (2021). Retranslation and Culturemes: Searching for a “Dialogic Translation” of a Modern Chinese Classic. In: Moratto, R., Woesler, M. (eds) Diverse Voices in Chinese Translation and Interpreting. New Frontiers in Translation Studies. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4283-5_4
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