A Study Of The Retranslation Of An Inquiry Into The Nature And Causes Of The Wealth Of Nations In China

This paper verifies,combs and analyzes the over-a-century process of the retranslation of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations(Wealth of Nations hereinafter),one of the foundation-laying works of western economics in China from the perspective of translation studies and explores the economic and institutional contexts in which the book has been retranslated from the perspective of institutional economics.Since Yan Fu's Chinese translation of the above-mentioned book written by Adam Smith,Father of Western Economics,this masterpiece of classic economics has been retranslated in China for more than a century,which has witnessed China's economic growth and institutional changes.Since the beginning of the 21~stt century,there has emerged a retranslation peak.Based on the Theory of Memetics and the Institutional Change Theory,this paper outlines the overall retranslation tendency by examining the number and types of versions,publishing agencies and paratexts,explores the replication and transmission laws of the economic thought memes,and analyzes the economic and institutional contexts of the retranslation.Statistics indicates that for more than a century,the retranslation of Wealth of Nations has gone through a process of near-stagnation to gradual increase,and then to rapid increase,during which version types have become increasingly richer,including versions of compiled translation,full translation,abridged translation,edited translation,illustrated translation and paralleled English and Chinese,etc..Full translations account for a greater percentage with an increasing tendency,which indicates that faithfully representing the original content and adequately conveying the economic thoughts of Wealth of Nations is the main theme of retranslation.Active participation of 64 publishing agencies do not only bring about rapid increase in retranslated versions,but also facilitates fast development of various retranslation types,thus endowing the retranslation of Wealth of Nations with a popularizing tendency.The coexistence of classical versions and non-classical versions is a manifestation of popularization of the economic thoughts of Wealth of Nations in China.Whether from the permanence,productivity or fidelity of the replication and transmission of memes,Wealth of Nations is a successful meme complex in China.Contrastive analysis of the language of the representative retranslations indicates that the retranslation of Wealth of Nations in China follows the route of“domestication—foreignization—popularization”.The retranslation of the economic terms of the book manifests the varying,selecting and maintaining characteristics of the replication and transmission of academic thought memes.Corpus-based contrastive analysis of the retranslation language indicates that that at the beginning stage of the retranslation of Wealth of Nations in China,translation strategies tend to be more domesticating so that the economic concepts are better perceived and accepted by the target readers.Whereas,as the economic thought memes are widely transmitted and fully perceived in the target culture,retranslations are prone to be closer to the original for accurate conveyance of the economic concepts,and translation strategies are often more foreignizing.However,the change of tendency does not follow a straight-line route,as the retranslation that is closest to the source book is not the latest version,and there emerge popularized expressions in the latest retranslation,reflecting the consideration of the target readership and the efforts for popularization.The development process of the retranslation of Wealth of Nations in China,on the one hand,proves that the“domestication-foreignization”hypothesis and the aging hypothesis of retranslation studies have limitations in explaining the Chinese retranslation of the western economic classics like Wealth of Nations,and need to be expanded to the popularization tendency and more retranslation motivations.On the other hand,the development process illustrates that the retranslation of Wealth of Nations itself is a complex and dynamic process.The retranslated versions of Wealth of Nations,as carriers of economic thought memes,are published in specific economic and institutional contexts where the replication and transmission of those memes are triggered.Therefore,the retranslation of Wealth of Nations need to be analyzed with the exploration of the two contexts mentioned above.Analysis of the economic context indicates that the retranslation of Wealth of Nations develops in the background of China's increasing economy.During the period of the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China,China's economy developed slowly,and the retranslation of Wealth of Nations also developed slowly;during the planned economy period,China's economy experienced ups and downs and developed even more slowly,and the development of the book's retranslation came to a near-stagnation state;after the reform and opening policy,China's economy gradually came into a period of rapid development,and the book's retranslation also gradually stepped into a rapidly rising stage after a sluggish period.Especially,since the beginning of this century,there has emerged a roughly similar rising tendency between the retranslation of Wealth of Nations and such indexes of China's economy as GDP and total import and export trade of goods.The fact that the retranslation of Wealth of Nations climbs to the peak in the background of China's rapidly increasing economy indicates that China's continually increasing and opening economy corresponds to the economic conditions required by the retranslation of Wealth of Nations,thus providing ideal economic contexts for the replication and transmission of the economic thought memes of the book.According to New Institutional Economics,institutional changes are the source of economic growth.Combined with the study of the institutional documents and non-national rate of economy in different periods of China,investigation into the institutional context proves that the retranslation of Wealth of Nations in China develops with China's institutional changes,presenting a roughly similar increasing tendency with the marketization degree of China's economy.In the process of China's institutional changes,especially after the reform and opening policy,the property right reform brought about yearly increase of the non-state rate of China's economy,the diversified property right pattern,and the coexistence of various economic components,which stimulated the rise of the marketization degree of economy and provided increasingly suitable institutional contexts for the retranslation of Wealth of Nations.In such an institutional background,step by step,the retranslation of the book came to a rapidly rising stage.The retranslation of Wealth of Nations is a course in which China's economics actively absorb western economic thoughts in its own development.Wealth of Nations is regarded as the Bible of market economy,the economic thought memes of which have been gradually and widely replicated and transmitted in China through more than a century's retranslation,thus enabling the readers to understand market economy and the incentive structure brought by institutional changes better,which has been one of the major forces motivating the translators and publishing agents to continually retranslate the book.Recent retranslation peak of Wealth of Nations in China indicates that the economic and institutional contexts are increasingly suitable for the economic thought memes of Wealth of Nations to survive and transmit.The retranslation peak is a process in which the economic thought memes of the book adapt to the economic and institutional contexts and realize their replication,transmission and evolution across language,culture,space and time.The retranslation peak of Wealth of Nations,a book representing economic liberalism and systematically discussing market economy,to a certain degree,indicates the popularization of market economy thoughts and the improvement of China's marketization level and reflects the increasing openness and inclusiveness of the socialist economic system with Chinese characteristics.