Repatriation,Reconstruction And Reciprocity In Cultural Back-Translation

Overseas Sinology research has been influencing the evolution of Chinese academic landscape since late Qing dynasty.However,the maj ority of such intellectual resource is circulated in the English-speaking world,or among Chinese researchers well versed in English.Since the 1980s,large numbers of overseas research on Chinese studies have been translated and published in China.Against the dual landscape of the trans-contextual characteristics of art history research and the public’s burgeoning interest in artistic life,the works written by James Cahill(1926-2014),an esteemed and influential American scholar in the realm of Chinese painting history,have been extensively translated into Chinese over recent years,exerting a significant impact on the sphere of Chinese art history in China.Yet,this "cultural back-translation"phenomenon has not been given sufficient attention in translation studies,with current researchers yet to reach a consensus on the definition of the term,and lacking a systematic investigation into specific cases to explore the processes,strategies and mechanisms involved.Furthermore,linguistic and translation aspects have so far not been adequately addressed in local academic community of art history studies.Against this background,this study aims to explore the repatriation and reconstruction strategies used in the translation of James Cahill’s works on Chinese painting history and mechanisms involved.By employing methods such as corpusassisted critical text analysis and experimentation,this study delved into the translation strategies of aspects including terms of painting materials and techniques,terminological concepts,painting descriptions and inter-textual references;the epistemic and cultural reciprocity generated through cultural back-translation,and the interaction between the strategies of repatriation and reconstruction and the function of reciprocity.The investigation was grounded in a multi-theoretical framework,integrating cultural studies(cultural transfer,memetics,transculturation),translation studies(cultural translation,transknowletology)and narrative studies(socio-narrative theory,transmedia narrative)to deliver a systematic analysis.The findings are as follows:on the micro level,it is found that all six works by James Cahill on the history of Chinese painting primarily employ a strategy of repatriation,supplemented by reconstruction,across the three areas examined,i.e.terms of materials and techniques,terminological concepts,and inter-textual references.Notably,the translation of "Chinese Painting" adopts the least ratio of repatriation strategies and a significantly higher use of reconstruction strategies among the six works.This is largely attributed to Li Yu,the translator’s multiple identities as a diaspora translator,student of James Cahill and an art history author.Upon examining specific examples,it is revealed that the use of repatriation strategy complements the contextual meanings in Cahill’s narration,while re-domestication tends to obscure the transculturation and transformation in foreign languages and any newly emerged meanings,or to downplay James Cahill’s misunderstandings of the original Chinese literature.In the examination of the back-translation of painting descriptions,the author first conducted an experiment to prove that the presence of paintings are important for the visibility of cultural back-translation.By defining the ekphrasis of paintings as inter-semiotic translation,the author introduced the novel term "inter-semiotic backtranslation",based on which an analysis was carried out on the selective representation in James Cahill’s ekphrasis description and the positive and negative shifts in the translation of these ekphrasis descriptions.It was found that translators adopt far more positive shifts in the back-translation.Following the above findings,it is argued that a paradoxical relationship exists between the "back-transfer" in cultural back-translation and the "transformation" in cultural transfer.In cultural transfer,there is no unified stable "source text",but rather entangled texts undergoing transculturation and it is impossible to revert to the source culture in cultural back-translation,which is in a state of hybridity due to transculturation.This finding challenges the traditional dichotomy between the source and the target in back translation studies and translation studies at large.The meso-level analysis focused on the mutual construction of social narratives in Chinese painting history between subjects in different cultures in the process of cultural transfer.The review of core problematique in James Cahill’s writings on Chinese painting history revealed that,with an understanding of the social,cultural,and academic context of the Western art history field,especially the trend of abstract expressionism in America,James Cahill provides a renarration of Chinese painting history through linguistic translation,inter-semiotic translation and cultural translation.This hybrid narrative entered the domain of Chinese art history in China through cultural back-translation.Domestic scholars,through reflecting on the cultural and intellectual otherness,produced new knowledge through expansion of research perspectives and approaches,debating on core concepts,and exploration of marginal painters.On a deeper level and in a long run,such cultural back-translations also offer an impetus for self-construction of national cultural image and cultural selfconsciousness awakening.In terms of scholarly contribution,this study enriches the understanding of cultural back-translation at the theoretical level through the case study,including its features of complexity,processuality and reciprocity,and for the first time proposes reciprocity as the function of cultural back-translation.It further validates the explanatory capacity of a multi-theoretical framework integrating theories such as cultural transfer,memetics,transculturation,transknowletology,socio-narrative and transmedia narrative in the exploration of cross-border disciplinary narratives and knowledge production.On a practical level,this study offers insights that could inform future efforts towards the cultural back-translation of works on Chinese culture,the translation of Chinese classics into foreign languages,translation of art narratives and effective cultural transmission.It also broadens the research landscape in international sinology and art history.