Study On The Translation Of Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare Of 1768-A Descriptive Approach

Philip A.Kuhn,a revered leading figure in the second generation of sinologists in America,had his magnum opus Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768 favored as a weighty tome and an innovative paradigm since the 1990 s.Soulstealers is largely praised for its academic vision and comprehensive analysis synthesizing social,cultural,political,economic,regional,bureaucratic and psychological factors in a macro-narrative of soulstealing.The Chinese version of this book was first published by SDX Joint Publishing Company in 1999.Subsequent to its publication,it swept through the Chinese academia and is still a thriving bestseller.The current study is a descriptive observation of its translation based on such conceptions of polysystem,peripheral-central position and of canonization from Itamar Even-Zohar's polysystem theory and the concept of operational norms from Gideon Toury's translation norms.Its position and presentation in the polysystem are examined from three important aspects---translation selection,translation strategies and translation circulation.The competition between different polysystems throws some light on the conception of translating this book when it comes to translation selection.In analyzing translation strategies,operational norms in the translation process in the peripheral target culture are reconstructed.And the discussion of its circulation is a review of its journey of canonization.In virtue of this descriptive approach,a panoramic picture of why it is translated,how it is translated and how it is circulated is gained: in translation selection,political polysystem is the dominant force that significantly impacts other marginalized systems in the polysystem of polysystems;in translation strategy,observation of operational norms leads to a combination of acceptable translation and adequate translation in the translated version of Soulstealers,a departure from Zohar's prediction of adequacy in a marginal culture,which might be justified by translation aim,translation material itself and the target readership;in translation circulation,due attention is paid to the publisher and readers,who canonize Soulstealers and continue its life in the target culture.This study is a thorough examination of Soulstealers as an academic book.It gives us a clue to the topic selection,translation strategies and the canonized journey of its translation,and sheds some light on these aspects of academic translation as a whole.Hopefully,being a case study,it can contribute some ideas to academic translation in and of itself,and to systematic academic translation studies as well.In addition,it might provide some insights to the exchange of ideas across the global academia and even in some way,to the dissemination of Chinese academic achievements and to the establishment of discourse right of the Chinese academic circle in the global arena although it explores the translation and circulation of a Western academic classic in the Chinese context.