The Habitus Of Diplomatic Interpreters In The Late Qing Dynasty ——A Case Study Of Zhang Deyi

The Late Qing Dynasty saw frequent foreign invasions,exposing the government to foreign interaction despite its celestial empire self-image.Mainstream traditional views considered foreign interaction indecent.Zhang Deyi（1847-1918）,born to a decayed Han Banner family,entered the School of Combined Learning before going on eight overseas missions as an interpreter,a counsellor or an ambassador.He represented the indigenous interpreters.Nevertheless,research on him mainly studied the customs or the events he recorded,and translation history studies were mostly from the macro scope or about events.Individual diplomatic interpreters of the time were seldom researched on.The social turn in translation studies allows researchers to explain translation phenomena from more perspectives.This thesis explores the habitus of interpreters in the Late Qing Dynasty,and its contributing factors by applying Bourdieu’s theory of practice and focusing on the case of Zhang.This will enrich translation history studies,and offer reference to present interpreter training.The thesis explores the habitus of Zhang reflected in the diaries of him and his colleagues,and analyses the field and capital contributed to it.Zhang applied the domestication technique and pursued fidelity and secrecy as his habitus.Yet his English and interpreting skills were inadequate,and his understanding of the role was incomplete.His ability bettered later when he was no longer an interpreter.His habitus was shaped by multiple fields.The political field was competed by various factions that discriminated against foreign ethnics.This contributed to his domestication,fidelity and secrecy features.The envoy field was an extension of the political field,yet its players recognized the importance of translation and interpreting,which spurred Zhang to better his skills.The immature interpreting field was at the margin of the field of power,and on which both foreign and domestic interpreters competed.Zhang thus could not form an understanding of the role,but managed to occupy better positions by accumulating capital.The insufficient capital of Zhang also hampered the formation of his habitus,yet he managed to grab more capital for improvement.His cultural capital mainly came from his educational background and foreign experience.These contributed to his domestication feature.His social capital was deficient due to his birth rank.Since he himself was one of the best interpreters,almost nobody could offer him much help.His symbolic capital was even more scarce,since the profession was despised then.Although he became the English teacher of the emperor,the inferiority was lifelong.The case reflected that satisfying habitus could hardly form based on unfavourable field and capital.Deficient interpreting service deformed the diplomatic activities of the Qing government.It is a warning that favourable field and capital shall be provided to interpreters through defining the role,educating the employers,etc.In these ways,good habitus of the interpreters could form,and the voice of a nation could be raised on diplomatic occasions.