Review of Yu (2024): Dialect, Voice, and Identity in Chinese Translation: A Descriptive Study of Chinese Translations of Huckleberry Finn, Tess, and Pygmalion
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The use of dialect serves as a vital tool for characterization in literature, allowing writers to enrich the texture of literary works and enhance the authenticity and depth of characters, even though it can sometimes be controversial.By deviating from the standard language norms, the characters are endowed with a voice of difference that reflects their identities in certain regional, ethnic, and social contexts.While dialect shapes the identity of "the familiar domestic Other" (Simon-Jones 2013), translation constructs identities of a foreign Other in a target culture.How this "Otherness, " embedded in "the foreign Otherness" from the source culture (Sun 2018), is represented in the target culture extends beyond practical challenges for translators.It involves a deeper exploration of how this otherness is perceived in the source society and its alignment with the power structures and agendas of the receiving society.In this light, Jing Yu's Dialect, Voice, and Identity in Chinese Translation is a ground-breaking contribution.It is the first booklength study that provides a detailed and comprehensive analysis of how English literary dialects are translated into Chinese, combining extensive case studies with theoretical exploration.Yu scrutinizes 277 Chinese translations from 1931 to 2020 of the three English classics The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, and Pygmalion, using descriptive research methodology and an interdisciplinary approach that draws on Translation Studies, literary analysis, and sociolinguistics.This approach allows for an examination of the complexities involved in translating dialects that convey specific cultural and social nuances into Chinese, a language that is significantly different from English in terms of structure, idiomatic expressions, and cultural context.The structural organization of this book navigates the reader through the intricate landscape of dialect translation within the Chinese linguistic and cultural context.Chapter 1 sets the stage by defining the scope and focus of the study, laying a foundation for exploring the relationship between dialect, voice, and identity in translation.Chapter 2 reviews the literary dialect traditions in British and American literature and their Chinese counterparts, thus establishing a robust base for the ensuing chapters.A general
Author: Wenjing Li
Institutions: Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Jilin University
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4410031620