ATYPICAL TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATION-RELATED ELEMENTS IN THE JUDGE DEE MYSTERIES

What is it about?

Although some scholars have been motivated to conduct case studies on Chinese translations for particular stories in the Judge Dee Mysteries (e.g., Chen 2005; Lin 2007), few scholars have studied the unusual examples embedded in the creative writing falling under two categories: atypical translations, which encompass English translations for Chinese Culture-Specific Items (CSIs) that have been incorporated into the mysteries without revealing the original CSIs or the fact that the English forms are translations; translation-related elements, which include cultural creations produced in imitation of Chinese CSIs and adaptations of criminal plots or stories from case books, short-story collections or other literary works produced in different historical periods of China. Drawing on theorizations of cultural translation, this article aims to examine the role of these examples in meaning making so as to reveal the connection between the text producer’s four simultaneously functioning roles (i.e., the mystery writer, sinologist, translator, and adapter), his cultural practices (i.e., translation, imitation, adaptation), and his meaning-making strategies of cultural significance.

Featured Image