Title: Lost in Translation: Logic, Ancient Chinese and Modern Authors
Speaker: Fenrong Liu
Abstract:
The English edition of the Handbook of the History of Logical Thought in China contains the translation into English of chapters written in modern Chinese about the expression of logical concepts in ancient Chinese texts, many of which are hard to interpret, with a significant level of textual corruption. Our struggle to accurately capture the claims and arguments made by the chapter authors was made even harder by writing styles that do not correspond closely to those of modern academic English.
Although Yan Fu’s division of the problems of translation into xin 信 ‘faithfulness’, da 達‘expressiveness’, and ya 雅 ‘elegance’ are as useful today as they were in the late Qing dynasty, we aim to uncover further principles to help with the particular issues that have emerged from our experience as editors of the Handbook.
In this presentation, I will attempt to categorise the difficulties by giving a number of examples, and reflect on the issues they raise for our understanding of translation, logic, argumentation and writing. This is the result of an ongoing conversation with our editorial team, especially my co-editor, Jeremy Seligman.