Book review

Review of Jing Yu. Dialect, Voice, and Identity in Chinese Translation: A Descriptive Study of Chinese Translations of Huckleberry Finn, Tess, and Pygmalion

(Routledge Studies in Chinese Translation). Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2024. 234 pp.

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 2013Simon-Jones, Lindsey Marie 2013 “Neighbor Hob and Neighbor Lob: English Dialect Speakers on the Tudor Stage.” English Text Construction 6 (1): 40–59. ), translation constructs identities of a foreign Other in a target culture. How this “Otherness,” embedded in “the foreign Otherness” from the source culture (Sun 2018Sun, Yifeng 2018 Translating Foreign Otherness: Cross-Cultural Anxiety in Modern China. Abingdon: Routledge.), 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 book-length 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 description of the entire corpus of this study is presented in Chapter 3, followed by a focused description of key cases in Chapter 4. This is followed by a series of case studies in Chapter 5 through 7 and a conclusion in Chapter 8.

Notably, Chapter 2’s review concludes with an exhaustive discussion of the strategies, techniques, varieties, and features that have been used to create distinctive voices in the translation of fictional speech. This discussion leads to the presentation of a detailed strategy map (53) and a map of conditioning factors for dialect translation (57). These could be valuable resources for translators facing the complex challenges of dialect translation and can also serve as instructional aids in translator training.

The book subsequently delves into a corpus spanning ninety years, encompassing a broad spectrum of dialect types found in English literature (Chapter 3). This period (1930–2020) covers significant social and political transformations in contemporary China, including events before and after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The book’s focus then narrows to fourteen Chinese translations that effectively illustrate the creation of voices of difference in dialect translation (Chapter 4). Throughout these chapters, the author identifies prevailing norms and tendencies in dialect translation while also exploring deviations from these patterns. This dual approach provides a more thorough understanding of translation behaviors and practices, and the extensive dataset presented in these chapters offers a rich source of first-hand data for further research into dialect translation from English to Chinese.

This book’s first focused case study is the 1956 Chinese version of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Chapter 5). The source text is notable for its use of African American Vernacular English (AAVE), a topic widely explored by translation scholars. In this case study, Yu examines how register varieties within standard Chinese are strategically employed to actively construct Jim’s social identities and dynamics within the Chinese cultural context. This chapter contributes to Dialect Translation Studies by introducing a dynamic model that incorporates both sides of linguistic variation — standard and non-standard language — into the translation process. This approach unveils how social hierarchies and power structures inherent in the source culture are not only reinterpreted but sometimes reversed in the target culture. Yu’s analysis highlights the translator’s role in constructing what she calls the “better us” (149), turning the original ethnic Others into a more positively viewed social community in the Chinese context.

Translation is an activity that spans not only languages and cultures but also time. In translating literary classics, the target culture’s evolving political and sociolinguistic landscapes often necessitate re-translation. From another perspective, the strategies employed in re-translations at different historical times of the target culture can reflect shifts in its political and social context. This dynamic interplay is the focal point of the case study on Tess and Huck in Chapter 6. Here, the author introduces the novel concept of dialect frequency and explores how it varies across the original texts and their translations. By utilizing a frequency variation measure, the author shows that shifts in dialect frequency in translations do more than alter characters’ voices; they reshape the characters’ social identities and narrative functions. The chapter offers a blend of quantitative rigor and qualitative insights, based on which two types of translators, “pioneer translators” and “follower translators,” are identified and explained (178–182). While this categorization of translators oversimplifies complex dynamics, it offers a fresh perspective on how translators contribute to the construction of translation norms over time.

The influence of social changes on the choice of translation strategies becomes particularly salient when the target culture undergoes major transformations, as is the case with the establishment of the PRC in 1949. Yu’s comparison of the two Chinese versions of Eliza’s Cockney accent in Pygmalion before and after the PRC’s establishment reveals distinct approaches influenced by the socio-political climate in China (Chapter 7). Lin Yutang’s version, created during a period when the country was more open to Western influences, presents Eliza’s speech in a ‘broken’ variety, emphasizing her social inferiority while also underlining her individual struggle against societal expectations. On the other hand, Yang Xianyi’s re-translation, produced after the establishment of the PRC, depicts Eliza with a confident and competent voice that aligns with the political and cultural narratives of the new regime, focusing more on class struggle than gender identity. The reconstruction of gender identity in the target culture is driven by the political and cultural agendas about women, either advocated by the translation agents or embedded in the mainstream ideology of the time.

The similarity among the three case studies is highlighted in the concluding chapter: the dialect-speaking main characters in the source texts tend to be empowered by a linguistic upgrade in the translation published after the establishment of the PRC. This phenomenon is not isolated to Chinese translations; similar patterns are observed in other language pairs. For instance, Berthelé’s (2000)Berthelé, Raphael 2000 “Translating African-American Vernacular English into German: The Problem of ‘Jim’ in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 4 (4): 588–614. historical analysis of German translations of Jim’s AAVE in Huck indicates a linguistic and cognitive downgrade before the 1960s, while more contemporary translations opt for language varieties carrying less sociolinguistic stigma. These comparative insights illustrate that literary translation functions as a dynamic arena where the concepts of ‘Others’ and ‘Us’ are negotiated and redefined within the target culture, as articulated by Yu. Moreover, the field of literary translation evolves in tandem with broader societal changes, reflecting shifts in civilization and the impacts of globalization. These studies together demonstrate that literary translation not only addresses immediate linguistic and cultural challenges but also actively participates in the ongoing dialogue between cultures as they evolve.

While acknowledging the intrinsic value of dialectal elements in preserving cultural nuances and authorial voice, this book addresses two common assumptions or controversies in dialect translation that are widely held by translators and researchers in literary and linguistic fields. The first assumption is that dialect is untranslatable due to the inherent linguistic forms of dialects deviating from the standard language norms. The second assumption contends that dialects are region-specific and culture-specific and thus questions the necessity of translating them for a broad literary audience. The book not only addresses but effectively dismantles these concerns from the outset, highlighting how ongoing translation experiments in China over the past century have demonstrated the translatability of dialects, presenting a nuanced view that showcases Chinese translators’ dialect translation strategies on a spectrum of effectiveness. Rather than focusing on replicating the exact form of the dialect, the book emphasizes recreating its functional essence in the target language: creating a voice of difference for the related characters and constructing the ideological, ethnic, gender, and social structure in the fictive world. This perspective aligns with the scholarship of Ramos Pinto (2009)Ramos Pinto, Sara 2009 “How Important is the Way You Say It? A Discussion on the Translation of Linguistic Varieties.” Target: International Journal of Translation Studies 21 (2): 289–307. and Assis Rosa (2015)Assis Rosa, Alexandra 2015 “Translating Orality, Recreating Otherness.” Translation Studies 8 (2): 209–225. , who also advocate for this functional approach in dialect translation. By tackling these assumptions head-on and showcasing diverse translation practices in the Chinese context, the author compellingly argues for the feasibility and value of translating dialects in literary works. The book encourages translators and researchers to approach dialect translation with a more open-minded and flexible perspective, recognizing the potential for effective translation strategies.

While Yu offers a detailed examination of strategies used by Chinese translators to handle dialectal elements at different levels — from phonetics and lexicon to grammar and overall effect — she overlooks an essential aspect of dialectal literature and translation: reader reception. The analysis could have been significantly enriched by exploring how Chinese readers, accustomed to standard language, respond to these translation methods and whether some strategies may prove less effective or even counterproductive. Considering the prevailing cultural atmosphere in contemporary China favoring standard language, understanding reader reception is crucial. How do these readers perceive and engage with translations that deviate from what they are accustomed to? Although the author makes extensive use of paratextual materials to support her arguments, the majority of these discussions aim to demonstrate the intended effects of the dialect and the intentions of translators and publishers. Incorporating a reader-centric perspective through surveys or reader response studies could have provided valuable insights into the effectiveness of different translation strategies. Such an approach would not only strengthen the author’s arguments but also offer practical guidance for translators and scholars seeking to navigate the complexities of dialect translation in a standard language-dominant cultural environment.

To sum up, the book under review presents a multidimensional examination of dialect translation into Chinese, uncovering the socio-cultural underpinnings behind these translations. The impact of societal structure and ideological differences between East and West on translated works is fully addressed. Yu points out that the socialist ideology in China could lead Chinese readers to perceive characters in Western literary works in a drastically different, or even opposite, manner compared to how they are portrayed in the source cultures. This perspective is particularly evident in the case studies, making it a thought-provoking addition to the discourse. Yu’s book offers valuable perspectives for scholars in Translation Studies, sociolinguistics, and literary studies, as well as anyone interested in language, culture, and identity. This makes it an essential resource for fostering interdisciplinary dialogue within and beyond Translation Studies.