Translating and literary agenting: Anna Holmwood’s<i>Legends of the Condor Heroes</i>

Diao, Hong

doi:10.1080/0907676x.2022.2046825

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…By highlighting ego-centered networks, the results show that the three translators appear to be the focal actors with a great many connections with other nodes, and are especially visible at the center of the network. These basic findings are consistent with research showing that translator’s multiple identities (Diao, 2022a; Marin-Lacarta & Vargas-Urpi, 2018), translator’s paratextual subjectivity (Neveu, 2017; Wai-on & Ng, 2020) and publisher’s marketing strategy (Marin-Lacarta, 2019) contribute to the high visibility of translators in the modern publishing industry. Contrarily, they are not in line with the findings observed by some other scholars (Hong, 2019; Lapiedra & MacDonald, 2017; C.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

“…Capitalizing on the previous research on Legends , we collect existing primary data from scholars such as Diao (2021, 2022a, 2022b) and Chen (2021), who organize many valuable data in person such as email exchanges and interview records with some major actors of Legends .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…And only when the name of a certain translator became a stamp of quality that the publisher will use it in book advertising as a guarantee of a good translation. Besides, translators may possess with themselves multiple identities in the publishing network, for example, translator-cum-literary agent (Diao, 2021; Schulte, 1992), translator-cum-editor (Goldblatt, 2004), translator-cum-title hunter (Buzelin, 2007), or even translator-cum-leader (Marin-Lacarta & Vargas-Urpi, 2018). Normally speaking, the role of a translator is crucial in bringing a new novel or collection of poetry to the attention of a publishing house.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is safe to say that Legends has outstripped earlier abridged renditions of wuxia novels in terms of marketing and reception, and has undoubtedly become a cultural phenomenon (Diao, 2021, p. 4). A number of studies from different perspectives have been made to investigate this translational activity.…”

Section: Introduction: An Unusual Translation Publishingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Their findings show the translator's inclination for cultural adaptation pertaining to characters' names, martial arts moves and religious traditions. Han (2020) and Diao (2022a) analyze the influence of translator's identity on the translation subjectivity and validate it through accounts from paratexts and personal statements. Socially contextualized, Zhang (2020) and Y. approach from the perspective of translator habitus, elucidating the sociological dissemination pattern of Legends in the Western world.…”

Section: Introduction: An Unusual Translation Publishingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mapping Salience and Trajectory: On How to Situate Literary Translators in Publishing Legends of the Condor Heroes With Visualization

Ni,

Yang

2024

Sage Open

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As a publishing success, Legends of the Condor Heroes ( Legends) dispelled the belief that Jin Yong’s works are untranslatable, necessitating fresh scholarly attention. With a mixed-methods approach, this article investigates literary translators’ positioning in publishing network based on empirical data from paratexts, online sources and existing research of Legends through Actor-Network Theory (ANT)-inspired ethnography. It represents these data with visualized networks using Gephi, and conducts social network analysis (SNA) and qualitative analysis with various graphic metrics. It is illustrated that the three translators Anna Holmwood, Gigi Chang and Shelly Bryant and the publisher MacLehose Press serve as the focal actors with considerable connections with other actors in the publishing network. With further exploration of the connections, we find it is the multiple identities of these translators and the publishing strategy of the publisher that help shape their relative high centrality and visibility, which may also be one of the reasons for the success of Legends. This article hopes to complement the mainstream study on translator’s positioning and facilitate the conjunction of Translation Studies and publishing research, with rarely used but helpful techniques from graph theory and social network analysis.

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