Translation studies, ethnography and the production of knowledge

“…The application of actor-network theory (ANT) to study the production of translations has occurred only recently, and the field has developed relatively slowly when compared to studies that adopt sociological approaches such as Bourdieusian concepts and systems theories (especially Luhmann's systems theory). There are fewer than a dozen researchers who have considered the application of ANT to translation studies, and related publications include only a few articles (Bogic 2010;Buzelin 2005Buzelin , 2006Buzelin , 2007aBuzelin , [2004Buzelin ] 2007bChesterman 2006;Haddadian-Moghaddam 2012;Kung 2009; etc. ), a PhD thesis (Eardley-Weaver 2014), and two chapters in Tyulenev (2012Tyulenev ( , 2014.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…ANT-based translation studies have been extending in two directions. On the one hand, some research has sought to justify the applicability of ANT theoretically, for example, Buzelin ([2004Buzelin ([ ] 2007b and Tyulenev (2014). On the other hand, a number of empirical case studies have been conducted, with well-formulated hypotheses and implications.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visiting elements thought to be “inactive”: non-human actors in Arthur Waley’s translation ofJourney to the West

Luo

Zheng

2017

Asia Pacific Translation and Intercultural Studies

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His research interest mainly focuses on contemporary translation theories and empirical translation studies. He has published widely in translation journals, such as Babel, Perspectives, Translation & Interpreting Studies, and Across Languages and Cultures. He has co-edited a special issue of Translation and Interpreting Studies entitled "Towards a Comparative Studies of Translation and Interpreting Studies". 2 Visiting elements thought to be "inactive": Non-human actors in Arthur Waley's translation of Journey to the West This paper applies actor-network theory (ANT) to study the non-human agents that participate in the translation and publication process of Monkey, an English translation of the Chinese classic Xi You Ji. The materials used consist mainly of the letters exchanged between the publisher George Allen & Unwin, the translator Arthur Waley, and the jacket and title page designer Duncan Grant. Moreover, the "Preface" of the translation written by the translator himself and the publisher's autobiography are referenced as additional sources of information. The research reveals two groups of entities which act as what ANT scholars term as "nonhuman actors". The first group consists of texts, more specifically, the "Preface" to Monkey and some letters exchanged between Waley as a translator and Unwin as a publisher, which reveals the reasons of re-translating Monkey and the translation strategy used. The second group includes the Second World War and the influenza epidemic in the 1940s that impeded the reprinting of Monkey. The paper concludes that, in addition to human actors, non-human actors that have also actively exerted influences on both the process and the outcome of a major translation project deserve to receive more attention when looking at translation as a social activity.

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“…Heilbron 1999;Inghilleri 2005;Buzelin 2007;Wolf and Fukari 2007;Sapiro 2009) which draw largely on the work of Pierre Bourdieu (1996). Bourdieu's ''literary field'' is a metaphor for the national space (various attempts to extend this notion to conceptualize an international field of literature or translation notwithstanding, e.g.…”

Section: The Metaphors We Live Bymentioning

confidence: 99%