(East-West Question) Xiong Hui: Why does the foreign translation of "unpopular" intangible cultural heritage make Chinese culture "popular"?
China News Agency, Harbin, May 31, Question: "Unpopular" intangible cultural heritage foreign translation, why make Chinese culture "popular"?
——Interview with Xiong Hui, a member of the Chinese Translators Association and a young backbone teacher of the School of Foreign Languages of Northeast Forestry University
China News Agency reporter Shi Yifu
Singing Hezhe Imakan in English, telling Yilan folk tales, explaining Wangkui's shadow play... "Longjiang Intangible Cultural Heritage English Translation" course, as one of the representatives of China's intangible cultural heritage translation work, has attracted a lot of attention from the industry and foreign folklore. attention of research experts.
Translation is the premise of high-quality inter-civilization translation. Why is the "unpopular" intangible cultural heritage translation "popular" in Chinese culture?
How to use this as a medium to teach the "open class" of Chinese culture and integrate into the world cultural ecosystem?
Xiong Hui, a member of the Chinese Translators Association, a young backbone teacher of the School of Foreign Languages of Northeast Forestry University, and a teacher of the "Longjiang Intangible Cultural Heritage English Translation" course, recently accepted an exclusive interview with China News Agency "East and West Questions" to interpret this.
The following is a summary of the interview transcript:
China News Service: What is the representativeness of Heilongjiang's intangible cultural heritage? What are the contents of the "Longjiang Intangible Cultural Heritage English Translation" course?
Xiong Hui:
Chinese intangible cultural heritage is a treasure of traditional Chinese culture and an important part of Chinese civilization.
Telling the "open class" of Chinese intangible cultural heritage well to the world is a new way to tell Chinese stories well and strengthen Sino-foreign exchanges.
My hometown is Heilongjiang, a frontier province in northeastern China. There are 53 ethnic minorities, including Manchu, Daur, Hezhe, and Oroqen, and they have a variety of intangible cultural heritage.
At present, Heilongjiang Province has been selected into the United Nations Intangible Cultural Heritage Catalogue with 2 items, 42 national intangible cultural heritage items, and 429 provincial intangible cultural heritage items, demonstrating the regional characteristics of Longjiang, the tradition of "black soil culture" and the spiritual connotation of ethnic integration and unity.
Compared with other parts of China, Heilongjiang Province is bordered by Russia in the north, Mongolia in the west, and Korea in the south. The Hezhe, Daur and other ethnic minorities living here have a history of European migration. Chinese culture and foreign culture blend here and complement each other. .
Against this background, I set up an independent innovation course "English Translation of Longjiang Intangible Cultural Heritage", which aims to tell Chinese stories well and spread intangible cultural heritage in English.
This knowledge is very interesting. The intangible cultural heritage items taught cover six categories of Longjiang folk literature, folk handicrafts, folk dance, folk music, opera and folk art, focusing on the Hezhe Yimakan rap, Daur Wuqin rap, Yilan Folk stories, Hezhe fish skin paintings, Hezhe married Lingkuo, Wangkui shadow puppets, and Daur Rurigele, etc., on the basis of translation theory and practice, allow students to learn to use translation skills to translate intangible cultural heritage into English.
Villagers in Xiaowusli Village, Sijiazi Manchu Township, Heihe celebrate the festival.
Photo by Zhang Hui issued by China News Agency
Reporter from China News Agency: Sing the Hezhe Imakan in English, tell Yilan folk stories, and explain Wangkui's shadow play... What are the difficulties in the translation of intangible cultural heritage that combines "local and foreign" and Chinese and Western? What coping strategies?
Xiong Hui:
Entering the intangible cultural heritage and understanding the intangible cultural heritage is the first step in the translation of the intangible cultural heritage.
Combining "local and foreign" and combining Chinese and Western sounds difficult, but it is even more difficult to do.
Mainly because of the huge difference between Chinese and Western cultures.
This difference is caused by geographical location, economic base, thinking mode and other reasons.
Therefore, intangible cultural heritage translation must first understand the connotation of Chinese culture.
During this period, even Chinese translators still have to overcome many language barriers.
For example, the Wangkui shadow puppet sings lyrics in the Northeastern dialect, and the Hezhe Yimakan sings in the endangered Hezhe language.
This requires teamwork and collaborative translation.
Translators should cooperate with intangible heritage inheritors and intangible cultural heritage protection units to conduct effective intralingual translation using Chinese as a medium to ensure the accuracy of interlingual translation.
The above translation principles can be learned from Western ethnographic translation work.
The second step is interlingual translation, which involves the conversion between Chinese and foreign languages.
In the meantime, the translator must first choose an appropriate translation strategy.
If you want to retain the original exotic flavor in the translation, you must choose the foreignization translation strategy, and if you want the readers of the target language to better understand the original text and have a greater resonance, you can choose the domestication translation strategy.
Secondly, proper use of translation skills can optimize the dissemination effect of intangible cultural heritage translation.
When translating culturally loaded words, appropriate additions and annotations can help Western readers better understand.
For example, when translating the life and living conditions of the Hezhe people, you will encounter special words such as "wooden carving", "tukang", "grate" and "horse frame", adding notes and pictures and other information can give Western readers a more intuitive explanation , to achieve better communication effect.
The speech and singing performance of the Hezhe people.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Sun Hanlun
China News Service reporter: Why does the foreign translation of intangible cultural heritage serve as a bridge between "East Learning and Westward Progress"? Why is it said that "translating intangible cultural heritage" is also "translating China"?
Xiong Hui:
Mr. Ji Xianlin once commented on the meaning of translation: "Translation work is interdisciplinary and inter-departmental, and it plays an irreplaceable bridge role in promoting cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries and revitalizing the cause of China." "Eastern expansion" relies on the bridge of translation.
Today, this bridge also plays an important role in "learning from east to west".
China's intangible cultural heritage is not only a manifestation of the traditional culture of the Han nationality, but also a manifestation of the cultural diversity of other ethnic minorities.
Intangible cultural heritage translation work can not only serve as a "translator" for Chinese culture to go to the world, but also a "diplomat" to show China's national image and the cultural charm of ethnic minorities.
Therefore, "translating intangible cultural heritage" is also "translating China".
Roman Jacobson divides translation into three categories: intralingual translation, interlingual translation and intersemiotic translation.
The first step in the translation of intangible cultural heritage is to use Chinese as the medium to perform intralingual translation of minority languages and Chinese dialects, and then to perform interlingual translation with foreign languages as the medium.
Due to the strong audio-visual characteristics of intangible cultural heritage items, it also involves the inter-semiotic translation of the mutual conversion between audio-visual symbols and text symbols.
Although the intangible cultural heritage projects have obvious Chinese characteristics, human emotions and cognition have commonalities. Coupled with the application of translation strategies and translation skills, many difficulties in the translation of intangible cultural heritage can still be overcome.
China News Service reporter: Using the foreign translation of intangible cultural heritage as a medium, the "open class" of Chinese intangible cultural heritage culture is taught to the world. What responses and results have you received so far?
Xiong Hui:
The response to this knowledge first came from the students.
Not only English students like this course, but many non-English majors engineering and science students are also interested.
Since 2019, I have led four student teams to complete two summer social practice projects on intangible cultural heritage and ethnic minority cultural research in Heilongjiang Province, and two Chinese national-level undergraduate innovation and entrepreneurship research projects.
This year, I led the students to participate in the "Tell Chinese Stories in Foreign Languages" Excellent Short Video Competition and the 8th China International "Internet +" College Students Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition.
Whether in China or internationally, Chinese intangible cultural heritage has always been a research hotspot for anthropologists and folklorists, but the interdisciplinary research paradigm of "translatology + intangible cultural heritage" is relatively rare.
As the host of the project, the "Study on the English Translation of Minority Cultural Classics in the Sanjiang River Basin of Heilongjiang" has attracted the attention of the Chinese Ministry of Education and foreign folklore research experts.
In 2018, during my visit and study in the United States, my research results were shared at the Ohio State University Visiting Scholar Forum, and I was appreciated by Professor Mark Bender, head of the Department of East Asian Languages and Literature, Ohio State University, a well-known sinologist and folklorist. .
During my exchange in the United States, I walked into American college classrooms to introduce, demonstrate and perform Chinese shadow puppets and paper-cutting and other intangible cultural heritage, so that more American students can understand and love Chinese culture.
Visitors visit the shadow puppet exhibition.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Hou Yu
China News Service reporter: How to promote high-quality translation between Eastern and Western civilizations through high-level intangible cultural heritage translation?
Xiong Hui:
First of all, it is necessary to cultivate a research team and high-level translation talents for non-legacy translation.
Compared with applied translation, external translation of intangible cultural heritage is an unpopular translation, and currently it has not received much attention.
Therefore, it needs the policy guidance and support of government departments, scientific research institutions, and societies at all levels, and invests in project funds to promote the output of theses, translations, monographs, etc. In addition, it is also necessary for colleges and universities to strengthen the cultivation of translation talents, such as curriculum community construction, translation basic skills training, Value guidance, organizing events, etc.
Secondly, to explore the long-term and effective translation mode of non-legacy foreign translation.
This can be a top-down translation model: governments at all levels + non-genetic inheritors + translation teams + review teams, and the quality of the translations produced is often very high.
It can also be a bottom-up translation model: folk translators + intangible cultural heritage culture enthusiasts, although the quality of the translations produced is not high, but it plays a role in promoting intangible cultural heritage, which is conducive to the establishment of an intangible cultural heritage translation atmosphere.
Thirdly, it is necessary to promote academic discussions on the translation of intangible cultural heritage.
As the so-called "translation theory prospers, translation affairs prosper", many cutting-edge theories of translation studies, such as ecological translation theory, ethnographic translation theory, digital humanities theory, audio-visual translation theory, etc., can be applied to more in-depth and broad translation. Intangible cultural heritage translation research.
Teacher Xiong Hui explained in class.
Photo courtesy of the interviewee
Reporter from China News Agency: Why does the translation of "unpopular" intangible cultural heritage make Chinese culture "popular" and integrated into the world cultural ecosystem?
Xiong Hui:
The Chinese civilization is in the same line, broad and profound, and the intangible cultural heritage is rich and rich, with a hundred flowers blooming. There are only 7 items in the list of world intangible cultural heritage in urgent need of protection by UNESCO, which is a representative of the world's cultural diversity.
With the deepening of cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries, more and more foreign friends are interested in and yearning for Chinese intangible cultural heritage.
The foreign translation of intangible cultural heritage was originally an unpopular culture, but using this as a bridge will help Chinese culture to go global and become a "popular", which in turn promotes the continuous maturity of intangible cultural heritage translation work.
This cold-to-hot transition stems from the infinite charm and strong gravitational force of Chinese culture. It is natural and inevitable for Chinese culture to integrate into the world cultural ecosystem.
Language and distance should not be an obstacle to the communication between Chinese and foreign civilizations. High-quality translation of intangible cultural heritage can help the world to understand and fall in love with China more deeply.
(Finish)
Interviewee Profile:
Xiong Hui, female, born in February 1981, member of the Chinese Translators Association, a young backbone teacher of the School of Foreign Languages of Northeast Forestry University, a teacher of the course "Longjiang Intangible Cultural Heritage Publicity and English Translation", a visiting scholar at The Ohio State University, research The direction is the English translation of Chinese cultural classics. As the host of the project, the "Research on the English Translation of Minority Cultural Classics in the Sanjiang River Basin of Heilongjiang" has attracted the attention of the Chinese Ministry of Education and foreign folklore research experts.