During the XIXth century, the leading class of the Chinese empire promoted a high number of translations focused on the most important scientific works of that period. The aim was to acquire the tools for the modernization of the economic structure of the country and for overcoming the technological and military gap with the Western countries, which at that time were putting China under military and economic pressure. It can be maintained that until the last decade of the XIXth century, due to their light perception of the real problems of China and to their faith in the traditional institutions, the leaders translated Western books only to acquire the tools, not the values of the West. In 1895, the Chinese army underwent a major defeat by Japan, with the result that Chinese leaders eventually understood that the social, political and economic system were definitely not apt to shield the country against the formidable pressures coming from abroad. From that time on, it can be held that translating a Western text was equal to showing the high peaks of Western civilization and to preaching for the adoption of its values, laws and customs by abolishing the whole of the traditional institutions. The scope of this paper is to show how even the linguistic phenomenon of coinage of neologisms was somehow influenced by that historical background. Through the analysis of the different categories of neologisms belonging to the lexicon of political economy, coined in the very first two Chinese translations (appeared respectively before and after 1895) it is possible to check the change in the lexical choices taken by the translators. In particular, in the former there can be found graphic loans, which are made by imitating only the graphic shape and, even according to the standards of that time for translations, seem to meet the need of fidelity and comprehensiveness. On the contrary, in the latter translation there appears a huge number of phonetic loans, which mimic the phonetic shape of the word to translate and are deemed to aim at the expressiveness and exoticism, but to lack comprehensiveness. These linguistic results need to be read in comparison with the findings of the historical research about the people who in actual fact took the task of translating, whose social and cultural background, education, instruction, environment and condition of work must be investigated. Only by this comparison it can be maintained that the two translators, though quite of the same age, belonged to entirely different worlds. The former seems to have had the steady idea that it was necessary to learn the scientific tools of the West, but that there was no need to change traditional institutions, so the hypothesis that he was sincerely interested in understanding the subject can be held. On the contrary the latter, through his translation, seems to have had only the scope of spreading the values of the West in order to let them be adopted as soon as possible in China as well. This paper carries out the comparison between the linguistic and the historical. The purpose is to use lexical analysis to shed light on how the Chinese perceived Western culture.
The introduction of the lexicon of political economy into China: instances of lexical interference and historical background of their coinage
PELLIN, TOMMASO
2010-01-01
Abstract
During the XIXth century, the leading class of the Chinese empire promoted a high number of translations focused on the most important scientific works of that period. The aim was to acquire the tools for the modernization of the economic structure of the country and for overcoming the technological and military gap with the Western countries, which at that time were putting China under military and economic pressure. It can be maintained that until the last decade of the XIXth century, due to their light perception of the real problems of China and to their faith in the traditional institutions, the leaders translated Western books only to acquire the tools, not the values of the West. In 1895, the Chinese army underwent a major defeat by Japan, with the result that Chinese leaders eventually understood that the social, political and economic system were definitely not apt to shield the country against the formidable pressures coming from abroad. From that time on, it can be held that translating a Western text was equal to showing the high peaks of Western civilization and to preaching for the adoption of its values, laws and customs by abolishing the whole of the traditional institutions. The scope of this paper is to show how even the linguistic phenomenon of coinage of neologisms was somehow influenced by that historical background. Through the analysis of the different categories of neologisms belonging to the lexicon of political economy, coined in the very first two Chinese translations (appeared respectively before and after 1895) it is possible to check the change in the lexical choices taken by the translators. In particular, in the former there can be found graphic loans, which are made by imitating only the graphic shape and, even according to the standards of that time for translations, seem to meet the need of fidelity and comprehensiveness. On the contrary, in the latter translation there appears a huge number of phonetic loans, which mimic the phonetic shape of the word to translate and are deemed to aim at the expressiveness and exoticism, but to lack comprehensiveness. These linguistic results need to be read in comparison with the findings of the historical research about the people who in actual fact took the task of translating, whose social and cultural background, education, instruction, environment and condition of work must be investigated. Only by this comparison it can be maintained that the two translators, though quite of the same age, belonged to entirely different worlds. The former seems to have had the steady idea that it was necessary to learn the scientific tools of the West, but that there was no need to change traditional institutions, so the hypothesis that he was sincerely interested in understanding the subject can be held. On the contrary the latter, through his translation, seems to have had only the scope of spreading the values of the West in order to let them be adopted as soon as possible in China as well. This paper carries out the comparison between the linguistic and the historical. The purpose is to use lexical analysis to shed light on how the Chinese perceived Western culture.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
