Orientalism in Literary Translation and Cultural Globalization

Abstract

本文以全球化視野對文學翻譯活動中的東方主義進行了論述分析，旨在釐清攸關文學與國家關係的「認同」和「再現」議題的當代義涵。東方主義的今日內涵為何？這個概念是否仍有助於理解當今文化問題？我們該如何面對東方主義作品呢？何以如此的作品依舊會被翻譯？而翻譯作品存留的東方主義又是如何沉積在當地文化呢？基於對這些問題的關懷，藉由審思東方主義與國族主義的互動關係，本文探討了全球權力統治裡的翻譯活動的跨文化邂逅。以環繞在 Peal S. Buck的作品和生平的東方主義論述的歷史闡釋為例，文中說明了翻譯不應僅被視為中間介面，而是實則在權力網絡中扮演著重要角色，唯有在如此的認知下，我們方能窺見東方主義在翻譯活動的殘留身影所顯露的社會性關係，不僅回應著國內外事務的變化，更是東西方交會的歷史產物。

This article offers a discursive analysis of Orientalism in translation activities of literary production and consumption in order to examine the issues of identity and representation related to the relationships between literature and nationality in today`s globalizing world. The article concerns certain significant questions: what is Orientalism nowadays? How should we approach a so-called Orientalist text/product? Where does the conception that Edward W. Said advocated for our attention register in our understanding of culture in globalization? If a text/product does involve in the shaping of Orientalism, why does the Orientalized want to have translated versions of that text/product? How does the translated text/product preserve and pass down the traits of Orientalism in the local culture? To answer these questions, this article puts the interactions between Orientalism and nationalist thinking under scrutiny. Attention is paid to the intercultural encounters in translation activities in contexts marked by new forms of power relation and domination. In a postcolonial fashion, taking Peal S. Buck as the case of study, the concept of Orientalism guides the exploration of the author`s work and life, covering issues of cultural representation and translation in literature of the diaspora, the cosmopolitanism and world literature, and the historical Other in domestic and international politics. To do so, translation activities should not be simply regarded as a necessary interface but instead as a significant part in tightly woven webs of economic, political and cultural powers. It is in this way that this article argues that we then are able to understand how translation reveals the societal relations as the responses to the interplay of domestic and international affairs and as the consequences of the East-West encounters. It is also suggests that such a reading of translation could expose the lingering effect of Orientalism that may have led to some sort of reification of difference in the still unevenly developed cultural fields in the global cultural spectrum.