Tak-hung Leo Chan

Department of Translation 

Lingnan University Hong Kong

That textual hybridity is a feature intrinsic to translations has come up for careful examination in recent years, but how it figures in translated fiction is something more often acknowledged than analyzed. In general, we can speak of three kinds of hybridity. 

The first, linguistic hybridity, is well exemplified by such phenomena as heteroglossia and code-switching. The case of the Europeanization of the Chinese language is one instance of linguistic hybridization; the mixing of Chinese with English lexis, syntax and expressions is a prominent case of how languages are conjoined, cross-fertilized, and blended as a result of translation. Then, Basil Hatim has recently analyzed the mixing of discourse types in translations, with particular reference to English-Arabic translations, in order to decipher the nature of generic hybridity. He asserts that hybridized texts, in which more than one text-type is present, are in fact the rule rather than the exception. 

As for cultural hybridity, because translations are born precisely at the point where cultures converge, a translated text will of necessity incorporate elements of more than one culture, combining what derived from disparate origins. Cultural critics have noted how the condition of postcoloniality is colored by “impurities,” created by the grafting of several cultures onto a single body. 

To demonstrate this, they study a variety of cultures (from Africa, etc.) that have shed the colonial yoke but have forged new identities by mixing the diverse ingredients in their own cultures with greater or lesser degrees of success. 

Literary scholars have pointed out how the features of hybridization—dissonances, interferences, disparate vocabulary, a lack of cohesion, unconventional syntax—can be discerned in contemporary literature. These ideas can be transferred to the study of translations. It is well-known that translators have the difficult task of having to introduce the source culture to the reader while making necessary reference to the target culture with which the reader is familiar.

 In my paper, I will argue that hybridization is the result of the translator’s choice of strategies, conscious or unconscious. Translated fiction will be analyzed as hybridized texts with special reference to the Chinese translations of D.H. Lawrence’s novels, in particular Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow and Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

About Leo Tak-hung Chan 

Leo Tak-hung CHAN is Professor and former Head of the Department of Translation, Lingnan University. His articles have appeared in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, TTR, Babel, Across Languages and Cultures, The Translator, Journal of Oriental Studies and Asian Folklore Studies. He has translated fiction (fantastic tales of the Qing period), modern drama (The Hegemon of Chu by Xu Ke) and philosophical works (Ge Zhaoguang’s History of Chinese Thought). His recent books include The Discourse on Foxes and Ghosts (University of Hawaii Press, 1998), Masterpieces in Western Translation Theory (co-edited, City University of HK Press, 2000), One into Many: Translation and the Dissemination of Classical Chinese Literature (Rodopi, 2003) and Twentieth-Century Chinese Translation Theory: Modes, Issues and Debates (John Benjamins, 2004). He is Vice-President of the Hong Kong Translation Society; and Chief Moderator of the FDEC (Translation) Examinations of the Institute of Linguists, United Kingdom (2000-2004). He has served as External Examiner/Advisor for translation programs and courses at the University of Auckland (New Zealand) and Concordia University (Canada).