假作真時真亦假——清末民初第一部偽譯偵探小說揭示的文化和文學現象 (The Cultural and Literary Implications of the First Pseudo-translated Detective Story during the Late Qing and Early Republican Period)
Qi, J., & Li, D. (2019). 假作真時真亦假——清末民初第一部偽譯偵探小說揭示的文化和文學現象. 中国翻译 (Chinese translators journal), (6), 42-51.
Abstract
Abstract: The boom in publication of translated detective stories during the Late Qing Dynasty and Early Republican period in China reflects the popularity of this new literary genre at that time. What has been reputed as the first Chinese translation of
a detective novel, however, turns out to be a pseudo-translation upon a careful examination of its intrinsic and extrinsic textual
features. Zhang Kunde, its alleged translator, actually composed the story by himself to introduce this novel literary genre to
China. And he pseudo-translated in such a way that the “target text” conforms to the linguistic and poetic norms of the target
language at that time. This finding is in contradistinction to the belief that pseudo-translators would tend to deviate from the
accepted literary norms of the target culture, and to exaggerate language features of the presumed original texts (Toury 2012).
In addition to deepening our understanding of this pseudo-translational work’s formal features and generic identity, the finding
also helps us to come to firmer grips with pseudo-translation as a special literary phenomenon in the target culture.
Keywords: translation; detective fiction; pseudo-translation; literary genre; literary norms
