(RE)CREATING NEW BODIES OF WORK: THE TEACHING OF LITERARY TRANSLATION IN CHINESE STUDIES, AND THE NEW TRANSLATIONAL STRATEGIES

Résumé

With China’s growing economic and cultural presence in recent years, translation of Chinese literature has been recognized as an important cross-cultural effort both in China and the global sinological circles. The Chinese government and publishing bodies have introduced various measures to support the translation of Chinese literary works abroad, and these new cultural policies are opening up opportunities for sinologists to engage in translating works by Chinese authors, thus reaffirming the crucial role of literary translation in gaining a better understanding of the target culture and its people. At the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade, teaching theory and practice of literary translation represents an important component of the curriculum. In the first segment of this paper, we introduced the methods and strategies in teaching written translation from Chinese into Serbian at the Group of Chinese Language, Literature and Culture, Department of Oriental Studies, Faculty of Philology of the University of Belgrade, focusing on the organization of the courses and the teaching materials we use. Furthermore, we pointed out the main difficulties encountered by our students when translating Chinese texts, and illustrated these problems with specific examples, as well as the proposed solutions. In the second part of the paper, we briefly reviewed the history of literary translation from Chinese into Serbian, focusing on the works that have been translated since the 59th Belgrade International Book Fair in 2014, when the PRC was the Guest of Honor. This period can be seen as a heyday of Chinese literature translation in Serbia, and it also marked the beginning of a more comprehensive sinological strategies in translation of Chinese literary works. We analyzed the motives and intentions that underlie these new strategies which are aimed both at the introduction of the important Chinese literary works to the Serbian readers, and at the improvement of the teaching process in literature studies at our Department. In this analysis, we emphasized several key elements in the new approach to the translation of Chinese literature: the selection of the translated works, the significance of the informative forewords and afterwords by the translators, and the attempts to include the students as active contributors to the endeavour. By examining these issues, we attempt to contribute to a wider discussion about the teaching of literary translation, the translation practices and translational/publishing strategies dedicated to the introduction of Chinese literary works to a wider readership.