Translation, Globalisation and Localisation: A Chinese Perspective

The global/local distinction has changed significantly, and the topic has been heatedly debated in literary and cultural as well as translation scholarship. In this age of globalisation, the traditional definition of translation has been altered. In the present anthology, translation is viewed as a cultural and political practice, and accordingly translation studies is based on a heightened awareness of global/local tensions in translation and of its moderating and transforming impact on local cultural paradigms. All the essays in this anthology deal with issues of translation from a cultural and theoretic perspective with regard to tensions and conflicts between global and local interests and values. No matter how different their approaches may seem, the essays are thematically integrated to discuss translation in a dialectical framework: either “globalising” Chinese issues internationally, or “localising” general and international issues domestically.

Wang Ning is Professor of English and Director of the Centre for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, Tsinghua University. Apart from his numerous publications in Chinese, his English articles frequently appear in such international prestigious journals as New Literary History, Critical Inquiry, boundary 2, ARIEL, Neohelicon, Perspectives: Studies in Translatology, Comparative Literature Studies, Modern Language Quarterly and Semiotica. His most recent publication in English is Globalisation and Cultural Translation (2004).

Sun Yifeng is Head and Associate Professor of Department of Translation at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. He is the author of several books and numerous articles in Chinese and English. His most recent book in English entitled Misplaced Anxiety and Cultural Identity: Translations of Foreign Otherness is forthcoming.