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Cultural Assimilation and Hegemony: On the Translation of “Human Rights”

Received: 3 October 2019     Accepted: 29 November 2019     Published: 6 December 2019
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Abstract

This essay intends to discuss the interaction in essence between translation and culture through the translation case of “human rights”. Since translation studies have many links with historical, political and cross-cultural research, an analysis of translation will be a powerful approach to exploring the cultural assimilation and hegemony hidden behind the term “human rights”. The term of “human rights” was translated as renquan in Chinese language in the 18th century when China was experiencing a period of impoverishment and long-standing debility. Because formal and dynamic equivalences could not be found in the target language, rewriting process is involved in renquan. Individualism is “missed” in ren and quan is very likely to be misunderstood by Chinese people as “power”. As a matter of fact, the idea of “human rights” has been assimilated into contemporary Chinese culture, unleashing a rush of power in China’s politics, legislation and education, so on and so forth. Those influences not only indicate a result of cultural blending, but also reveal the existence of cultural collisions. While this concept brings advances for the Chinese nation, it is often manipulated as a cultural hegemony weapon by some Western countries. Claims about human rights of hegemonic countries sometimes are ironically conflicted with the action they take. Cultural assimilation and cultural hegemony shown in the translation case of “human rights,” give rise to the enlightenments about the evaluation of a good translator. The role of translators is never static, mostly importing foreign cultures in hard times and exporting domestic cultures in taking-off times. Besides, the translating strategy of the term “human rights” is not the fundamental reason that leads Chinese indigenous ideologies to have been influenced by the West and the translators’ role in countering against cultural hegemony seems to be very tiny, but these does not mean they can do nothing. Translators should strengthen self-efficacy and they themselves should believe their roles are able to imperceptibly attract or block readers. Lastly, translators must be fully aware of cultural self-consciousness. Great translators should strengthen their sensitivity to inter-cultural communications, being neither cringing nor arrogant about different cultures and enhancing the technological literacy in this digital era.

Published in International Journal of Language and Linguistics (Volume 7, Issue 6)
DOI 10.11648/j.ijll.20190706.24
Page(s) 351-357
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2019. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Human Rights, Rewriting Theories, Cultural Assimilation, Cultural Hegemony, Translators’ Role

References
[1] Lefevere, A. and Bassnett, S. 1992. Constructing Cultures: Essays on Literary Translation. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Limited.
[2] Lefevere, A. 1992. Translation, Rewriting and the Manipulation of Literary Fame. London and New York: Routledge.
[3] Snell-Hornby, M. 1990. Linguistic Transcoding or Cultural Transfer: A Critique of Translation Theory in Germany. In Bassnett, S. & Lefevere, A. (eds.) Translation, History and Culture. London: Pinter. 79-86.
[4] Symonides, J. (ed.). 2000. Human Rights: Concept and Standards. Aldershot: Ashgate and Dartmouth.
[5] Shen, Z. F. 2004. Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.
[6] Freeman, M. 2002. Human Rights. Cambridge: Polity Press.
[7] Sevenssen, M. 2002. Debating Human Rights in China: A Conceptual and Political History. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
[8] Witte, J. 1988. Law, Religion and Human Rights: A Historical Protestant Perspective. The Journal of Religious Ethics, Vol. 11. No. 2. 257-262.
[9] Igenatieff, M. (ed.). 2001. Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
[10] Liu, F. T. 1997. Western Philosophical Trends and Chinese Modernization, in Liu, F. T., Huang, S. J. and Mclean, G. F. (eds) Philosophy and Modernization in China. Washington, D. C.: The Council for Research for Values and Philosophy. 39-50.
[11] Nida, E. and Taber, C. R. 1969. The Theory and Practice of Translation. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
[12] Xu, X. M. 2005. The Centenary History of the Concept of Human Rights in China. Social Science Forum. Vol. 3. 26-28.
[13] Zhou, Y. Y. 2011. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Researching Press.
[14] Jin C. M. & Zhang Q. X. 2012. Xinhua Dictionary. Beijing: Commercial Press International LTD.
[15] Wolf, M. 2000. The Third Space in Postcolonial Representation, in Simon, S. &Pierre, P. S. (eds) Changing the Terms: Translating in the Postcolonial Era. Ottawa: UOP. 127-145.
[16] Huang M. F. 2013. The Rapid Development of the Cause of Human Rights in China. Human Rights. Vol. 2. 4-6.
[17] Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China. 2017. Higher Education Statistics. Available at: http://www.moe.gov.cn (Accessed: 20 June 2019).
[18] Venuti, L. 1995. The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. London: Routledge.
[19] Munday, J. 2008. Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications. London and New York: Routledge.
[20] Jacquemond, R. 1992. Translation and Cultural Hegemony: the Case of French-Arabic Translation, in Venuti, L. (eds) Rethinking Translation: Discourse, Subjectivity, Ideology. London and New York: Routledge.
[21] Henkin, L. 1986. The Human Rights Idea in Contemporary China: a Comparative Perspective, in Edwards, R. R., Henkin, L. and Nathan, A. J. (eds) Human Rights in Contemporary China. New York: Columbia University Press. 7-39.
[22] Xu, Z. R. 2019. A Study of Overseas Publishing Translation from Chinese into Other Languages since 1949 Based on the Index Translation of UNESCO. Shanghai Translation. Vol (03): 61-67.
[23] Baidu. 2019. Baidu Index. Available at: http://index.baidu.com (Accessed: 1 March 2019).
[24] Google. 2019. Google Trend. Available at: http://trends.google.com (Accessed: 2 July 2019).
[25] Lu, J. F. 2017. Collision and Blending. Shanghai: Shanghai Culture Publishing Company.
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  • APA Style

    Mengmeng Bo. (2019). Cultural Assimilation and Hegemony: On the Translation of “Human Rights”. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 7(6), 351-357. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20190706.24

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    ACS Style

    Mengmeng Bo. Cultural Assimilation and Hegemony: On the Translation of “Human Rights”. Int. J. Lang. Linguist. 2019, 7(6), 351-357. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20190706.24

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    AMA Style

    Mengmeng Bo. Cultural Assimilation and Hegemony: On the Translation of “Human Rights”. Int J Lang Linguist. 2019;7(6):351-357. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20190706.24

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ijll.20190706.24,
      author = {Mengmeng Bo},
      title = {Cultural Assimilation and Hegemony: On the Translation of “Human Rights”},
      journal = {International Journal of Language and Linguistics},
      volume = {7},
      number = {6},
      pages = {351-357},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ijll.20190706.24},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20190706.24},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijll.20190706.24},
      abstract = {This essay intends to discuss the interaction in essence between translation and culture through the translation case of “human rights”. Since translation studies have many links with historical, political and cross-cultural research, an analysis of translation will be a powerful approach to exploring the cultural assimilation and hegemony hidden behind the term “human rights”. The term of “human rights” was translated as renquan in Chinese language in the 18th century when China was experiencing a period of impoverishment and long-standing debility. Because formal and dynamic equivalences could not be found in the target language, rewriting process is involved in renquan. Individualism is “missed” in ren and quan is very likely to be misunderstood by Chinese people as “power”. As a matter of fact, the idea of “human rights” has been assimilated into contemporary Chinese culture, unleashing a rush of power in China’s politics, legislation and education, so on and so forth. Those influences not only indicate a result of cultural blending, but also reveal the existence of cultural collisions. While this concept brings advances for the Chinese nation, it is often manipulated as a cultural hegemony weapon by some Western countries. Claims about human rights of hegemonic countries sometimes are ironically conflicted with the action they take. Cultural assimilation and cultural hegemony shown in the translation case of “human rights,” give rise to the enlightenments about the evaluation of a good translator. The role of translators is never static, mostly importing foreign cultures in hard times and exporting domestic cultures in taking-off times. Besides, the translating strategy of the term “human rights” is not the fundamental reason that leads Chinese indigenous ideologies to have been influenced by the West and the translators’ role in countering against cultural hegemony seems to be very tiny, but these does not mean they can do nothing. Translators should strengthen self-efficacy and they themselves should believe their roles are able to imperceptibly attract or block readers. Lastly, translators must be fully aware of cultural self-consciousness. Great translators should strengthen their sensitivity to inter-cultural communications, being neither cringing nor arrogant about different cultures and enhancing the technological literacy in this digital era.},
     year = {2019}
    }
    

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Author Information
  • College English Department, Shanghai Normal University, Tianhua College, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

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