‘Non-universals’ of translation? Exploring translators’ discourses where East meets West

  • Akiko Sakamoto (Speaker)

Activity: Talk or presentation typesInvited talk

Description of Activity

The talk presented the speaker’s comparative research on how British and Japanese translators explain and conceptualise their respective translation strategies. A survey and a series of interviews with translators from both cultures led the speaker to the hypothesis that Japanese professionals have a strong tendency to prefer literal translation, while British translators aim for fluency. The speaker attempted to explain this Japanese translators’ tendency from a historical angle, by going back to the 3rd century when Japan started to adopt the Chinese writing system and develop the traditional kanbun-kundoku (lit. Chinese sentence-Japanese reading) translation method.
Period12 Jul 201713 Jul 2017
Event titleTranslating Practices: Languages and Translation in Higher Education from a Cross-cultural Perspective
Event typeConference
LocationLancaster, United KingdomShow on map
Degree of RecognitionNational