Self-Translation in the Sinosphere: Challenging Orthodoxies from Shanghai to Taipei to Makassar

Abstract

This article begins a debate in translation studies about the nature of self-translation in the Sinophone world. It demonstrates the continued influence of a history of cosmopolitan authorship and self-translation that emanated from Republican China and moved to Taiwan and beyond in the post-war period. This history and its contemporary effects, including diverse forms of self-translation in Taiwan and Indonesia, are shown to challenge the most prominent models of self-translation, notably those drawing on sociological frameworks such as Abram de Swaan’s “global language system,” which are proven to occlude local realities and multilingual writing. These new perspectives are shown to have consequences for both world literature studies and theoretical accounts of self-translation in the 21st century.