Acceptance and perception of multimodal expression of Israeli-Jewish culture in China: ‘The Realist’ comic strip as a case study

ABSTRACTThis article analyzes the acceptance and perception of Israeli-Jewish culture in China through Chinese translation of ‘The Realist’. It points that most topics Chinese readers could interpret are those shared as general common sense or used in common terminology in all semiotic modes. However, the Israeli-Jewish tradition, literacy and specific practices remained unrecognised for the most part. It argues that the translator’s mediation of comic texts is grounded in processes of multimodal analysis that facilitates comprehension of whether and how a message is understood in a certain context. The translator has the task of making up the target readers’ contextual deficiency.KEYWORDS: IsraelChinacomicsintercultural comprehensionIsraeli-Jewish culturemultimodaltranslation Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. Van Leeuwen, Introducing Social Semiotics, 160.2. Kress and Van Leeuwen, Multimodal Discourse.3. Pérez-González, “Multimodality,” 126. (black in original).4. Reiss, Possibilities and Limitations.5. Reiss, Foundation.6. Kaindl, “Multimodality in the Translation,” 183.7. Munday, “Translation Studies,” 422.8. Bachmann-Medick. Cultural Turns.9. Kress and Van Leeuwen, Multimodal Discourse, 2.10. Gambier and Gottlieb, (Multi)Media Translation, xix.11. Gurevitch and Gao, “The reception.”12. Pérez-González, “Multimodality,” 121.13. Jauss and Benzinger, “Literary History.”14. Bassnett and Lefevere, Translation, History and Culture.15. Kaindl, “A Theoretical Framework.”16. Adler and Kohn, “Silence in a 9-Panel Grid,” 6.17. Öztürk and Tarakçıoğlu, “Comics and Translation,” 129.18. Jakobson, “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation,” 233.19. Toury, “Translation,” 1114.20. Ibid., 1113.21. Gottlied, Subtitles, Translation and Idioms, 111.22. Remael, “Some Thoughts,” 13–14.23. Lee, “Performing Multimodality,” 241.24. Oittinen, “Where the Wild Things Are”; and Oittinen, “From Thumbelina to Winnie-the-Pooh.”25. Alvstad, “Illustrations and Ambiguity.”26. Pereira, “Book Illustrations.”27. Baumgarten, “Yeah, That’s It!”28. Torresi, “Advertising.”29. Kaindl, “Thump, Whizz, Poom”; and Kaindl, “Multimodality in the Translation.”30. Zanettin, Comics in Translation, 1, 152–171.31. Pastra, “COSMOROE.”32. Borodo, “Multimodality, Translation, and Comics”.33. Gentzler, Translation and Rewriting.34. Groensteen, Comics and Narration, 21.35. Ibid., 23 (emphasis in original).36. Varga, Discourse, Narrative, Image, 98.37. Groensteen, Comics and Narration, 23.38. Appadurai, Modernity at Large.39. See note 17 above.40. Kaindl, “Multimodality and Translation,” 265.41. Ibid.42. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfBA05aVjeo with English subtitle in the original video.43. Tablet, June 18, 2012.44. Haaretz, Aug 22, 2016.45. Van Leeuwen. Introducing Social Semiotics, 29.46. Haaretz, Aug 22, 2016.47. See note 40 above.48. Ibid.49. Donohue, Understanding Scientific Literatures.50. Wan and Biti, “Cosmopolitanism and Trauma Theory,” 2–3.51. Ibid., 3.52. See note 6 above.53. Borodo, “Multimodality, Translation, and Comics,” 23.54. Öztürk and Tarakçıoğlu, “Comics and Translation,” 136.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by Basic Research Program of Jiangsu Education Department (Grant No. 2019SJA1922).Notes on contributorsXiu GaoXiu Gao is a lecturer of translation studies at Jiangsu University of Science and Technology.Danielle GurevitchDanielle Gurevitch is Director of multidisciplinary studies in the Faculty of Humanities, Bar-Ilan University and Chief Director of The Sir Naim Dangoor Centre https://dangoorcentre.com/.