Yifeng Sun is Chair Professor of Translation Studies at the University of Macau, and formerly the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Director of the Centre for Humanities Research at Lingnan University, Hong Kong, and Vice President of the International Association for Translation and Intercultural Studies.
During his visit to The University of Queensland, Professor Sun delivered a public lecture titled 'Empowering Translation'. You can listen to the podcast below.
Abstract
Given the disempowered status of translation as is shown in the fact that it is typically regarded or treated as secondary, derivative, and thus inferior, the necessity to further explore ways to empower translation must be recognised and reaffirmed. Since translation is conditioned, constrained and motivated by disparate factors and forces, it is exposed to and affected by conflicts, tensions and uncertainties, and for this reason likely to be compromised. Translation is fundamentally weakened and devitalised by the possibility of its impossibility. It is variously compromised by ideology and poetics, patronage and power relations, gender and reception, functionality and inadequacy. Some translations are more possible than others but can still be poor or weak, as they may focus on one overriding concern at the expense of other functions or dimensions. We need to move away from the confinement of descriptive translation studies by reconsidering the epistemological nature of translation and the role of subjectivity and intersubjectivity concerning how systemic interaction generates spaces to empower translation through the fullest possible array of resources available or made available, so as to shed light on how transformation is enacted in variegated endeavours to translate the untranslatable in an effective and optimal manner.
Presenter
Yifeng Sun is Chair Professor of Translation Studies at the University of Macau, and formerly the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Director of the Centre for Humanities Research at Lingnan University, Hong Kong, and Vice President of the International Association for Translation and Intercultural Studies. In addition, he served as an Honorary Professor at the University of Queensland. He was educated or conducted research at the Universities of Nanjing, Cardiff, Westminster, Cambridge, Leiden and Oxford. He is the author of Translating Foreign Otherness (2017), Cultural Translation (2016), Cultural Exile and Homeward Journey (2005), Perspective, Interpretation and Culture (2nd edition, 2006) and Fragmentation and Dramatic Moments (2002); editor or co-editor of Translating Chinese Art and Modern Literature (2017), Translation and Academic Journals (2015) and Translation, Globalisation and Localisation (2008), as well as co-translator of King of the Wizards(1998). He has published articles in such international journals as European Review, Derrida Today, Telos, International Journal of Linguistics and Communication, Neohelicon, Perspectives, ARIEL, Babel, Comparative Literature Studies, Modern Language Quarterly and Across Languages and Cultures, as well as a number of book chapters in edited volumes.
