Traitor or Rebel: A Translation Problem in Chinese about the Italian Proverb Traduttore, Traditore

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.201215.327How to use a DOI?

Keywords

translator, traitor, derogatory meaning, traitor, rebel

Abstract

Bitterly criticized by celebrated translators from China and beyond, the famous Italian proverb traduttore, traditore (translator, traitor) has been regarded as a commendation towards translators by some Chinese scholars. This paper attributes this bizarre phenomenon to one main reason: the Chinese version of this proverb — translator, rebel, does not bring out its derogatory sense, leading to a commendatory comprehension as a result. Unlike the word “traitor” with its obvious derogatory meaning, the word “rebel” in Chinese, just like in English language, can imply commendatory or derogatory connotations in different contexts. But when it is a commendatory word, its English and Italian translation should be “rebel” and “ribelle”, rather than “traitor” nor traditore”. This paper holds that translators are not traitors and translation is not treason, which should be a shared view by both translation scholars and translators.

Copyright

© 2020, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Xin Chang
PY  - 2020
DA  - 2020/12/18
TI  - Traitor or Rebel: A Translation Problem in Chinese about the Italian Proverb Traduttore, Traditore
BT  - Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Education, Language, Art and Inter-cultural Communication (ICELAIC 2020)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 184
EP  - 187
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.201215.327
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.201215.327
ID  - Chang2020
ER  -