This volume brings together research on a variety of paratextual and peritextual elements of translation of German, Chinese and Czech source texts. The explication seen as necessary to translated texts is a part of this growing field, as researchers investigate the influence of writing which purports to help the reader’s understanding of a text. The articles included here demonstrate the impact of paratextual and peritextual elements on the way a text is produced and received. Publishers, both consciously and unconsciously, may manipulate the presentation of a text to appeal to a certain readership, while writers of prefatorial, explanatory and critical material base their paratextual interpretation on their own perceptions and political leanings. The articles in the volume focus on significant literary texts, by writers such as Christa Wolf and Mao Zedong. Regional novels of Taiwan, modern and traditional poetry, and children’s stories are not exempt from the power of paratext, and some genres, such as the literary mystification texts published in the Czech Republic, are purposefully designed to mislead the reader. The articles in the volume help to dispel the notion that translation and the paratext which surrounds it, and of which it is a part, are innocent.

As the 'thresholds' through which readers and viewers access texts, paratexts have already sparked important scholarship in literary theory, digital studies and media studies. Translation and Paratexts explores the relevance of paratexts for translation studies and provides a framework for further research. Writing in three parts, Kathryn Batchelor first offers a critical overview of recent scholarship, and in the second part introduces three original case studies to demonstrate the importance of paratextual theory. Batchelor interrogates English versions of Nietzsche, Chinese editions of Western translation theory, and examples of subtitled drama in the UK, before concluding with a final part outlining a theory of paratextuality for translation research, addressing questions of terminology and methodology. Translation and Paratexts is essential reading for students and researchers in translation studies, interpreting studies and literary translation.

Zulawnik focuses on the broad concept of ‘controversy’ and issues pertaining to the translation of politically and historically controversial texts in East Asia. The research methodology is exemplified through a case study in the form of the author’s translation of the best-selling Japanese graphic novel (manga) Manga Kenkanryū (Hate Hallyu: The Comic) by Sharin Yamano (2005), a work that has been problematised as an attack on South Korean culture and the Korean Wave. Issues analysed and discussed in the research include translation risk, ethics, a detailed methodology for the translation of so-called controversial texts exemplified through numerous thematically divided examples from the translation of the chosen Japanese text, as well as examples from a Korean language equivalent (Manhwa Hyeomillyu – Hate Japanese Wave), and definition and contextualisation of the concept of ‘controversy’. There has been limited research in the field of translation studies, which seeks to exemplify potential pragmatic approaches for the translation of politically-charged texts, particularly in multi-modal texts such as the graphic novel. It is hoped that Zulawnik’s research will serve both as a valuable source when examining South Korea–Japan relations and a theoretical and methodological base for further research and the development of an online augmented translation space with devices specifically suited for the translation of multi-modal texts such as – but not limited to – graphic novels and visual encyclopaedias.

As something that surrounds, extends, and presents a text to the world, the phenomenon of paratext is gaining more and more attention within the discipline of Translation Studies. This edited volume, with contributions by five Nordic scholars, aims to build on that attention by presenting five case studies on paratexts in translations into Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish. A special focus lies on the paratextual mechanisms at play when works from different source cultures are translated into a Nordic target context. The translated works under scrutiny belong to genres such as literary novels, non-fiction works, and religious texts, and the paratexts surveyed include footnotes, covers, blurbs, introductions, and literary reviews. The scholars represented in the volume all work in Translation Studies, or at the intersection between Translation Studies and other disciplines.

This book explores the intersection of a number of academic areas of study that are all, individually, of growing importance: translation studies, crime fiction and world literature. The scholars included here are leaders in one or more of these areas. The frame of this volume is imagological; its focus is on the ways in which national allegories are constructed and deconstructed, encompassing descriptions of national characteristics as they play out at the level of the local or the individual as well as broader, political analyses. Its corpus, crime fiction, is shown to be a privileged site for writing the national narrative, and often in ways that are more complex and dynamic than is suggested by the genre’s much-cited role as vehicle for a new realism. Finally, these two areas are problematised through the lens of translation, which is a crucial player in both the development of crime fiction and the formation, rather than simply the interlingual transfer, of national allegory. In this volume national allegories, and the crime novels in which they emerge, are shown to be eminently versatile, foundationally plural texts that promote critical rewriting as opposed to sites for fixing meaning. This book was originally published as a special issue of The Translator.

Nowadays, discourse analysis deals with not only texts but also paratexts and images; so do translation and interpreting studies. Therefore, the concept of multimodality has become an increasingly important topic in the subject areas of linguistics, discourse analysis and translation studies. However, up to now not much research has been done systematically on multimodal factors in translation and interpreting, and even less in exploring research models or methodologies for multimodal analysis in translation and interpreting. This book aims to introduce and apply different theories of the multimodal discourse analysis to the study of translations, with case studies on Chinese classics such as the Monkey King, Mulan and The Art of War, as well as on interpretations of up-to-date issues including the Chinese Belt and Road Initiatives and Macao tourism. The chapters reflect the first attempts to apply multimodal approaches to translation and interpreting with a special focus on Chinese-English translations and interpreting. They provide new understandings of transformations in the multimodal translation process and useful reference models for researchers who are interested in doing research of a similar kind, especially for those who are interested in looking into translations related to Chinese language, literature and culture.

Translation of Contemporary Taiwan Literature in a Cross-Cultural Context explores the social, cultural, and linguistic implications of translation of Taiwan literature for transnational cultural exchange. It demonstrates principally how asymmetrical cultural relationships, mediation processes, and ideologies of the translation players constitute the culture-specific translation activity as a highly contested site, where translation can reconstruct and rewrite the literature and the culture it represents. Four main theoretical themes are explored in relation to such translation activity: sociological studies, cultural and rewriting studies, English as a lingua franca, and social and performative linguistics. These offer insightful perspectives on the translation as an interpretive encounter between not only two languages, two cultural systems and assumptions taking place, but also among various translation mediators. This book will be useful to scholars and students working on translation and cultural studies, China/Taiwan literature studies, and literature studies in cross-cultural contexts.

This volume explores the complex relations of texts and their contextualising elements, drawing particularly on the notions of paratext, metadiscourse and framing. It aims at developing a more comprehensive historical understanding of these phenomena, covering a wide time span, from Old English to the 20th century, in a range of historical genres and contexts of text production, mediation and consumption. However, more fundamentally, it also seeks to expand our conception of text and the communicative ‘spaces’ surrounding them, and probe the explanatory potential of the concepts under investigation. Though essentially rooted in historical linguistics and philology, the twelve contributions of this volume are also open to insights from other disciplines (such as medieval manuscript studies and bibliography, but also information studies, marketing studies, and even digital electronics), and thus tackle opportunities and challenges in researching the dynamics of text and framing phenomena in a historical perspective.

This edited volume explores the role of (postcolonial) translation studies in addressing issues of the postcolony. It investigates the retention of the notion of postcolonial translation studies and whether one could reconsider or adapt the assumptions and methodologies of postcolonial translation studies to a new understanding of the postcolony to question the impact of postcolonial translation studies in Africa to address pertinent issues. The book also places the postcolony in historical perspective, and takes a critical look at the failures of postcolonial approaches to translation studies. The book brings together 12 chapters, which are divided into three sections: namely, Africa, the Global South, and the Global North. As such, the volume is able to consider the postcolony (and even conceptualisations beyond the postcolony) in a variety of settings worldwide.

While the sociology of literary translation is well-established, and even flourishing, the same cannot be said for the sociology of poetry translation. Sociologies of Poetry Translation features scholars who address poetry translation from sociological perspectives in order to catalyze new methods of investigating poetry translation. This book makes the case for a move from the singular 'sociology of poetry translation' to the pluralist 'sociologies', in order to account for the rich variety of approaches that are currently emerging to deal with poetry translation. It also aims to bridge the gap between the 'cultural turn' and the 'sociological turn' in Translation Studies, with the range of contributions showcasing the rich diversity of approaches to analysing poetry translation from socio-cultural, socio-historical, socio-political and micro-social perspectives. Contributors draw on theorists including Pierre Bourdieu and Niklas Luhmann and assess poetry translation from and/or into Catalan, Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Slovakian, Spanish, Swahili and Swedish. A wide range of topics are featured in the book including: trends in poetry translation in the modern global book market; the commissioning and publishing of poetry translations in the United States of America; modern English-language translations of Dante; women poet-translators in mid-19th century Ireland; translations of Russian poetry anthologies into modern English; the translation of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets in post-colonial Tanzania and socialist Czechoslovakia; translations and translators of Italian poetry into 20th and 21st century Sweden; modern European poet-translators; and collaborative writing between prominent English and Spanish poet-translators.