The present volume originates from "The Fourth Asian Translation Traditions Conference" held in Hong Kong in December 2010. The conference generated stimulating discussions relating to the richness and diversity of nonWestern discourses and practices of translation, focusing on translational exchanges between nonWestern languages,and the change and continuity in Asian translation traditions. Translation and Global Asia shows a rich diversification of historical and geographical interests, and covers a broad array of topics, ranging from ninthcentury Buddhist translation in Tibet to twentyfirstcentury political translation in Malaysia. This collection is strikingly rich. Its authors deal with a wide range of topics in geographically diverse locations from India, Thailand, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines to different parts of China. They evoke different linguistic and historical contexts from ancient times right up to the contemporary period, and take a variety of approaches, strongly supported by current theories in translation and cultural studies. Presenting vital case studies, this essential volume illustrates the importance of examining translation from a historical perspective, of taking account of power relations, and of studying the unique role of translators in initiating change and transmitting new ideas.

Between Tongues takes the subject of performance translation in a completely new direction. While the topic is often discussed in relation to the translation of dramatic texts, such as Shakespeare in Malay, the authors in this collection examine presentations of traditional and contemporary works in Asia in their original languages before audiences who do not share that language. They also discuss translation as a phenomenon inherent to much performance in Asia, particularly in multilingual settings.

This book addresses the incorporation of Global Englishes into language policy and curriculum, pedagogy and assessment practices, and focuses on a wide range of geographical and language contexts. It will be of interest to policymakers, curriculum developers and practitioner-researchers in the area of English language education.

This anthology of literary and dramatic works introduces writers from across Asia and the Asian diaspora. The landscapes and time periods it describes are rich and varied: a fishing village on the Padma River in Bangladesh in the early twentieth century, the slums of prewar Tokyo, Indonesia during the anti-leftist purge of the 1960s, and contemporary Tibet. Even more varied are the voices these works bring to life, which serve as testimony to the lives of those adversely impacted by poverty, rapid social change, political suppression, and armed conflict. In the end, the works in this anthology convey an attitude of spiritual and communal survival and even of hope. This anthology presents the complex dynamic between a diversity of Asian lives and the universalized concept of the individual “human” entitled to clearly specified “rights.” It also asks us to think about what standards of analysis we should employ when considering a historical period in which universal human rights and civil liberties are considered secondary to the collective good, as has so often been the case when nation states are undergoing revolutionary change, waging war, or championing so-called Asian values. This book’s use of the term Global Asia reflects an interest in rethinking “Asia” as more than an area determined by national borders and geography. Rather, this book portrays it as a space of movement and fluidity, where societies and individuals respond not only to their local frames of reference, but also to broader ideas and ideals.

What do people think of translation in the different historical, cultural and linguistic traditions of the world? How many uses has translation been put to? How distant from one another are the concepts of translation found in the different traditions? These are some of the questions A World Atlas of Translation addresses. Its twenty-one reports give us pictures taken from the inside, both from traditions that are well represented in the literature and from the many that (for now) are not. But the Atlas is not content with documenting – no map is this innocent. In fact, the wealth of information collected and made accessible by its reporters can be useful to gauge the dispersion of translation concepts across traditions. As you read its reports, the Atlas will keep asking “How far apart do these concepts look to you?” Finally and more ambitiously, the reports can help us test the hypothesis that a cross-cultural notion of translation exists. In this respect, the Atlas is mostly a proof of concept. It hopes to encourage further fact-based research in quest of a robust and compelling unifying notion of translation.

The problem of translation has become increasingly central to critical reflections on modernity and its universalizing processes. Approaching translation as a symbolic and material exchange among peoples and civilizations—and not as a purely linguistic or literary matter, the essays in Tokens of Exchange focus on China and its interactions with the West to historicize an economy of translation. Rejecting the familiar regional approach to non-Western societies, contributors contend that “national histories” and “world history” must be read with absolute attention to the types of epistemological translatability that have been constructed among the various languages and cultures in modern times. By studying the production and circulation of meaning as value in areas including history, religion, language, law, visual art, music, and pedagogy, essays consider exchanges between Jesuit and Protestant missionaries and the Chinese between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries and focus on the interchanges occasioned by the spread of capitalism and imperialism. Concentrating on ideological reciprocity and nonreciprocity in science, medicine, and cultural pathologies, contributors also posit that such exchanges often lead to racialized and essentialized ideas about culture, sexuality, and nation. The collection turns to the role of language itself as a site of the universalization of knowledge in its contemplation of such processes as the invention of Basic English and the global teaching of the English language. By focusing on the moments wherein meaning-value is exchanged in the translation from one language to another, the essays highlight the circulation of the global in the local as they address the role played by historical translation in the universalizing processes of modernity and globalization. The collection will engage students and scholars of global cultural processes, Chinese studies, world history, literary studies, history of science, and anthropology, as well as cultural and postcolonial studies. Contributors. Jianhua Chen, Nancy Chen, Alexis Dudden Eastwood, Roger Hart, Larissa Heinrich, James Hevia, Andrew F. Jones, Wan Shun Eva Lam, Lydia H. Liu, Deborah T. L. Sang, Haun Saussy, Q. S. Tong, Qiong Zhang

The spread of Islam eastward into South and Southeast Asia was one of the most significant cultural shifts in world history. As it expanded into these regions, Islam was received by cultures vastly different from those in the Middle East, incorporating them into a diverse global community that stretched from India to the Philippines. In Islam Translated, Ronit Ricci uses the Book of One Thousand Questions—from its Arabic original to its adaptations into the Javanese, Malay, and Tamil languages between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries—as a means to consider connections that linked Muslims across divides of distance and culture. Examining the circulation of this Islamic text and its varied literary forms, Ricci explores how processes of literary translation and religious conversion were historically interconnected forms of globalization, mutually dependent, and creatively reformulated within societies making the transition to Islam.

International news has long been studied and understood as produced by outsiders – foreign correspondents working in exotic, international locales. This book challenges this established view by putting the spotlight on the insiders working in their own countries producing news for international audiences. Western male foreign correspondents who report from areas affected by crises and conflicts for an ‘audience back home’ have long stood in as visible metaphors of international news production. But the understanding of who produces international news is starting to shift as scholars come to take into account the often-invisible role played by locally based, non-Western news-workers who have always been part and parcel of international news production. The roles and responsibilities of these professional, specialised locals within the global flow of news have only increased as falling news industry revenues have meant reductions in non-local staff in foreign news bureaus. Available research shows that the involvement of local journalists and fixers, as well as NGOs, as sources of news and information in international news production is marked by economic, socio-cultural and practice-related tensions. To shed light on these growing yet relatively less investigated changes happening in international news-making, this book brings together the latest of studies conducted on this form of journalistic labour around the world. This book will contribute to both the breadth and depth of our future understanding of local news-work that benefits distant audiences, and also help cement the place of such journalistic work as a vital topic of analysis in its own right. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Journalism Studies.

There has long been considerable debate about the nature of non-Western IR theory. Most attempts to understand such a phenomenon begin by taking a top-down approach on a country by country basis. Instead, this book takes a bottom-up approach, involving specialists from a range of Thai universities, revealing the contours of the Thai IR community. It examines the state of various sub-fields under the IR rubric in Thailand such as foreign policy analysis, security studies, international political economy and area studies, and how Thai thinkers in these fields have contributed to IR as a discipline and IR theory development in Thailand. In doing so, it identifies factors unique to Thai academia which have hindered the development of an indigenous-sourced theory as well as exploring the similarities shared with other non-Western contexts that have posed an obstacle to the creation of a more general non-Western IR theory. Providing both an in-depth insight into the specific phenomena of Thai IR theory, and a broader perspective on the challenges of formulating non-Western IR theory, this book aims to push the debate on non-Western IR theory forward. It will be of particular interest to readers looking for a better understanding of IR theory in Thailand, but also for those more generally looking to formulate and characterise non-Western approaches to the discipline.

The focus of this volume is on how the people of the Korean Peninsula—historically an important part of the Sinocentric world in East Asia and today a vital economic and strategic site—have negotiated oral and written interactions with their Asian neighbors and Europeans in the past and present through the mediation of translators and interpreters. These encounters have been shaped by political, social, and cultural factors, including the shared use of the Chinese writing system in East Asia for many centuries, attitudes toward other Asians and Westerners, and perceptions of Korean identity in relation to these Others. After exploring aspects of historical interactions, the volume addresses how the role and practice of translation and interpreting have recently evolved as a result of the development of digital technology, an increase in the number of immigrants, and changes in political and cultural dynamics in the region. It covers a range of historical and contemporary aspects, genres, and venues that extend beyond the common yet restrictive focus on literary translation and includes discussions of translator training and academic studies of translation and interpreting in Korea.