Speaker
SUN Yifeng, The University of Macau
Title
Mapping Translation: Context and Connectivity
Abstract
Translation is an act of mapping meaning through the identification and linkage of semantic dots—keywords, motifs, and symbols that anchor interpretation across linguistic divides. Like coordinates on a complex map, these dots demand rigorous interpretation and strategic connection, forming intricate networks that reshape how texts move between languages and cultures. This paper draws on Walter Benjamin’s metaphors of the “tangent” and the “echo” to frame the translator’s role, and reinterprets these metaphors to theorize translation as a relational practice—one that negotiates proximity and distance, presence and absence, in the movement of meaning across linguistic and cultural boundaries. The tangent marks the translator’s necessary divergence—touching the original at a single point before following a trajectory shaped by the target context. The echo evokes the source’s lingering presence as fragmented yet resonant traces, which must be reinterpreted through subtle patterns and affective nuance. Semantic dots mediate between these two forces: they are the points of contact that give the tangent direction and the traces through which the echo reverberates. Through mapping these dots, the translator engages in an act of relational fidelity—not replicating fixed content, but reconstructing meaning through dynamic, context-sensitive interpretation. Linking Walter Benjamin’s philosophical insights with a practical model of translational strategy, this paper proposes a comprehensive framework for understanding translation as a rigorous, intellectually engaged, and creatively adaptive negotiation. Challenging residual assumptions that position translation as a direct transmission of meaning from one language to another, this approach emphasizes the translator’s active role in shaping meaning, navigating between fidelity and transformation, and responding sensitively to the nuances of both source and target contexts. Through the strategic reconstruction of meaning, translation emerges as a dynamic, ethically charged practice, offering translators a heuristic for balancing innovation with heritage.
About the speaker
Yifeng Sun is Chair Professor of Translation Studies at the University of Macau and Editor-in-Chief of Babel: International Journal of Translation. He has held positions as an Academic Visitor at Oxford University and as an Honorary Professor (two terms) and Distinguished Visitor at the University of Queensland. Previously, he was Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Director of the Centre for Humanities Research at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. He is author of Translational Spaces (2021), Translating Foreign Otherness (2018), Cultural Translation (in Chinese; 2016), Cultural Exile and Homeward Journey (2005), Perspective, Interpretation and Culture (in Chinese; 2004; 2nd ed. 2006), and Fragmentation and Dramatic Moments (2002). He has edited or co-edited volumes such as Transcultural Poetics (2023), Translating Chinese Art and Modern Literature (2019), Translation and Academic Journals (2015), and Translation, Globalisation and Localisation (2008). He has published over 100 articles and chapters in prominent scholarly journals and edited volumes, including Modern Language Quarterly, ARIEL, Translation Review, Babel, Perspectives, META, Target, Across Languages and Cultures, Comparative Literature Studies, Neohelicon, Derrida Today, European Review, Telos, Yearbook for Translational Hermeneutics and Contemporary French & Francophone Studies, among others.