Source-Based Translation and Foreignization

Source-Based Translation and Foreignization:
A Japanese Case
Yukari Fukuchi Meldrum
Modern Languages and Cultural Studies, University of Alberta

Introduction
Foreignization, as currently understood in Translation Studies, is a concept that is charged with“more emphasis on the ideological pressure against the target-language culture than on thefaithfulness to the original text” (Tamaki, 2005: 239). In other words, it is a conscious operationof bringing a foreign flavor into translations in order to counteract the effects of domestication,
claimed by Venuti (1995) to be the cause of invisibility of translation and translators. Tamaki,in her 2005 paper, also cautions that the concept of foreignization should not be confused with aliteral method of translation. Literal translation does not involve ideological intentions and is amere translation method.
In this paper, I will attempt to provide a supporting view that source-based translation,
often seen in Japanese translation, needs to be understood outside of foreignization in the above
sense. Specifically, I will illustrate that Japanese readers, in premodern times, had to gain
specific knowledge and adapt to what was required in order to read and interpret texts in asatisfactory manner. This could have been a factor for the source-orientedness of Japanesetranslations still observed in a certain form today. By examining this background of Japanese
text culture, the more source-based translation is shown to be merely a translation carried out by
a literal method without any political or ideological intentions. Therefore, the concept of
foreignization does not have a place in Japanese translation. The focus of this paper is on
premodern times because Meiji period translation situations have already been explored(Morioka 1999; Mizuno, 2005; Sato, 1997; Sugimoto, 1983; Yoshitake, 1959; among others),
while the connections between translation and the history of premodern Japanese texts andliterature has not been extensively explored. This is a preliminary attempt to make a link
between the current translation situation and what had been there before the Meiji period,
commonly regarded as the exciting time of translation.
In premodern1 times, those who intended to appreciate Japanese literary texts needed toraise their reading level in order to grasp as much meaning as possible from what they read.
The nature of the Japanese writing system and what was the convention of intertextuality inliterary texts could have been some of the factors for needing a higher level of reading skills.
The writing system of Japanese began with importation of a foreign language because
Japanese did not initially possess letters. They incorporated a foreign language, Chinese, into

39

翻訳研究への招待 2

the Japanese language. They did this by making Chinese the written language of Japanese,
despite the fact that it was a foreign language. Following the incorporation of Chinese writing,readers always had to raise their educational level to read and write due to the structuraldifferences between Chinese and Japanese.
In premodern Japan, mostly religious or philosophical texts, historical texts, and both
Chinese and Japanese poems were considered the canon (Kurozumi, 2000). In order tounderstand these texts, the readers were expected to be suitably educated. In order to fully
appreciate Japanese classical poems and to compose poetry, readers had to familiarize
themselves with conventions and rules of poetry. This translated into serious studies of poetry.
A Brief History of the Japanese Writing System and Different Writing Styles
As briefly mentioned above, the Japanese did not have a means to write before they imported
Chinese. Because Chinese and Japanese are very different languages and from separate
language families2, users of this imported language had to learn to read and write in a languagethat was entirely dissimilar from their indigenous tongue.
Even before the ancient period, sometime around the third and sixth centuries, scholars
from the continent began bringing with them Chinese texts to Japan3. The Japanese “relied
initially at least on persons from the continent … to read and compose texts [in Chinese]”(Seeley, 1991: 6). This type of writing was mainly used in writings of government and religious(Buddhism) affairs. At the initial stage, the written language was the same as the Chinese
language used in China. However, as time went on, Japanese gradually began to utilize theChinese characters not as Chinese but as Japanese. Reading and writing were initially assigned
to immigrants and their descendents from the continent as an official duty; however, as
generations went on, their descendants’ Chinese must have deteriorated (Maeda, 1972: 49).
Under such conditions, the Chinese began to transform itself into Sino-Japanese, or kanbun4, in
the Japanese context. Such development was “a response to the desire to write Japanese in
Chinese characters and in Chinese syntax” (Shibatani, 1990: 359). Reading and writing SinoJapanese involved a method called kanbun kundoku5, or “Japanese reading of Chinese texts”
which was essentially a translational act6 (Wakabayashi, 1998: 58). A reader of such texts
needed to reorder the words since the syntax of Chinese is radically different from the Japanesesyntax, and this was done with diacritical marks placed next to characters. While manipulatingthese diacritical marks to follow characters in the Japanese word order, the reader needed tointerpret the text in order to understand it as a Japanese text.
Sino-Japanese can therefore be considered an early translationese7 since the Japaneselearned to use the Chinese writing in their own way, using various techniques. For example,
Tsukishima (1977) uses a term yakudoku8 (read and translate) to explain this method of kanbun
kundoku (1977: 95). This first translationese, Sino-Japanese, in a way determined what was40Source-Based Translation and Foreignizationconsidered literary. In other words, the premodern Japanese literary canon was influenced by
Sino-Japanese because it was the only way to read and write, at least at the beginning, alongwith the authority that it gained as a writing system.
Along with Sino-Japanese, a hybrid style, wakankonkōbun9, also developed. In the earlyhybrid style, some native-Japanese words/expressions and grammatical elements were includedin Sino-Japanese writings. For example, native-Japanese words such as proper nouns andnames were written in Man’yōgana10 which are “Chinese characters employed as phonogramsin texts down to and including the Heian period”11 (Seeley, 1991: 190). Also, some honorificexpressions or auxiliary verbs were added in such a way that was not natural as Chinese (Seeley,
1991: 27; Maeda, 1972: 66). As the hybrid style developed, more and more Japanese elements
were incorporated into the texts, and various degrees of hybridity could be found. With thiseffort to try to write Japanese elements within Sino-Japanese, creative works of individuals
became active as well (Mitani et al., 1988: 66). In later periods, larger portions of Japaneseelements were used in the hybrid style and they evolved into a style where masculinity wasemphasized with a heavy use of various Sino-Japanese words and expressions. At the sametime, the texts were more comprehensible as Japanese because more Japanese was used. Some
examples include Heike Monogatari12 (The Tales of the Heike) written in the mid-thirteenth
century and Taiheiki13 (Record of the Great Peace) written in the mid-fourteenth century.
While Sino-Chinese was being used as the major writing system, in the ninth century
14kana began to develop based on Chinese characters. Kana is a simplified phonogram script orsyllabary, and there are two different types: katakana15 and hiragana16. Katakana developed outof diacritic marks for adding inflections and other grammatical information in Sino-Japanese
texts. These simplified characters varied initially (e.g. for a given syllable, there were multiple
forms), becoming conventionalized over time to develop into a set of katakana as the Japanese
use them today.
As for the development of hiragana, it followed a slightly different path. Until kana cameinto use, man’yōgana, mentioned above, was used to write down Japanese words, often within
Sino-Japanese texts and also for writing Japanese classical poems in a collection of poems
called Man’yōshū17. More extensive use of man’yōgana over time lead to the “evolution ofphonograms of the cursivized variety”, called hiragana (Seeley, 1991: 70). Hiragana script isbasically a set of highly cursivized Chinese characters that represent Japanese syllables. As with
Katakana, at the beginning, there were many characters to one syllable, but became what isused today. Texts written in kana using Japanese grammar is called wabun(tai)18 or classicalJapanese. Wabun(tai) was based on the Japanese language used in the Heian period (794-1185)(Twine, 1991). This classical Japanese changed little until recent years in the Modern period.
The development of more simplified kana scripts in the Classical Period (794-1185)
encouraged the indigenous Japanese culture to develop and flourish. Some representative
examples include classical poetry, tales, diaries, and essays. However, these genres of literature

41

翻訳研究への招待 2

were not considered major at the time. The genres in the literary canon in the late Heian andearly medieval periods were considered to be the following “from top to the bottom: (1)Buddhist scriptures; (2) Confucian texts; (3) histories such as the Records of the Historian (Shihchi, Shiki); (4) Chinese belle letters (bun) such as the Anthology of Literature (Wen hsüan,
Monzen), a collection of Chinese poetry and literary prose; (5) Japanese classical poetry (waka);(6) vernacular tales (monogatari) and stories (sōshi), as well as diaries (nikki) and related
writings in the kana syllabary” 19 (Shirane, 2000: 4). In other words, the major canon was in
Sino-Japanese, and less major were the ones written in kana. However, waka, Japaneseclassical poetry, was regarded much higher than other genres of writings in hiragana.
From about the fifth century to the ninth century, for about 500 years, the only written
language used was Sino-Chinese and the hybrid style (Kurozumi 1999: 214). It was around the10th and 11th centuries, that literature written in kana developed (Kurozumi 1999: 215).
However, official documents were written in either Sino-Japanese or the hybrid style, and SinoJapanese remained the official language even after the development of kana (Kurozumi, 1999;
Twine, 1991). Therefore, educated individuals were still expected to read and write SinoJapanese, or at least the hybrid type. Both Sino-Japanese and the hybrid style were used for thefollowing throughout the classical, medieval, and early modern periods: (1) imperial edicts; (2)written communications to the emperor; (3) biographies; (4) historical documents and records;
and (5) inscriptions (Seeley, 1991: 126). Sino-Japanese was used in some of these even until theend of the World War II (Twine, 1991). Sino-Japanese’s official status remained stable, as isevident in the representation of Chinese-origin literary works in the early premodern Japanese
literary canon. Sino-Japanese remained the force determining the canon of Chinese-origin
literary works until the mid-Meiji period, when different literary canon was formed that raised
the status of kana-based literature (Shirane, 2000).
To sum, in premodern times, three broad types of writing styles in Japanese wereidentified: Sino-Japanese, the hybrid style, and classical Japanese.
Premodern Readers’ Tasks: Sino-Japanese and the Hybrid Style
In this section and the one that follows, the focus is premodern reader’s tasks in reading. In
particular, cases with Sino-Japanese and the hybrid style, as well as with literary texts inclassical Japanese poetry will be discussed. On one hand, Sino-Japanese and the hybrid style
were unquestionably hard to read and write because they were greatly different from colloquial
Japanese. On the other hand, classical Japanese poetry had other types of hurdles that readersneeded to overcome.
Intensive learning was required to read and write Sino-Japanese and the hybrid style. The
numbers of Chinese characters used were literally tens of thousands, and the readers were
expected to learn them. Even though not all of those characters were used all of the time,42

Source-Based Translation and Foreignization

learning enough characters to read and write texts in Sino-Japanese or the hybrid style musthave taken years.
As mentioned above, in kanbun kundoku, or Japanese reading of Chinese texts, one has torearrange the word order of the Chinese texts in the mind to read it as Japanese by utilizing thediacritic marks. Main order-indicating diacritic marks, called kunten20, include the following: acharacter inverter that inverts a pair of adjacent characters (re-ten21), a phrase inverter that
inverts phrases that contain more than two characters (itten, niten22), another phrase inverter thatinvolves more than two phrases at a time (jō/chū/ge-ten23), and a combination of a character
inverter and other phrase inverters (Mitani et al., 1988). These marks were placed on the lower
left side of characters. Morphological information such as grammatical inflections also had tobe added and was indicated by placing diacritic marks on the lower right side of characters. An
example is shown below.
1
2
7
6
3
4
5

Figure 1. The first sentence of Goryū Sensei Den by Tao Yuanming (Tō Enmei) 24
from Mitani et al. (1988: 327)

In Chinese, the characters are read from the top to the bottom in the order they appear.
However, in kanbun kundoku, the characters are read in the order that is shown in the Italicized
numbers that are placed outside of the box. The reader of Sino-Japanese had to be able torearrange the word order in this way to decode the sentence as Japanese. At the same time, they
had to supply the information provided by the diacritic marks on the lower right side. Thissentence reads in Japanese as: “Sensei wa izuko no hito naru ka o shirazu 25 ” where theunderlined parts are grammatical particles and inflections, and the English translation is: ‘As forthis master, one does not know where he is from.’ Once the Sino-Japanese is read as Japanese,
it is closer to classical Japanese but with a ‘foreign’ tone of Chinese because the words andexpressions that are typical to Chinese remain.

43

翻訳研究への招待 2

Additionally, there were different schools for kanbun kundoku that utilized methods
different from the standard system mentioned above. Each school had their own secrettechniques of applying diacritic marks called okoto-ten 26 (Seeley, 1991). A dot placed invarious locations and in shapes signified oft-used grammatical and inflectional endings. In thisway, the ‘translator’ or a person who placed information on the original Chinese text did notwrite them all in with phonograms, or katakana. In other words, it was to economize the effort
of preparing, or translating, the text into Sino-Japanese. It goes without saying that the reader
needed to learn by heart what all the dots referred to in order to read the Sino-Japanese texts
with these notations. The okoto-ten systems were often used for Buddhist sutras and Chineseclassics (Seeley, 1991). Figure 2 shows the types and locations of marks and their associatedmeaning in relation to a character that is shown as a box.

Figure 2. Okoto-ten diagram (Seeley, 1991, Appendix 6)

Although it depends on the degree of its hybridity, the hybrid style does not require as
much effort with learning as Sino-Japanese. In the later hybrid style, most of the syntactic
structure was Japanese, or, at least, the word order was that of classical Japanese. However,
Chinese-specific expressions and words were always part of the hybrid style, so the readers
were not spared with learning those.
As seen above, learning to read and write was no easy task for premodern readers who
were required to learn thousands of Chinese characters while learning grammatical rules andexpressions that were entirely different from their spoken variety of language. Essentially, forreading and writing, they had to learn a different language that was neither wholly Japanese nor
Chinese.
Premodern readers’ tasks: Classical Japanese Poetry
Classical Japanese texts in premodern canon include poetry, vernacular tales, stories, anddiaries as mentioned above (Shirane, 2000). Of these genres, classical Japanese poetry, waka,
occupied a much higher status in the canon, and classical Japanese poetry required readers toraise their educational level if they were to fully appreciate literary texts. A representative ofclassical poetry is waka consisting of 31 syllables, in groups, in the order of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables,44

Source-Based Translation and Foreignizationeven though poems with other formats existed. Keene (1993) describes the essence of waka inthe following quote:
A waka could not tell a story, nor enunciate moral truths, nor could it fully
convey religious devotion; but by a meticulously exact choice of words thepoet could enable the reader to reconstruct the world from which the precious
few drops were distilled in the poem’s brief compass. (Keene, 1993: 2)
This quote summarizes well what both readers and writers of waka had to do. The poet had topick the right words, and the reader had to reconstruct the poet’s intentions.
Although it existed from early on, as shown in Man’yōshū, classical Japanese poetry(waka) flourished, and seven imperial waka anthologies were compiled over a period of about
three hundred years from Nara to Heian to Kamakura periods (Mitani et al, 1988). Especially,
the Heian period waka were considered to be of high quality. The first imperial waka anthology
Collection of Old and New Japanese Poems (Kokinshū) 27 was compiled around 913 andfunctioned as a model on which to base later poems. By the time the eighth imperial anthology
New Collection of Old and New Japanese Poems (Shin-kokinshū)28 was created around 1201,
the Heian classics were functioning as sources for creating more poems. In particular, Fujiwara
no Shunzei29 regarded the Collection of Old and New Japanese Poems (Kokinshū) as “literarycode and pretexts” (Shirane, 1990: 82). For example, the diction of waka was restricted only tothose used in the three imperial anthologies30; in other words, a poet had to use words found inthese anthologies (Shirane, 2007). Readers and writers of waka, then, had to be thoroughlyfamiliar with the poems of these anthologies and know in what contexts and scenes a particularword or expression was used. Shirane (1990) cites an example of this type of intertextuality
with a poem by Fujiwara no Shunzei from the seventh imperial waka anthology Collection of aThousand Years (Senzaishū)31:
Yū sareba
Nobe no akikaze
Mi ni shimite
Uzura naku nari
Fukakusa no sato

As evening falls,
The autumn wind along the moor
Sweeps through me –A quail raises a plaintive cry
In the deep grass of Fukakusa.
(pp. 72-73)32

When one reads it casually, it is merely a nice poem describing an evening scene. However,this poem is loaded with implied meanings. All the words that appear in this poem were used in
poems from the Collection of Old and New Japanese Poems, and the poet Shunzei was morethan aware of what types of imagery and connotation each word can trigger. The reader’s task

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翻訳研究への招待 2

is to know the imageries and connotations packed in this poem in order to fully appreciate thedepth of meaning it contains. Fukakusa (literally ‘deep grass’) is the name of a country village
to the south of Kyoto, and this village is a secluded place away from all the actions in thecapital; therefore, “the poet’s feelings of loneliness and desolation … are embodied or projected
in … the image of the quail crying in the deep grass” (Shirane, 1990: 73). The images of deep
grass and quail can be referred back to scenes in The Tales of Ise (Ise Monogatari)33 where thedeep grass can mean a man’s neglect and quail’s cry conveys the piercing sadness andloneliness (Shirane, 1990; Ichiko, 1978). The first line “As evening falls (Yū sareba)” is thesame beginning as poems that appeared in the Collection of Old and New Japanese Poems(Kokinshū) as shown in the two poems below. These original poems depict individuals who arelamenting for the loss of their love. Even though the same line is used, it is not consideredstealing a line or plagiarism but a technique to elicit the rich imageries from the original poems.
Yū sareba
Itodo higataki
Waga sode ni
Aki no tsuyu sae
Okisowaritsutsu

As evening falls,
My sleeves are harder
Than ever to dry –Even the autumn dew
Joins my tears.

(Kokinshū, Volume Love I, No. 545, Anonymous)(Shirane, 1990: 73)
Yū sareba
Hitonaki toko oUchiharai
Nagekamu tame to
Nareru wagami ka

As evening falls,
I dust and clean an empty bed –Have I become one
Whose fate is to grieve?

(Kokinshū, Volume Love II, No. 555, Anonymous)(Shirane, 1990: 73)
Shunzei’s opinion on waka is that “poetry is born of poetry” (Shirane, 1990: 80). The literary
world of Heian classics determines “the standard of beauty, or the poetic/aesthetic essence ofthings” (Shirane, 1990: 80). A poet creates a new poetic scene by rearranging and revaluing themeanings that are associated with words that were already used in the earlier poems of the
Heian classics.
Later in the medieval period, classical linked verse (renga)34 gained popularity. Renga wasa form of a very long waka made in collaboration with a few participants taking turns creating
the upper phrases and lower phrases35 (Endo & Itagaki, 1994; Mitani et al., 1988). As the titleof Steven D. Carter’s 1983 article indicates (Rules, Rules, and More Rules), there are numerous

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Source-Based Translation and Foreignization

rules in writing renga. One of the three basic rules36, a particular topic or category should not be
continued too long or repeated too often within a renga sequence (Carter, 1983), requires
participants to be familiar with choosing topics with different imageries and connotations. In
other words, the prerequisite for the participants in a renga session was the knowledge ofclassical Heian poems.Without this knowledge, they were not effective participants incomposing a renga because they would not be able to associate the topics with appropriate
connotations.
Towards the end of the medieval period, a type of renga called haikai renga37 became
popular after the death of a renga master Sōgi38. The reason for the decline of renga was not
only the death of Sōgi, but the increasingly complicated rules (Mitani et al., 1988). Haikai renga
did not require as many rules and aimed to have more amusing tones; as a result, it became
widely accepted even to common people, which was not the case until then (Endo & Itagaki,1994). The opening verse (5-7-5 syllable) of the haikai renga became a new independent formof poetry as haiku39 which was made famous by Matsuo Bashō40. Bashō also wrote haibun(haikai prose) 41 , “a new genre that combined Chinese prose genres, Japanese classicalprototypes, and vernacular language and subject matter” (Shirane, 2002: 206). In Bashō’s haiku
and haibun, references to the classical texts are frequent. For example, a poem shown below
appears to be merely about octopus traps and a summer night; however it is far richer.
Takotsuboya
Hakanaki yume oNatsu no tsuki

Octopus traps –Fleeting dreams
Under the summer’s moon

(Shirane, 2002: 184)
In this poem, the octopus traps with trapped octopi inside implies “the troops of the Heike clan
who were massacred on [the] shores at the end of the twelfth century” and the octopi are having“fleeting dreams” not knowing that they are about to be harvested” (Shirane, 2002: 184). The
expression the “summer moon” (natsu no tsuki) has a meaning of ‘a short summer night’ fromthe classical tradition, meaning in this poem, the life of octopi that is ending shortly (Shirane,2002). Readers who are familiar with the history of the Heike family as depicted in The Tales ofthe Heike (Heike Monogatari)42 would see the Heike troops in these octopi. Additionally, inBashō’s haibun, Narrow Road to the Deep North (Oku no Hosomichi)43 is also filled withintertextuality. First of all, this journey was Bashō’s tribute to his admired poet-priest Saigyō44
who lived four centuries before his time; and another aim of the journey was to visit otherlocations associated with classical poems (Shirane, 2002; LaFleur, 2003). Because of the natureof this haibun, references to Saigyō were inevitable. Additionally, there are many otherinstances of intertextuality found in this piece of writing. At the very beginning of the text, an

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翻訳研究への招待 2

example of intertextuality is a reference45 to An Account of My Hut (Hōjōki)46. As well, a quotefrom Du Fu’s classical Chinese poem47 was used as a leading prose to a haiku below.
Selecting his loyal retainer, Yoshitsune fortified himself in the castle, but his
glory quickly turned to grass. “The state is destroyed; rivers and hills remain.
The city walls turn to spring; grasses and trees are green.” With these lines
from Du Fu in my head, I lay down my bamboo hat, letting the time andtears flow.
Natsugusa ya
Tsuwamonodomo ga
Yume no ato

Summer grasses –The traces of dreams
Of ancient warriors(Shirane, 2002: 220-221)
This passage and poem were written in Hiraizumi48, one of the places Saigyō traveled to, and it
is also a place where Minamoto no Yoshitsune49 had been defeated in a battle. Fujiwara no
Yoshitsune was depicted as one of the major characters in The Tales of Heike as well as in
Gikeiki50 both of which were tales made in the medieval period. In short, even within such a
brief excerpt shown above, various imageries from other texts and historical references areintertwined. Premodern readers who were familiar with a wider range of classical texts wereable to appreciate the depth of these literary texts.
Conclusion
For premodern readers, knowledge of various classics was essential in order to appreciate
literary texts. In regards to Sino-Japanese and the hybrid style, an extensive knowledge of thesewas necessary. With poetry and other texts, knowledge of prior classical poems and texts
enabled readers to gain not only the surface understanding but also a deeper understanding.
This was due to the intertextuality and other textual references that were common practices inpremodern Japanese literature. In this way, premodern readers of Japanese literary texts had toraise their educational level in order not only to understand what they read but to truly
appreciate what they read.
This historical account of Japanese writing and literature differs from the current situationin the USA where ethnocentrism and monolingualism dominate ideologically. Again,
foreignization is a concept with the intention to change such superiority of monolingual culture(Venuti, 1995). In other words, for foreignized translation to function against the monolingual
superiority, there has to exist monolingual superiority (Tamaki, 2005). Although Japan isconsidered largely a monolingual country, this type of monolingual ethnocentrism does not48Source-Based Translation and Foreignization

appear to have existed. Japanese translation tradition is based upon the practice of raising thereading level to the texts throughout the tradition of Sino-Japanese and premodern Japanese
literature. Translation methods used for European languages from the 16th century on in Japan
were born out of this historical background of writing and literary systems. This eventually
paved the way for source-oriented translation in Japanese. By examining this background ofJapanese text culture, the more source-based translation found in Japan is shown to be merely atranslation carried out by a literal method without political or ideological intentions. The
concept of foreignization, loaded with ideological agendas, does not fit well in the Japanesetranslation traditions.

Notes
1

The premodern period of Japanese literature includes the following periods: Ancient Period 古代前期・上代 (710-794), Classical Period 古代後期・中古 (794-1185), Medieval Period 中世 (1185-1600), and Early
Modern Period 近世 (1600-1867) (Endo & Itagaki, 1994).
Generally speaking, Japanese literature is considered premodern until the Meiji period’s Genbun’itchi
Movement 言文一致 in which the writing styles were reformed and a modern colloquial style was developed(Twine, 1991).
The finer breakdowns of periods within the afore-mentioned periods are as the following: the Ancient Period
covers Nara (710-794); the Classical Period covers Heian 平安 (974-1185); the Medieval Period includes
Kamakura 鎌倉 (1185-1333), Muromachi 室町 (1333-1568); the Early Modern Period covers the Edo 江戸
period (1600-1868); and the Modern Period covers Meiji 明治 (1868-1912), Taisho 大正 (1912-1926),
Showa 昭和 (1926-1989), though a period after 1945 is often considered the contemporary period.
2

Japanese belongs to the Altaic language family and Chinese to the Sino-Tibetan (Crystal, 1987).

3

The time when this inception happened varies among different sources (e.g., Kurozumi, 2000; Mitani et al.,
1988; Maeda, 1972). According to Nihonshoki 『日本書紀』 (720) and Kojiki 『古事記』 (712), a Koreanscholar Wani 王仁 was the first one to bring ten volumes of Chinese texts the Analects of Confucius (Rongo)『論語』 and a poem with a thousand letters to teach Chinese characters called Senjimon 『千字文』 toJapan in 284 (Maeda, 1972, p. 47).
Kanbun 漢文 literally means Chinese texts in the Japanese context. It is referred to as “Sino-Japanese” (e.g.,4Twine, 1991) or “Sinico-Japanese” (Shibatani, 1990), since it became a part of the Japanese language. I adopt
Sino-Japanese as a translation of kanbun.
Kanbun kundoku 漢文訓読 practices became more common following the later Nara Period (710-794)

5(Tsukishima, 1977). When talking about styles, there are different kinds within Sino-Japanese kanbun 漢文;
however, in this paper I use the hypernym “Sino-Japanese” to include these various kinds of Sino-Japanesederived styles.

49

翻訳研究への招待 2

6

While some scholars think that kanbun kundoku was a method for ‘reading’ Chinese, some scholars argue itto be translation. For example, “the Japanese were especially eager to carry out kundoku. … They transposed
the word order of Chinese texts in order to read it as their mother tongue; in other words, they worked toward
translation” (Yanabu, 2004: 186, my translation). The “transposition” of word order is argued to be “thefoundation of translation techniques” (Kawamura, 1981: 15, my translation). Kanbun kundoku is a “greattranslation method of placing diacritic marks (kunten) in order to read as Japanese” (Kamei, 1994: 10, my
translation).
7

Translationese, as used throughout my candidacy examination papers, is a neutral term to refer to thelanguage used in translation without any negative associative meanings.
訳読

8
9

和漢混淆文

10

万葉仮名

11

Heian Period (794-1185)『平家物語』

12
13

『太平記』

14

仮名

15

片仮名

16

平仮名

17

『万葉集』 In Man’yōshū, the script system of using Chinese characters to represent Japanese syllables

was used; thus, the name manyōgana was given to the script system. Man’yōshū is considered to have been
compiled by Ōtomo no Yakamochi 大伴家持 (718-785) sometime after 759 (Mitani et al., 1988).
18

Wabun(tai) 和文(体) or classical Japanese is also called gabun(tai) 雅文(体) or bibun(tai) 美文(体)(Twine, 1991). These other two terms have a positive connotation in that gabun(tai) means ‘elegant writing(style)’ and bibun(tai) ‘florid prose (style)/beautiful writing (style)’.
19
Records of the Historian (Shih chi, Shiki)『史記』
Anthology of Literature (Wen hsüan, Monzen)『文選』
20

訓点

21

レ点

22

一・二点

23

上・中・下点24『五柳先生伝』陶淵明

25

先生は何許の人なるかを知らず。
Sensei wa

izuko no hito

naru kaoshira-zu.

master TOP where of person be whether OBJ know-NEG
26‘As for this master, [one] does not know where he is from.’ (TOP=topic; OBJ=object; NEG= negative)
乎古止点

27

『古今集』Collection of Old and New Japanese Poems (905)28『新古今集』New Collection of Old and New Japanese Poems (1201)

50

Source-Based Translation and Foreignization

29

藤原俊成 (1114-1204)

30

These three imperial anthologies are referred to as Sandaishū 三代集 which include Collection of Old and

New Japanese Poems 古今集 (905), Later Collection of Poems 後撰集 (951), and Collection of Gleanings

拾遺集 (1007).
31
千載集 Collection of a Thousand Years (1183)
32
33This poem is number 258 in the volume Autumn I of Senzaishū.
Ise Monogatari 伊勢物語 is a collection of tales with embedded poems, and it is said to have been madearound 938-956.
34
連歌
35

An upper phrase (kami no ku 上の句) is the first 5-7-5 syllables, and a lower phrase (shimo no ku 下の句)

is the following 7-7 syllables.
36

The three basic renga rules include the following: 1) Each verse in a sequence must be able to stand alone interms of both grammar and meaning; 2) Each verse must be able to be combined with the preceding verse to
make a complete poetic statement; and 3) A particular topic or category should not be continued too long nor
repeated too often within a renga sequence (Carter, 1983).
37
俳諧連歌
38

宗祇 (1421-1503)

39

俳句

40

松尾芭蕉 (1644-1694)

41

俳文

42

『平家物語』

43『奥の細道』 (1694)44

西行(1118-1190)

45“The month and days, the travelers of a hundred ages: / The years that come and go, voyagers too. /Floating away their lives on boats, / growing old as they lead horses by the bit, / for them, each day a journey,travel their home. / Many, too, are the ancients who perished on the road. / Some years ago, seized bywanderlust, I wandered along the shores of the sea” (Shirane, 2002: 211).
46
Hōjōki 方丈記 was written by Kamo no Chōmei 鴨長明 in 1212.
The beginning of the text reads: “The current of the flowing river ceases not, and yet the water is not the samewater as before. The foam that floats on stagnant pools, now vanishing, now forming, never stays the same forlong” (Shirane, 2007: 624). The foam in this passage refers back to Vimalakīrti Sutra, or Yuima Gyō 維摩経(Watson, 1997; Nagao, 1974; Yanase, 1971).
47
Du Fu (To Ho) 杜甫 (712-770) was one of the major poets of Chinese classic poetry. The reference is froma poem called Spring View (Shunbō) 春望. The quote used by Bashō is from the first two lines of the poem.
48

平泉

49

源義経 (1159-1189)

50

義経記

51

翻訳研究への招待 2--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------著者紹介： Yukari Fukuchi MELDRUM (メルドラム由香理) She is a Certified Translator(Canada) and is also a Ph.D. Candidate at the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural
Studies at the University of Alberta. Her main research interest is the Japanese language that isused in translation. Contact her at ymeldrum@ualberta.ca.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------References
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