At 18:00 on June 15, Associate Professor Li Fang from the College of Foreign Languages gave a lecture entitled “An Analysis of the Main Factors Affecting Overseas Readers on the Reception of Chinese Classics: An Example of the English Translation of Shen Lou Zhi” in Classroom 2A101.
The lecture began with an interactive session, in which Associate Professor Li Fang asked students to fill out a quick questionnaire related to the lecture topic, and then she described the five aspects of the study: background, research design, test results, research findings, and measures.
Ms. Li emphasized that in the foreign translation of Chinese classics, the acceptance of overseas readers determines the value of the translation. Scholar Liu Yunhong (2019:103) points out that in the active foreign translations of Chinese literary classics, their necessity, translation methods, and acceptance are three important factors in evaluation. Ms. Li found that, at present, there are abundant studies on the meaning of the foreign translation of Chinese literary classics and translation strategies in China, but few studies are examining the acceptance of overseas readers, and most of them focus on the attitudes of foreign sinologists, critics, and translators, or the readers' opinions on international mainstream book websites such as Amazon and Goodreads.
Ms. Li believes that there may be differences in the reading experiences and evaluations of overseas general readers compared to professional readers (sinologists, translators, and critics). In this lecture, she analyzed the survey of British readers for reading the English translation of Shen Lou Zhi, the classic social novel of the Qing Dynasty, explored how the main factors such as readers and texts affect the understanding and acceptance of overseas readers, and provided empirical evidence and suggestions for the selection of strategies when translating Chinese classics.
Ms. Li also shared some methods of empirical research, expanding students' knowledge in terms of research methods and research areas. In the free question session at the end, she patiently answered students’ questions.
(Reported by the College of Foreign Languages office; Translated by Li Huixian)
