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Self‐translation and English‐language creative writing in China
Author(s) -
Dai Fan,
Zheng Wei
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
world englishes
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.6
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-971X
pISSN - 0883-2919
DOI - 10.1111/weng.12377
Subject(s) - linguistics , creative writing , expression (computer science) , china , sociology , translation studies , key (lock) , psychology , computer science , literature , history , art , philosophy , archaeology , computer security , programming language
This article considers creative writing in a foreign language as one type of translation, more specifically, ‘self‐translation,’ in which the original text is usually not written, but exists liminally in the mind of the author. It explores how cultural and linguistic aspects of creative writing are treated through the analysis of extracts from the creative work in English by one of the authors of this article, and from the creative assignments by her students. In the process, the linguistic aspect of this study is informed by the concept of ‘cosmopolitan English,’ while the key issue in self‐translation or creative writing is how to translate the culturally‐loaded content of one culture into forms of expression comprehensible to audiences from other cultures and other societies.