Cultural Translations

China in ancient times, Japan was able to learn about the culture and thought of the leading westernpowers through translation.Contemporary Japanese scholars, such as Maruyama Masao (1914-1996) Katô Shuichî (1919-2008), in their book entitled “Honyaku to Nihon no kindai”, /Translation and Japanese Modernity”(1998) also discuss the intellectual history of translation in Japan. Honyaku to Nihon no kindaiis a published dialogue (taidan) between the two auta popular genre in Japan. The Americanresearcher Andre Haag’s paper, “Maruyama Masao and Katô Shuichi on Translation and JapaneseModernity” (2008) has made a valuable contribution in the dissemination of their ideas to Englishspeaking scholars. The main questions that Maruyama and Katô deal with are:What was the historical context of modern translation in Japan, and how did Japan´s foreignrelations in the late Edo and Meji period determine the course of translation? What kinds of textswere translated? Why did Japanese embrace translation as a means of learning about the world?And why was priority given to translating every available text? (Haag, 2008: 15-16)Theoretical framework.The theoretical framework of this paper is based in the theories of German functionalists (Reissand Vermeer, 1991; Nord, 1997), who consider translation to be a purposeful activity and thatthe translation skopos refers to the goal of the translation process, which may not coincide withthe function of the source text (Schäffner, 2009: 120). Evidence of the skopos can be found in thetexts as well as in paratextual elements.We have also used Widdowson’s concepts of Text, Pretext and Context (2004). wherein discourseis interpreted in the interaction between text and context, “What interpretation involvesis the relating of the language in the text to the schematic constructs of knowledge, belief and soon outside the text. In this way discourse is achieved” (2004: 61). Widdowson’s notion of pretextis related to that of skopos, it is an ulterior motive or a discourse purpose, “The meaning ofwords in texts is always subordinated to a discourse purpose: we read into them what we wantto get out of them (ibid: 86). Also useful for our analysis is the concept of the translators’ visibility(Venuti, 1995), and the theories of the Manipulation School (Hermans, 1985; Lefevere 1992;Bassnett and Lefevere, 1990, Toury, 1995) who focus on the analysis of translation between distantcultures and languages and stress the influence of ideology on translation. Culture is definedfollowing Katan (1999/2003), who highlights the bonds between culture and translation and theimportance of the translator as a cultural mediator. Orientalism (Said, 1978) and the Nihonjinronmovement (Guarnè, 2006) are also useful concepts with which to study the images of Japanthat the authors/translators (Nitobe and Okakura) would like to present to the West in the twoSTs, and the TTs analysed in this paper. Finally, the concept of self- translation (Tanqueiro, 1999,2000, 2007), is used to describe these two authors/translators.General contextThe end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century were characterized by themilitary, nationalist propaganda which influenced the construction of the modern state in Japan.During this period of time Japan was not fully part of the Western world and it was necessaryThe reception of Ethical and Aesthetical Values of Japanese Culture in the West43