A short history of translation and translators

Yan Fu, a Chinese scholar and translator, developed in 1898 his three-facet theory of translation: faithfulness, i.e. be true to the original in spirit; expressiveness, i.e. be accessible to the target reader; and elegance, i.e. be written in an “educated” language. Yan Fu’s theory of translation was based on his experience with translating works in social sciences from English to Chinese. Of the three facets, he considered the second as the most important. If the meaning of the translated text was not accessible to the reader, there was no difference between having translated the text and not having translated the text at all. According to Yan Fu, in order to facilitate comprehension, the word order could be changed, Chinese examples could replace English ones, and people’s names could be rendered Chinese. His theory had much impact worldwide, but was sometimes wrongly extended to the translation of literary works.

• Yan Fu, a Chinese scholar and translator, developed in 1898 his three-facet theory of translation: faithfulness, i.e. be true to the original in spirit; expressiveness, i.e. be accessible to the target reader; and elegance, i.e. be written in an “educated” language. Yan Fu’s theory of translation was based on his experience with translating works in social sciences from English to Chinese. Of the three facets, he considered the second as the most important. If the meaning of the translated text was not accessible to the reader, there was no difference between having translated the text and not having translated the text at all. According to Yan Fu, in order to facilitate comprehension, the word order could be changed, Chinese examples could replace English ones, and people’s names could be rendered Chinese. His theory had much impact worldwide, but was sometimes wrongly extended to the translation of literary works.
• Over the centuries, women translators, after being anonymous or signing with a male pseudonym, began signing their translations with their own names. Some of them didn’t confine themselves to literary work. They also fought for gender equality, women’s education, women’s suffrage, abolitionism, and women’s social rights.