Translational Engagements with Asian Languages in Premodern Japan / Judy Wakabayashi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wakabayashi, Judy, author.

Series:

Asian Studies E-Books Online, Collection 2026.

Language, Writing and Literary Culture in the Sinographic Cosmopolis ; 8.

Asian Studies E-Books Online, Collection 2026

Language, Writing and Literary Culture in the Sinographic Cosmopolis ; 8

Language:

English

Japanese

Subjects (All):

Art--History.

Art.

Asian Studies.

Drama & Theatre Studies.

History.

Japan.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (569 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2026.

Language Note:

English and Japanese

Summary:

Translational Engagements with Asian Languages in Premodern Japan explores a range of Japanese practices used to mediate written and oral encounters with neighbouring cultures from earliest recorded times until the late nineteenth century. The primary focus is on kanbun kundoku , the mainstream approach to Chinese texts for about a thousand years. The book includes a theoretical examination of the status of this practice in relation to conventional translation. It engages critically with insights from Japanese Studies, Translation Studies and related research fields to present the first in-depth analysis of these topics in English or Japanese.

Contents:

Front Cover

Contents

Figures and Tables

Figures

Tables

Introduction

1 Notes on Terminology

The Inception of Translational Practices in Ancient Japan

1.1 Introduction of Chinese Script

1.2 Rote Reading as the Pre-kundoku Stage

1.3 Using Sinographs to Write Japanese

1.4 Development of Kana and Their Use as Glosses

1.5 Early Textual Imports

1.6 Yakudoku: Embryonic Grammar Translation

1.7 Kanbun Kundoku

1.7.1 Mark-Up Kundoku

1.7.2 Virtual Kundoku

1.7.3 Written-Out Kundoku

1.8 Origins of Kundoku

1.9 Okototen Glosses

1.10 Kundoku for Recitation: Performance Glossing

1.11 Reverse Kundoku for Writing Sinitic or Sinicised Japanese

1.12 Approaches to Buddhist Works

1.12.1 Nara and Early-Heian Flexible Kundoku

1.12.2 Mid-Heian Kundoku

1.12.3 Late-Heian Kundoku

1.12.4 Overview and Later Developments

1.13 Free Translation and Adaptation in Tale Literature

1.14 Buddhist Pictorial Translations and Rebuses, Picture-Explaining and Calligrams

Secular Kundoku

2.1 Secular Kundoku before the Late-Heian Period

2.2 Late-Heian Secular Kundoku

2.3 Sequential Dual Readings

2.4 Kamakura-Period Secular Kundoku

2.5 Muromachi-Period Secular Kundoku

2.6 Mixed Script System

2.7 Plural Registers

2.8 Literacies and Readers

2.9 Brush Conversations

2.10 Excursus: Sinitic vs. Latin

2.11 Kundoku as a Memorisation Technique

2.12 Early-Edo Secular Kundoku

2.13 Mid-Edo Secular Kundoku

2.14 Hayashi Razan's Experiment in Vernacular Translations

2.15 Translations for Women

2.16 Translations of Chinese Poetry

Borderland Engagements: Towards Tsūji Professionalisation and Institutionalisation

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Chinese Tsūji in Nagasaki

3.2.1 Institutional Aspects

3.2.2 Tsūji Ranks

3.2.3 Privately-Employed Tsūji

3.2.4 Tsūji's Chinese.

3.2.5 Duties

3.2.6 Work in the Chinese Quarter

3.3 Nagasaki Interpreters of Other Asian Languages

3.3.1 Siamese Tsūji

3.3.2 Tonkinese Tsūji

3.3.3 Luzonese and Mughal Tsūji

3.3.4 Manchu Tsūji

3.4 Chinese and Korean Tsūji in Satsuma

3.5 Tsushima: Mediator of Relations with Chosŏn

3.5.1 Amenomori Hōshū's Role

3.5.2 Later Developments

3.6 Interpreters of Korean in Chōshū

3.7 Imports of Works from Chosŏn

3.8 Luchu Islands

3.8.1 Kumemura Tsūji

3.8.2 Shuri Tsūji

3.8.3 An Outsider's Encounter with Luchuan Tsūji

3.8.4 After Abolition of the Kingdom

3.9 The Ezo Connection

3.9.1 Ainu-Language Tsūji

3.9.2 Northern Engagements with Russian

3.9.3 Meiji Developments in Hokkaido

3.10 Changing Times

3.11 Conclusion

Ogyū Sorai's Rethinking of Kundoku and Translation

4.1 Neo-Confucianism: Adoption and Backlash

4.2 Itō Jinsai: Back-Translation in Teaching Sinitic Composition

4.3 Ogyū Sorai: Norm-Breaker and Pioneering Translation Theorist

4.3.1 Sorai, Okajima Kanzan and Spoken Chinese

4.3.2 Sorai's Criticisms of Kundoku

4.3.3 Yakubun sentei

4.3.4 Kun'yaku jimō

4.3.5 "Daigen jissoku"

4.3.6 Sorai's Alternatives to Kundoku

4.3.7 Emphasis on the Visual over the Aural

4.3.8 Sorai's Views on Language(s)

4.3.9 Sorai's Praxis

4.3.10 Kun'yaku Glosses

4.4 Sorai Supporters: Dazai Shundai and Hattori Nankaku

4.5 Sorai Critics

4.6 Sorai's Legacy

4.7 Sinitic's Changing Position in Mid-Edo Times

Acknowledgements

Vernacularisation and the Reemergence of Translation

5.1 Textual Culture

5.2 Book Imports

5.3 Forerunners: Translations and Adaptations of Classical Tales

5.4 The Encounter with Vernacular Chinese Novels

5.5 Early Popularisations in Western Japan

5.6 Reference Works on Vernacular Chinese.

5.7 Kun'yaku: Transitional Renditions of Vernacular Chinese Novels

5.8 The Golden Age of Vernacular Translations

5.9 Characteristics and Impact of Popularised Renditions

5.10 Adaptations

5.11 Translation as a Pedagogical, Scholarly and Literary Device from the Late Eighteenth Century

5.12 Renditions of Pragmatic (Especially Medical) Chinese Works

Experimental Approaches and Changing Times

6.1 Ban Kōkei: Translation as Rewriting and the Exploration of Registers

6.1.1 Kunitsufumi yoyo no ato: Translation as a Writerly Exercise

6.1.2 Utsushibumi warawa no satoshi: Moving between Registers

6.2 Nativists, Translation and Japanese as the National Language

6.2.1 Hori Keizan

6.2.2 Kamo no Mabuchi and Fujitani Nariakira

6.2.3 Motoori Norinaga's Views on Language

6.2.4 Motoori Norinaga and Intralingual Translation

6.2.5 After Norinaga

6.3 Hagiwara Hiromichi's Views and Exploration of the Foreign

6.4 Experiments in Inverse Translation

6.5 Late-Edo Kundoku

6.6 Revisionist and Revivalist Approaches

6.7 Meiji-Period Kundoku

6.8 Kundoku Register

6.9 Influence of Chinese

6.10 The Changing Status of China and Chinese

Theorising Japanese Translational Practices

7.1 Awareness of Sinitic as Foreign

7.2 Perceptions of Kundoku Texts and Their Hybrid Register

7.3 Limitations of Kundoku

7.4 Advantages of Kundoku

7.5 Assumed Translation and Kundoku's Indeterminate Status

7.6 Views of Kundoku as a Method of Reading

7.7 Views of Kundoku as (a Kind of) Translation

7.8 Criticisms of and Alternatives to Assumed Translation

7.9 Kundoku Contrasted with Translation

7.10 Problems with Generic and Specific Definitions of Kundoku

7.11 Impact of Kundoku on Japanese Translation Praxis and Thinking

7.12 Cultural Aspects and Implications of Kundoku.

7.13 Kundoku Counterparts Elsewhere

7.14 Classification of Japanese Translational Approaches

7.15 Speech, Writing and Meaning

7.16 Implications for Translation Studies

7.17 Concluding Remarks

References

Index of Named Individuals

Index of Texts Cited

Index of Terms.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

90-04-74902-0

9789004749023

OCLC:

1560072646

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789004749023 DOI