enigma, enigma

When “Western” and Chinese scholars were obsessed with whether the Ming-Qing China had “the” modernity, or “a” different modernity (e.g., the impact-response debates initiated by Fairbank and Levenson, the public sphere discussion based on Habermas with the 1993 conference), Lydia Liu moves from the “local character of Chinese modern” to that of the “discursive practices of twentieth-century Chinese intellectuals”, i.e., how Chinese intellectuals “imagined and talked about the Chinese xiandai conditions.”(xvii) With a focus on “discourse”, Liu would not surprise a reader when she adds Foucault’s The Archaeology of Knowledge and The Order of Things to her bibliography.

“A linguistic study of intellectual discourses under specific historical contexts” summarizes what this well-known book tries to do. The author specially coins the notion of “translingual practice” to “ground my study of an earlier moment of historical transaction between China and the West in language practices.(25)” “translingual practice” refers not to the history of translation, but instead “condition of translation.”

I use two keywords--- “discourse(language)” and “historical condition”---to sum up what Liu He tries to do, as against Foucault. Foucault claims that his book The Archaeology of Knowledge belongs to the debate on consciousness, human being, origin and subject. Largely in contrast to traditional philosophy of consciousness/mind, he instead focuses on “discourse.” Simply put, associated field turns sentences into statements; enunciative function turns statements into discourses. A Foucaultian study boils down to the study of “conditions”, what he calls associated fields.

Liu He’s theoretical ambition compares to that of Foucault. She addresses the issues of language and “translatability.” A paragraph added in the Chinese translation releases some message:

我們的困難來自語言本身的尷尬，它使我們無法離開有關國民性的話語去探討國民性（的本質），。。。這些話題要麼是禪宗式的不可言說，要麼就必須進入一個既定的歷史話語，此外別無選擇。因此，話語實踐、知識的來龍去脈以及各種概念和範疇的運作，就不能不上升到理論研究的第一位。（三聯，P103）

Similar to Foucault, Liu He chooses “condition”[of translation] to describe her core concern. Different from Foucault, Liu He adds “historical” to “condition,” rendering his study an examination of “historical conditions of linguistic practices.” From such a study Liu He tries to unveil the power relations and knowledge-producing mechanisms therein.

Alas! So far so good, and so beautiful. Once it enters into textual studies, however, it seems to lose all its clarity? Chapter 2 “Translating National Character: Lu Xun and Arthur Smith” examines the “myth of national character.” The argument boils down to that Lu Xun’s Ah Q learns from and adapts the Chinese national character depicted by Arthur Smith, thus counting as a “translingual practice”. To do justice to such a study, I need to go into details to explain how Liu He carries out her analysis, but I just feel it so hard to make connections between paragraphs and lines within a paragraph.

I admit failure in unpacking the chapters and stop my comment here.

續：on Chapter 2 Translating Chinese Characteristics

This chapter takes the invention of the myth of Chinese character as example to show how Lu Xun appropriates a concept about China that traveled from the West to Japan and back to China. It first traces the history of the concept “Chinese characteristics” coined by Bertrand Russel; then proves Lu Xun’s having read and talked about Chinese Characteristics written by Arthur Smith; and then discusses the literary source of the story of Ah Q, concluding that “Ah Q is a product of translingual practice after all! (73)”

Liu does not stop at such a discovery, but ventures to discuss how Lu Xun appropriates Smith’s concept. “Where does the question of national identity figure in this scenario?” By focusing on the narrator’s view in the story, Liu concludes that access to knowledge obtained through the omniscient narrative point of view penetrates the mind of Ah Q; and that the narrator’s ability to write entitles him to certain kinds of subjectivity denied to Ah Q. Lu Xun’s story thus creates not only an Ah Q but also a chinese narrator capable of analyzing and criticizing the protagonist. Such narratorial subjectivity, according to Liu, profoundly supersedes Smith’s totalizing theory of Chinese character, and creates an accusing subject, and agent of their own history. If Russel and Smith’s Chinese characteristics refers to a Chinese identity, Lu Xun’s criticism of it creates an identity of self-denial.

Liu’s analyses make two points: 1) cultural interaction across languages influenced Lu Xun’s writing; 2) such influence goes beyond simple translation, but includes appropriation and supersession. Does this complicate our understanding of “translingual practice”?