Quarterly Essay 52: Found in Translation cover art

Quarterly Essay 52: Found in Translation

In Praise of a Plural World

Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 Months Free

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Get this deal
Offer ends on 15 July 2026 at 11:59 BST.
More purchase options

Quarterly Essay 52: Found in Translation

By: Linda Jaivin
Narrated by: Linda Jaivin
Get this deal

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £3.29

Buy Now for £3.29

Whether we’re aware of it or not, we spend much of our time in this globalised world in the act of translation. Language is a big part of it, of course, as anyone who has fumbled with a phrasebook in a foreign country will know, but behind language is something far more challenging to translate: culture. As a traveller, a mistranslation might land you a bowl of who-knows-what when you think you asked for noodles, and mistranslations in international politics can be a few steps from serious trouble.

But translation is also a way of entering new and exciting worlds, and forging links that never before existed.

Linda Jaivin has been translating from Chinese for more than thirty years. While her specialty is subtitles, she has also translated song lyrics, poetry and fiction, and interpreted for ABC film crews, Chinese artists and even the English singer Billy Bragg as he gave his take on socialism to some Beijing rockers.

In Found in Translation, she reveals the work of the translator and considers whether different worldviews can be bridged. She pays special attention to China and the English-speaking West, Australia in particular, but also discusses French, Japanese and even the odd phrase of Maori. This is a free-ranging essay, personal and informed, about translation in its narrowest and broadest senses, and the prism - occasionally prison - of culture.

©2013 Linda Jaivin. (P)2013 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
Linguistics Social Sciences China Imperial Japan
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
No reviews yet