University of Alberta Contemporary Translationese in Japanese Popular Literature by Yukari Fukuchi Meldrum A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Translation Studies Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies Department of East Asian Studies ©Yukari Fukuchi Mledrum Fall 2009 Edmonton, Alberta Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission. Examining Committee Dr. Anne Malena, Modern Languages and Cultural Studies Dr. Tsuyoshi Ono, East Asian Studies Dr. Anne Commons, East Asian Studies Dr. Geneviève Maheux-Pelletier, Modern Languages and Cultural Studies Dr. Ryan Dunch, History and Classics Dr. Kayoko Takeda, Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation, Monterey Institute of International Studies Abstract One of the main aims of this thesis is to examine the translational situation of popular fiction in post-industrial Japan. Specifically, the goal is to uncover two main aspects surrounding the phenomenon of translationese, the language used in translation. One aspect to be investigated is the characteristic features of Japanese translationese, and the other is readers’ attitudes toward translationese. This research is conducted within the framework of Descriptive Translation Studies (Toury, 1995). The literature review includes a background of how translationese has been approached previously and how methods from different fields (e.g., corpus linguistics, sociolinguistics) can be used in the research of translation. Through the review of the historical background of Japanese translationese and the development of Japanese writing styles, it is revealed that the translation norm in Japan had been very closely oriented toward the original text. In the text analysis, the corpora consist of translations from English and non- translations (i.e., originally written in Japanese) in the genre of popular fiction. The goal of the text analysis is to determine whether the features of translationese are actually characteristics of translationese. The features selected for this examination include the following: 1) overt personal pronouns; 2) more frequent loanwords; 3) female specific language; 4) abstract nouns as grammatical subjects of transitive verbs; and 5) longer paragraphs. Two features (third person pronouns and longer paragraphs) are shown to be characteristic of translationese, while others were proven otherwise or questionable (loan words, female language, abstract nouns as subjects of transitive verbs). Findings from the investigation of readers’ attitudes can help identify what constitutes the “norms” of translation (Toury, 1995, 1999) in Japanese society. Readers appear to be able to tell the difference between translation and non- translation. However, readers’ attitudes toward both translationese and non- translationese are more or less neutral or slightly positive. This may indicate that Japanese translationese has become integrated into the contemporary Japanese writing system and that readers do not regard translationese as overtly negative. This study shows that the major translation norm is becoming more domesticated translation in popular fiction, with the focus on making translations easier for the readers. Acknowledgement I would like to acknowledge and extend my profound gratitude to the following people and organizations for their contributions to this thesis: my primary supervisor, Dr. Anne Malena, for her patience, guidance, and kindness throughout and for giving me courage; Dr. Tsuyoshi Ono, Dr. Anne Commons, and Dr. Geneviève Maheux-Pelletier for valuable feedback on all or part of the drafts; Dr. Lynn Penrod for various types of unseen support throughout the program; Dr. Janice Brown for providing support before and at the start of the Ph.D. program; Dr. Ryan Dunch and Dr. Kayoko Takeda for taking part in my final examination; the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for funding my research (Award No. 752-2007-1341); the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies, the Department of East Asian Studies, the Faculty of Graduate Studies, the Graduate Students’ Association, and the Faculty of Arts for various forms of financial support; my friends and family, A. Akita, T. Baba, A. Bastiaansen, R. De Silva, R. Espischit, N.& T. Fukuchi, H. Kaneda, Y. Kazuhara, R. Klint, M. Noguchi, M. Okamoto, H. Okuyama, K. Owen, V. Prosolin, M. Takano, N. Velamkunneltony, T. Watanabe, K. Yamagata, Y. Yamamoto, Y. Yoshioka for assistance in conducting the survey and/or providing professional assistance; Dr. M. Sato and Dr. N. Ihara for providing me with copies of their publications upon request; all others whose names I did not mention but who participated in the survey and/or contributed in any form towards the successful completion of the dissertation; my family for their encouragement; Ms. S. Josey for her editorial assistance and continuous moral support; my cat Momo for keeping me company on my lap and my husband Dr. A. Meldrum for always being there for me. Table of Contents Chapter 1 Introduction…………………………………………………………..1 1.1 Theorizing and Studying Translation in Japan……………………3 1.2 Translation Studies: A new discipline……………………………17 Chapter 2 Translationese……………………………………………………….26 2.1 Introduction………………………………………………………26 2.2 Moving Away from Comparing Source Texts And Translation…27 2.3 Toward Socio-Cultural View of Translation Studies…………….29 2.4 Corpus-based approaches in Translation Studies: Translation Universals……………………………………………………...32 2.4.1 Corpus Linguistics: Focus on Actual Language………...33 2.4.2 Combining the Two: Descriptive Translation Studies and Corpus Linguistics…….………………………….35 2.4.3 Corpus-Based Translation Studies: Some Examples…….39 2.4.4 Challenges in Corpus-Based Translation Studies………..46 2.5 Conclusion……………………………………………….……….49 Chapter 3 Japanese Translationese: an Historical Overview……….…………..51 3.1 Introduction……………………………………………………….51 3.2 Chinese and Sino-Japanese……………………………………….54 3.3 Development of Kana and Changes in Literary Canons…………59 3.4 Writing Styles Based on European Languages and Popular Literature………………………………………………………….66 3.5 Various Translation Approaches: Meiji and later………………...75 3.6 Conclusion………………………………………………………..87 Chapter 4 A Corpus-Based Study of Contemporary Japanese Translationese...89 4.1 Introduction…………………………………….…………………89 4.2 Features of Japanese Translationese……………………………...91 4.2.1 Third Person Pronouns…………………………………..91 4.2.2 Katakana Loanwords…………………………………….93 4.2.3 Female-Specific Expressions…………………………….95 4.2.4 Abstract Nouns as Agents of Transitive Verbs………….97 4.2.5 Longer Paragraph Length………………………………..98 4.3 Methods…………………………………………………………..99 4.3.1 Popular Literature for Corpus……………………………99 4.3.2 Corpus Used for the Study…………………………...103 4.3.3 Other Computer Assistances…………………………...109 4.4 Results and Discussion………………………………………….112 4.4.1 Third Person Pronouns…………………………………112 4.4.2 Frequent Katakana Loanwords…………………………115 4.4.3 Overuse of “Female” Language………………………..119 4.4.4 Abstract Nouns as Grammatical Agents of Transitive Verbs………………………………..………..123 4.4.5 Longer Paragraph Length………………………………126 4.5 Conclusion………………………………………………………130 Chapter 5 Readers’ Attitudes toward Japanese Translationese in Popular Fiction……………………………..………………………………….132 5.1 Introduction……………………………………………………...132 5.2 Research Questions……………………………………………...134 5.2.1 Identifying Translationese and Attitude toward Translationese…………………………………………..135 5.2.2 Knowledge of Foreign Language and Attitude toward Translationese…………………………………..136 5.2.3 Preference of Foreign Literature and Attitude toward Translationese…………………………………..137 5.3 Methods…………………………………………………………138 5.3.1 Participants……………………………………………...138 5.3.2 Stimuli…………………………………………………..143 5.3.3 Passages for Stimuli…………………………………….145 5.3.4 Participants’ Tasks……………………………………...153 5.4 Results and Discussions…………………………………………154 5.4.1 Identifying Translationese and Attitude toward Translationese…………………………………………..154 5.4.2 Knowledge of Foreign Language and Attitude toward Translationese…………………………………………..171 5.4.3 Preference of Foreign Literature and Attitude toward Translationese…………………………………………..174 5.4.4 Results of the Interviews………………………………..177 5.5 Conclusion……………………………………………………….181 Chapter 6 Conclusion………………………………………………………….183 6.1 Translation of Popular Literature in Postindustrial Japan………..183 6.2 Foreignization or Source-Oriented Translation?...................189 6.3 Summary……………………………………………..…………...193 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………...196 Appendices…………………………………………………………………….219 Appendix A: A List of Translation Corpus (Japanese)…………….219 Appendix B: A List of Non-translation Corpus (Japanese)…………220 Appendix C: The Questionnaire……………………………………..221 Appendix D: Bar Graphs of Attitudes toward Translations and Non-Translations……………………………………...226