The literary obsession in translation studies in china: a bibliometric study based on chinese translators journal and babel

Abstract

Translation studies in both China and the West seems to suffer from a literary obsession, as shown in a statistical analysis of articles published in Chinese Translators Journal and Babel over the time span of 1987–2016. Translations of literary works and translation studies based on literary theories have attracted too much attention from translation scholars. Translation studies scholars on the whole seem to be obsessed with studies on literary translations. The dominance of literary translation studies seems to have been easing in China while remaining obvious in the West. Such an obsession may be attributed to such factors as the tradition of translation studies in China, the importation of modern western translation theories and the academic background of translation scholars in China. The obsession is detrimental to the discipline of translation studies, blocks the development of new theories and methodologies in translation studies and undermines the influence of translation studies as a discipline. To offset these negative side effects, translation scholars should shift more attention to non-literary translation, taking more translations of non-literary texts and interpreting as study objects and employing more theories and methodologies from disciplines other than literary studies.