Translation Principles and Agenda Revealed by Jackson Tan

In Sections 3.2, examples are offered as to how Tan and Young paratextually explain the SL information. This section contains examples of translations explicitated by both translators.

In his 2008 translation of Swinhoe’s narratives, Tan started to sprinkle his narration with self-translated quotations. Before that took place, Tan tended to append simply footnotes to add supplementary information, as is done by most translators. Nevertheless, some of the new information is more than supplementary. In Example Tan-00 below, for instance, Tan appended a footnote specifically explaining his reason for inserting new information into a translation for

39 A publication mentioned in Subsection 1.3.3

the translated version of The Japanese expedition to Formosa, a book published in 1875 by Japan-based American journalist Edward Howard House detailing the 1871 Mudan Incident.

Example Tan-00

Whilst the cooking progressed, a few of the Japanese subalterns, following the

unconquerable instinct of their race, sought out tubs of water and, divesting themselves of the greater part of their clothing, proceeded to refresh themselves with an extemporized bath. (House, 1875/1984, p. 40)

熱騰騰的大鍋水煮開了，負責調理的婦女正想將食物丟入烹煮，幾位搞不清楚狀況、

愛好洗澡的低階軍官情不自禁的寬衣解帶，下體只著一條「渾兜西」，在目瞪口呆 的村人面前，公然享受泡澡的樂趣。(House, 1875; Tan, Trans., 2008, p. 64)

In this scene, where several low-ranking Japanese officers took off their clothes in front of shufan women to enjoy a hot bath, Tan assumes that these Japanese men must have been wearing a fundoshi (a traditional Japanese undergarment). Despite no further evidence

supporting his assumption, he explicitly adds that information for the sole purpose of “making the sentence clearer” by rendering “divesting themselves of the greater part of their clothing” as

“寬衣解帶，下體只著一條「渾兜西」” [undressed themselves until they were just in their fundoshi]⁴⁰ (House, 1875; Tan, Trans., 2008, p. 64).

There is yet another addition, with Tan translating “Whilst the cooking progressed” as

“熱騰騰的大鍋水煮開了，負責調理的婦女正想將食物丟入烹煮” [women who were

40 The original footnote reads: “豪士文中並無 Fundoshi, [sic] 他只寫「脫去大部分的衣物」；筆者加入「渾兜西」， 使字句更明確。”

responsible for cooking were about to put food into the steaming hot pot of boiling water]. Tan does not explain the reason for explicitating this SL unit.

Beyond the textual level, Tan reveals in his first book⁴¹ his personal agenda: he wanted to clarify errors seen in historical records and filled some research gaps that could further be explored; he felt that he “gradually got out of a blocked world of knowledge” by searching domestic and foreign literature for supplementary data that can be added to his translation; he also expected the reader to “get outside the blockade together with him” (Dodd, 1888; Tan, Trans., 2002, p. 6).

To this end, Tan even made post-publication annotating efforts: he searched for new information even without reprinting possibilities. A case in point is his 2007 book, the second edition of his 2002 publication. With the publisher having ceased operation, he kept revising the published text and adding data without managing to have the new notes see the light of day.

Fortunately for Tan, a second edition was released thanks to his new admirer Wu-Nan Book, the publisher of almost the rest of his works. The second edition features in-text revisions as well as new annotations on almost every page in form of footnotes, which Tan regards as more correct interpretations of the historical facts (Dodd, 1888; Tan, Trans., 2007, p. 1-2).

Moreover, Tan appended footnotes and chronicles in order to faithfully unveil the causes and processes of historical events and to “make up for the insufficiencies” of the ST (House, 1875; Tan, Trans., 2003, p. 286). Tan’s agenda, manifested both textually and

paratextually, matches that of writers of literary journalism — uncovering and investigating a news story. In the translator’s preface to the 2008 publication (second edition of his 2003

41 Reference entry: Dodd, J. (1888/2002). Journal of a blockaded resident in North Formosa during the

Franco-Chinese War, 1884-5 [北台封鎖記: 茶商陶德筆下的清法戰爭 (Beitai fengsuoji chashang Taude bishia de Chingfa janjeng)]. (J. Tan, Trans.) Taipei, Taiwan: Formosa Aborigines.

translation of the same book by House), Tan expects researchers of Taiwan’s history to look into the sources of historical events and new, correct interpretations that he added to the new edition.

For readers who know little about the history, Tan expects them to the see his translation as an

“adventure novel” or “a war-themed piece of literary journalism,” because in this way they will

“have more fun reading” (House, 1875; Tan, Trans., 2008, p. 10).

As such, more examples to be discussed in Section 4.3 will bear witness to the agenda of Tan as a translator-reporter who treats his translation as a piece of literary journalism and

attempts to regale his readers with amusing interpretations. Tan’s entertaining explicitation, as I will argue in Section 5.1, serves to engage readers by playing up the entertainingness. The purpose of immersing the reader in a ST is in line with that of literariness, an element that underpins the structure of a work of literary journalism.