Sinología hispánica. China Studies Review

The Image of Chinese Law in the Writings of European Missionaries of the 16th Century

He Yan — 2024-03-11

In the mid-1600s, European missionaries journeyed to China, producing a wealth of travel diaries, scholarly writings, and reports. These missionaries meticulously documented China's political and legal systems. This study delves into the Ming Dynasty missionaries’ interpretations of Chinese law, highlighting the historical context and its mutual influence with European culture. Our findings indicate that, during a certain period, Chinese law was portrayed in European culture as the cultural “other”. This representation not only served as a self-examination and reflection for European culture but also mirrored its understanding of its own cultural identity. While grounded in reality, these descriptions largely represent European cultural projections.

Between East and West: Reassessing and Rediscovering Pearl S. Buck

Mario Santander Oliván — 2024-03-11

This paper is intended to be a tribute to the figure of Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973) on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of her death, reassessing and rediscovering her popularity in the West, her experience in China, and her literary authority worldwide. Pearl S. Buck was one of the most popular and controversial American writers of the 20th century. Her work was crucial in the perceptions of Westerners in general and Americans in particular of China and in promoting a stronger cultural understanding between the West and the East. Pearl S. Buck spent a considerable time in China, which gave her some authority to speak, write, and opine about that country. But what kind of authority? Why have her works been translated to more than a hundred languages and been read by millions of people around the world? Why does she still remain one of the least studied writers in the Western literary history? From what point of view should her writing be analysed? Is she still a popular author in the 21st century? This paper attempts to answer these and other questions related to the figure of Pearl S. Buck and is intended as an invitation to discuss a topic that needs further research in the field of East Asian Studies.

Exploring a New Paradigm of Translation Criticism: Analysis of Spanish Translations of Jin Ping Mei's Homosexual Texts

Xu Liang — 2024-03-11

A large number of Chinese literary works have been translated into Spanish and entered the Spanish market. Considering the differences between Chinese and Spanish languages and cultures, it is imperative to establish a model of criticism applicable to Chinese-Spanish translations. Therefore, in this article we studied significant proposals in the West (principally in Spanish-speaking countries) and in China to establish a new structure for translation criticism. Furthermore, we choose the homosexual texts in Jin Ping Mei as the object of analysis, and verify the feasibility of this critical paradigm from the linguistic (semantic and syntactic, rhetorical and stylistic), extra-linguistic (cultural and philosophical), and pragmatic perspectives, in order to determine a relatively objective textual norm and value standard.

“The Lecturer is Like a Housemaid”: the Position of Women Revealed by Female Metaphor Vehicles in Chinese

Li Hongying — 2024-03-11

Previous studies have shown that many metaphors conceptualize “women” in a derogatory way to present negative opinions about them. However, the issue of how “women” being metaphor vehicles function in discourse has rarely been addressed. This paper applies a discourse dynamics approach to conduct a multidimensional analysis of the linguistic, cognitive, affective, and socio-cultural-historical contexts of the 25 female metaphor vehicles identified in the modern Chinese novel Wei Cheng. The aim is to shed light on how this type of metaphors reflect the ideas, attitudes, and values towards women in Chinese discourse. The results show that, through highlighting certain negative features of their topics (i.e., male characters, female characters, university faculty and other non-human objects), these female metaphor vehicles at the same time display a corresponding view on women. Crucially, considering the historical background of the novel and the high degree of lexicalization of some of these metaphors in Chinese, these metaphor vehicles present a sexist view of women in traditional Chinese society and contribute to reinforce female gender stereotypes.

The Influence of Federico García Lorca on Dai Wangshu’s Left-Wing Poetry Creation: The Theme of Death

Song Jiajing — 2024-03-11

Federico García Lorca was one of the representative poets of the Generation of ’27. His works demonstrate a strong opposition against the Spanish fascism. His contemporary poet Dai Wangshu got inspiration from his poems, which changed the direction of the Chinese poet’s creation. García Lorca’s comprehension of death led Dai to think over death, a theme he had never touched upon in his earlier poems. Dai got rid of his fear of death and started to express his understanding of death in his poems against the Fascist Japanese invaders at that time. Adopting an approach of the Aesthetic of Reception, the present article intends to analyze how García Lorca, his attitudes towards death and his way of putting it in his poems, made a deep left-wing influence on the Chinese poet.

A Contrastive Study of the Translator’s Behaviour in English and Spanish Translations of Metaphors in Xi Jinping: The Governance of China

Jiang Chang — 2024-03-11

This study examines the English and Spanish translations of metaphors in Xi Jinping: The Governance of China (I-III) within the theoretical framework of Translator Behavior Criticism. In the description of the translators’ behavioral tendencies and diachronic changes, differences are identified between the English and Spanish translating teams with regards to their philosophy of translation, which leads to an analysis of the social motivations of the translators’ behaviors within the field of political discourse translation in China. The following findings have been derived: 1) The Spanish translation is faithful to the form of expression of the ST, which suggests a translators’ behavioral tendency towards the “truth-seeking” principle. The English translation is freer since it upholds a semantic rather than formal equivalence to the ST, suggesting that the English translating team is more oriented towards the “utility-attaining” principle than their Spanish counterparts. 2) Observed from a diachronic perspective, the English translating team always maintained a balance between the two above-mentioned principles in translating the metaphors and their “truth-seeking” and “utility-attaining” behaviors were both enhanced in their translation of the third volume. The Spanish translating team always tilted towards the “truth-seeking” principle, demonstrating just a slight increase of “utility-attaining” behavior throughout their translation of the three volumes. 3) There is an evident difference between the English and Spanish translating teams regarding their “philosophy of faithfulness”. A “semantic” faithfulness with pragmatic concerns advocated by the former team is becoming the mainstream norm governing the current field of political discourse translation in China.

Research Status and Current Problems of Corpus Linguistics in China

Liao Yue — 2024-03-11

After more than 40 years of development, China has made significant achievements in corpus-based research, while problems still remain: corpus-based studies of linguistic phenomena are not thorough enough, practice and research have not yet been bridged, and while the English corpus has made significant progress, the multilingual one lag far behind. It has become urgent to accelerate the construction of corpora in China to keep pace with international corpora. With the development of linguistics research on Chinese corpus and corpus construction in China as the research object, this study has adopted both diachronic and synchronic research methods, combing the history and current studies in corpus linguistics in China systematically. The paper is designed to summarize the current bottlenecks and problems of Chinese corpus construction with academic consensus, and to comprehensively and objectively analyze the problems in Chinese corpus linguistics research and the difficulties in solving these problems. Hopefully, it could draw the attention of academic circles in China and abroad, provide international experience in advanced corpus construction, solve the problems restricting the development of Chinese corpus, and promote corpus linguistics research and corpus construction in China.

Contrastive Study of the Semantics of White and Black in Spanish and Chinese Phrases

Wang Yuecheng — 2024-03-11

The present work establishes a corpus that includes the phraseological units comprising “white” and “black” in 8 Spanish dictionaries and 6 Chinese dictionaries, within which a quantitative and qualitative analysis is carried out on the semantics of said phraseological units. The study discovers that through the metaphorical and metonymic process, similar figurative meanings come mainly from the physical perception of the environment and one's own colors, and the different meanings are motivated by cultural specificity, especially religions, superstitions, mythologies and legends; in Spanish, the figurative meanings of white and black constitute a violent contrast, while this antagonism is blurred in Chinese. Furthermore, in both languages, black is mainly associated with negativity, but the connotation of white is mixed and complicated; in the corpus, white in Chinese belongs to broader grammatical classes, which not only serves as a noun or adjective, but also a verb and adverb; and the verbalized white in Chinese is usually associated with “speak” and the adverbialized one is linked to the meanings “in vain” or “without cost.”

Review and perspectives of the strategic partnership China European Union

Georgina Higueras — 2024-03-11

The author proposes a commitment to dialogue and good relationships. In summary, she says that the world needs a Europe of peace, dialogue and negotiation, so as not to be the scene of hostilities and in this way, to become an actor to fully participate in the birth of the more just and inclusive multipolar world, which China seeks. Therefore, the author suggests that it is a time for cooperation and not for hegemonic powers, for collaboration and not for conflicts. The comprehensive strategic partnership has been extremely economically beneficial for both China and the European Union. As great defenders of peace and security through dialogue and diplomacy, China and the EU have many possibilities for cooperation: China needs Europe, as Europe needs China. Beijing and Brussels defend their commitment to multilateralism, written in the DNA of the Union, and adopted by China as a tool to continue advancing its development, but their different visions on the role and direction that international institutions should take limit a much-needed cooperation in global governance. They have a complicated journey to trust, cooperation, mutual benefit and equity, but they are moved by different values and rhythms. Therefore, the author suggests that the future of bilateral relations and their comprehensive strategic partnership depends on the two parties learning to dialogue from new realities and committing to building trust and respecting each other.