Editorial

A warm welcome to issue 13, guest-edited by Deborah Cao, and devoted to translation and interpretation in Chinese.

JoSTrans has long professed its desire to publish contributions beyond European and Western areas, but this is the first issue entirely devoted to non-Western topics.

The eight articles collected by the editor reflect the many angles offered by Chinese-speaking and writing cultures and the questions raised by their translations. While a limited volume can only propose a glimpse of their variety, points of view are diverse: Changshuan Li (Beijing), Wanlong Gao (Zhejiang), He Jing (Beijing) and He Sanning (Nanjing) are from mainland China, Yvonne Tsai from Taiwan, Min-Hsiu Liao currently based in the UK, while Leong Ko is resident in Australia. Nicky Harman’s article and interview reverse the perspective, bringing to the fore the questions of translating Chinese into English.

Subject fields considered are widely contrasting too: simultaneous interpreting (Changshuan Li), scientific translation (Min-Hsiu Liao), the translation of patents (Yvonne Tsai) and of texts related to tourism (Leong Ko, He Sanning), and even, unusually for this journal, literary translation (Wanlong Gao, Nicky Harman) are explored.  Some articles tackle specific issues of language transfer regardless of specialism: the mediation of puns (He Jing); the problems of coherence in relative clause transfer (Nicky Harman); or the choice of translation strategies, as influenced by prominent translators and tradition (Wanlong Gao).

Interviews of professionals primarily mirror the contents of this issue. Linda Liu and Ying Huang discuss their lives as freelance translators in London, while Nicky Harman shares her experience as a literary translator. Miguel Bernal’s interview on games localisation broadens the spectrum of this thematic issue which can be read as an introduction to an immense field of communication.

Lucile Desblache