A Research On The Translation Of Historical Writing From The Presepctive Of Archive Fever

Jacques Derrida put forward the unique concept of “archive fever” in his book Archival Fever: A Freudian Impression in his later years.This concept has not been discussed in China until these past two years.Different from Derrida’s early deconstructive terms such as différance,archive fever provides us with a new perspective on the textual nature of history.This paper attempts to explore the applicability of this conceptual tool in the study of translation history,taking Liu Bannong’s Chinese translation of Lord Macartney’s journals written during his embassy to China,also known as Qianlong Yingshi Jinjian Ji,as an example.The Macartney Embassy to China was an important event in China’s modern diplomatic history.The failure of this diplomacy set the stage for the Opium Wars four decades later.During his visit to China,Macartney wrote valuable private journals,which are valuable historical archives for studying the history of The Macartney Embassy to China.In 1916,Liu Bannong translated Macartney’s journal into Chinese for the first time with the title of Qianlong Yingshi Jinjian Ji,which has become an important literature and reference for scholars to study this period of history.This paper systematically reviews the Chinese translation history of Macartney’s private journals over the past hundred years,and analyzes the translation of Macartney’s journals under the perspective of archives science.Macartney’s journals are a historical archive.This dissertation chooses the relevant archival theory proposed by Jacques Derrida in Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression as the theoretical framework,and analyzes Liu Bannong’s translation activities with the two core concepts of archive and archival fever.The study found that Liu Bannong’s role in this translation activity was not only the translator that is responsible for language conversion,but also the archivist.For the fundamental purpose of protecting archives and rewriting history,Liu Bannong began to translate Macartney’ journals,but in this process,Liu Bannong suffered from archive fever,that is,the destruction of the original archives.Liu Bannong’s destruction of the original archives is mainly reflected in two aspects.On the one hand,in the treatment of the archival narrative style,Liu Bannong rewrote part of Macartney’s journal into the form of dialogue,and modified the language with modest and respectful words.On the other hand,in regard to the specific archival text,Liu Bannong added the contents related to the Qing government,deleted the contents related to the Macartney mission,rewrote Macartney’s positive views on China in a negative way,and rewrote Macartney’s negative views on China in a positive wayThe main point of this dissertation is that Liu Bannong’s translation activities can be well explained through Derrida’s concept of archive fever.Liu Bannong’s translation of Macartney’s journals started from the purpose of protecting archives and rewriting history.However,it was in the process of trying to preserve the original historical archives through translation,and at the same time to revise or even rewrite the history of The Macartney Embassy to China,that Liu Bannong suffered from archive fever.The finity of the old or original archives and the desire to rewrite history made Liu Bannong only able to expropriate Macartney’s original archives to complete the management of the new archives and the rewriting of history,namely the completion of translation in translation studies.The innovation and research significance of this dissertation is that the innovative study of Liu Bannong’s translation activities under the perspective of archives science can help us better understand the nature of translation and the nature of translation history from a new perspective.If the original work is regarded as the personal archives of the original author,the translation is the new archives.Every translator is an archivist of the private archives of the original author,and every translation activity is the management of the private archives of the original author and the rewriting of the personal history of the original author.The translation history is the history composed of countless rewriting of personal histories.The translation of the original works implies the translator’s personal conception of history.The translation history is a kind of history of historiography.