Archives de catégorie : Colloques internationaux

Conference: Teaching Chinese Language and Translation to/from Chinese at a Crossroad

Vous trouverez toutes les informations concernant le colloque (dates, programmes, résumés des interventions, etc.) sur le site dédié, ICI.

All information concerning the conference (dates, programme, book of abstracts, etc.) can be found on the dedicated website, HERE.

有關本次研討會的全部信息(包括日期、會議日程、論文摘要集等),請參閱專門網站

Conference: The Margins of Translation in the East Asia Context

October 28, 2025
FTI-EII, Salle Polyvalente

Conference Program

8:30-9:00 Registration

8:45 Introduction

9:20-10:40 Session 1 : Ancient China

  • “Subtitling Cultural References: Strategies and Reception-Decoding the Art of War for the West” – Yuan Liang (University of Wales Trinity Saint David, online)
  • Rulin waishi on the Margins of Translations and Commentaries” – Anna Di Toro (Università per Stranieri di Siena, Italy)
  • “Between Poetic Euphemisms and Vulgarity: The Challenge of Translating Sex-Related Expressions in Jin Ping Mei” – Ondřej Vicher (Masaryk University, Czech Republic)

10:40-11:00 Coffee Break

11:00-12:00 Session 2 : Autotranslation vs. Collaborative Translation

  • “The Dramatization of the Translation or the Self-Translation of Xiaolu Guo” – Zha Mingfei (Université de Limoges, France)
  • “Collaborative Translation in the Chinese Studies Classroom: On the Move from the Margins to the Centre?” – Monika Gaenssbauer (Stockholms Universitet, Sweden, online)

12:00-14:00 Conference Lunch

14:00-15:20 Session 3 : Genre Literature

  • “Seta Teiji and the Translation of Tolkien’s Work in Japanese” – Enzo Le Guiriec (University Jean Moulin Lyon 3, France, online)
  • “Images, Words, Emotions. Exploring the Boundary Between Verbal and Non-Verbal in the Translation of Children’s Picture Books” – Paolo Magagnin (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italy)
  • “The Development of Japanese Detective Fiction: Hara Hoitsuan’s Two Translations of the Sherlock Holmes Series” – Yu Wenhsin (Kobe University, Japan)

15:20-15:40 Coffee Break

15:40-16:30 Session 4 : Regional Languages & Folklore

  • “A Case Study of Partial Non-Translation in Self-Translation of Contemporary Poetry” – Yulia Dreyzis (Independent Researcher, Russia, online)
  • “The Sinologist Pēteris Šmits and the Literary Reception of Ḳīniešu pasakas: A Bridge Between Cultures” – Anastasija Galkina (Daugavpils Universitāte, Latvia, online)

16:30 Conclusion

Colloque international : L’enseignement de la langue chinoise et de la traduction vers/depuis le chinois à la croisée des chemins (Appel)

À l’occasion des dix ans de l’inclusion du chinois comme langue de travail principale dans les cursus de l’université de Mons, le service ChinEAsT de la Faculté de Traduction et d’Interprétation – École d’Interprètes Internationaux de l’université de Mons a le plaisir d’annoncer l’organisation d’un colloque international consacré à l’enseignement de la langue chinoise et aux problématiques qui en découlent dans le champ de la traduction. Cette manifestation scientifique entend offrir un espace de réflexion et de dialogue autour des enjeux théoriques, méthodologiques et pratiques qui traversent la didactique du chinois langue étrangère et l’activité traduisante vers et à partir du chinois.

La langue chinoise a toujours occupé une place de choix au sein de l’EII puisqu’elle était déjà enseignée en ses murs il y a 40 ans, par le fondateur de l’ancien département de langue et de culture chinoises (aujourd’hui service ChinEAsT), Zhang Guoxian 张国宪, pionnier de la didactique du chinois en Belgique francophone et fondateur de l’ancêtre de l’Association Belgique-Chine 比中协会 et de la Chambre de commerce belgo-chinoise 比中经贸委员会. L’inclusion du chinois comme langue de travail principale faisant l’objet d’un cursus complet à la FTI-EII en 2015 a reçu un accueil très favorable des étudiants, qui ont afflué afin de suivre cette nouvelle formation.

Dans un contexte marqué par la diffusion croissante de la langue chinoise au sein des établissements d’enseignement supérieur, la question de la traduction – qu’elle soit littéraire, technique, spécialisée ou pédagogique – occupe une place centrale dans la formation des apprenants et des futurs traducteurs. Ce colloque ambitionne de croiser les perspectives disciplinaires et d’ouvrir un débat sur les pratiques, les innovations pédagogiques ainsi que les horizons théoriques susceptibles de renouveler l’approche du chinois et de sa traduction.

Axes thématiques possibles (non exhaustifs)

  • Théories et pratiques de la didactique du chinois langue étrangère ;
  • Innovations pédagogiques et technologies numériques appliquées à l’enseignement du chinois ;
  • Stratégies d’apprentissage et évaluation des compétences linguistiques et traductionnelles ;
  • Théorie de la traduction et études de cas portant sur le chinois ;
  • Dimension interculturelle et transfert de référents culturels dans la traduction du chinois ;
  • Formation et professionnalisation des traducteurs spécialisés en chinois ;
  • Approches comparées et perspectives interdisciplinaires sur l’enseignement et la traduction du chinois.

Modalités de soumission

Les propositions de communication (résumé de 300 à 500 mots, accompagné de 5 mots-clés et d’une brève notice bio-bibliographique) devront être soumises à l’adresse suivante : chineast@alumni.umons.ac.be. Les communications pourront être présentées en français, en chinois ou en anglais.

Calendrier

  • Date limite de soumission des propositions : 28/11/2025.
  • Notification aux auteurs : 19/12/2025.
  • Colloque : Mons (Belgique), du 16 au 17/03/2026.

Publication

À l’issue du colloque, une sélection des contributions pourra faire l’objet d’une publication collective, après évaluation par le comité scientifique.

The Margins of Translation in the East Asian Context (CFP)

UMONS (Belgium), 28 October 2025

This conference is the first of a biennial conference cycle launched by the ChinEAsT (Chinese and East Asian Languages, Translation and Cultures) laboratory of the University of Mons.
As one of the most significant topics to have emerged in the field of translation studies, the concept of “margins” is both intriguing and intricate. In its most fundamental sense, the term denotes the vacant spaces that encompass a text. In the figurative sense, however, it also symbolizes the scope for creativity and interpretation available to the translator during the translation process.
The act of translation is a complex, creative process that requires a keen understanding of cultural nuances, intertextuality, and contextual references (sometimes conveyed by idioms). This is all the more true in the East Asian context, since historically China, Japan and Korea, due to their relative isolation, have developed cultures that are markedly different from those of the West. Consequently, translators working with East Asian languages are frequently confronted with challenging decisions that may, at times, appear to deviate from the literal interpretation of the source text.
The concept of margins is indeed linked with the notions of fidelity and adaptation. As a matter of fact, it is often in the “margins” that ambiguity reigns, forcing the translator to navigate the complexities of stylistic and cultural choices and draw the line between fidelity to the source text and adaptation to the target culture. What is the role of the translator as an interpreter of the author’s intentions? By manipulating the margins of the translation, can a translator risk distorting the original message? This raises a crucial question: to what extent can a translator deviate from the source text without compromising the integrity of the translation? As we can see, the margins of translation encompass not only linguistic considerations, but also ethical and philosophical implications.
The margins of translation also address the question of how the text is received by its new audience. Each translation constitutes a discrete iteration of the text, shaped by the socio-cultural context in which it is produced. The way readers perceive the translation is contingent upon the decisions made by the translator in these margins, which can impact the interpretation and appreciation of the text. In this way, the margins become spaces for dialogue, wherein the translator, as an intermediary between the original author and the new target readership, can facilitate cultural transfers and exert influence over the meaning and effect that a text will have.
Essentially, the margins of translation thus represent a space for reflection and creation, in which linguistic, cultural, and ethical concerns converge. They permit an understanding of translation beyond the act of linguistic transfer, as a human activity replete with meaning and interpretation. The margins of translation also lead to think about the very nature of translation and the responsibilities incumbent on the translator. They can become channels of inventiveness, through which the translator becomes a true creator.
For this inaugural conference, we encourage researchers and translators working with East Asian languages and with an interest in the marginal aspects of translation to share their observations and research. No limit is imposed to the exploration of the margins of translation, and the list of areas of study below is purely indicative:

1. Geographical margins: the literature of minorities or those considered as such, as well as those of exile.
2. Textual margins: the role of peritext, paratext, and critical commentary in the process of translation.
3. Linguistic margins: translating interactions between the dominant language and its local and dialectal variants, or translating literature exclusively written in dialect.
4. Chronological margins: the impact of sequels or adapted texts on the choices made in translation.
5. Sexual margins: the specific considerations involved in translating texts that explore sexuality, including erotic literature and alternative sexuality (including those identified as LGBTQQIAAP).
6. Political margins: the translation of texts that express dissent or a militant commitment, and the ethical issues that arise in such cases.
7. Teaching margins: the translation of texts that are not included in the curriculum, or have become obsolete, for example, to contribute to the history of science.
8. Margins of the act of translating: texts that are deemed untranslatable.
9. Literary margins: the category of so-called paraliterature, which includes genres that are considered “minor” (SF, fantasy, mystery, horror, romance, comics, graphic novel…).

Contributors are encouraged to engage in reflection and discourse on the study of these margins in their multifaceted diversity.

Abstracts (in English) of 300 words (excluding bibliography) should be submitted to chineast@alumni.umons.ac.be by 15 March 2025.
You will be informed of the outcome of your submission by early May.

The Cultural Logistics of Chinese and Sinophone Science Fiction

Les 25 et 26 mars 2024 se tiendra à Fribourg (Suisse) la conférence internationale The Cultural Logistics of Chinese and Sinophone Science Fiction organisée par le département de géosciences de l’Université de Fribourg, et à laquelle Loïc Aloisio participera. Le comité scientifique est composé de Christine Bichsel (Université de Fribourg), Lorenzo Andolfatto (Université de Fribourg), Chiara Cigarini (Université Ca’ Foscari de Venise) et Hu Jueling (Université de Fribourg). Pour de plus amples informations, n’hésitez pas à visiter le site internet dédié à la conférence ICI. Vous trouverez également le programme ci-dessous : Continuer la lecture de The Cultural Logistics of Chinese and Sinophone Science Fiction

Escapade scientifique à Hong Kong (CUHK)

En décembre 2023, Kevin HENRY et Manon HAYETTE se sont envolés pour deux semaines à Hong Kong, où ils ont chacun pris part à une conférence internationale en tant qu’intervenants et auditeurs.

Kevin Henry a démarré ce marathon avec le colloque « Translation Studies and Digital Humanities » (8–9 décembre) organisé par le Centre for Translation Technology de la Chinese University of Hong Kong et notamment placé sous les auspices de la conférencière invitée Lynne Bowker, pionnière de l’introduction des nouvelles technologies numériques en traductologie. À cette occasion, le chef du service ChinEAsT a proposé une communication orale intitulée « A Golden Opportunity? Towards a Digital-informed Literary Translation Criticism Model », présentation qui poursuivait les travaux entamés à Turku en les replaçant dans le cadre des humanités numériques.

En bout de course, Manon Hayette est retournée à la Chinese University of Hong Kong, où elle est intervenue lors de la quatrième édition de la prestigieuse « International Conference on Chinese Translation History » autour du thème « Translation and Power » (14-16 décembre). Choisie parmi quelque 250 candidats (sur 150 restants), elle y a présenté une communication intitulée « Derrida as a Lever of Power: On the Translation of Ghosts of Marx in China », où elle est revenue sur la manipulation d’un écrit de Jacques Derrida pour servir l’appareil marxiste chinois. Entre les deux conférences, les deux membres du service ChinEAsT ont profité de leur séjour en Chine pour échanger leurs points de vue avec de nombreux experts en traductologie du monde sinophone et envisager des collaborations potentielles avec les universités locales.

Colloque IPCITI à Édimbourg

Du 23 au 24 novembre 2023, Manon Hayette s’est rendue en Écosse pour prendre part à l’International Post-graduate Conference in Translation and Interpreting, qui se déroulait à la Heriot-Watt University d’Édimbourg. Devant un public majoritairement constitué de doctorants, elle y a présenté une communication orale intitulée « Translating Chinese Idioms Chengyu with AI and CAT Tools: Finally a Path out of the Woods? », directement liée à son sujet de thèse. Saluée par ses pairs, son exploration des manières d’intégrer l’étude de corpus, la traduction automatique et l’intelligence artificielle à la traduction littéraire, croisée avec la phraséologie, a ouvert la voie à un nouvel axe de recherche prometteur pour le service ChinEAsT.

Colloque TREXTUALITY à Turku

Du 7 au 9 septembre 2023, Kevin Henry et Manon Hayette ont participé au colloque international TREXTUALITY Interdisciplinary Approaches to Translated and Multilingual Texts, à l’Université de Turku, en Finlande. Ils y ont conjointement présenté une communication intitulée « Interpret with Caution! For a Corpus-informed Textual Criticism of Zhang Ailing’s Works Translated into French », dans laquelle ils ont évoqué l’ébauche d’un nouveau modèle de critique de la traduction littéraire, l’un des sujets phares du service ChinEAsT. Par ailleurs, lors de cette même conférence, Manon HAYETTE a également eu l’honneur de présider une session consacrée aux « digital tools ».

The 4th East Asian Translation Studies Conference (EATS4)

Du 30 juin au 2 juillet 2022 se tiendra à Paris la 4th East Asian Translation Studies Conference, sur le thème « On the Conflicting Universals in Translation: Translation as Performance in East Asia », à laquelle trois membres du service ChinEAsT participeront au sein du panel « Between the Universal and the Particular: French-Language Literature and Thought in 20th Century China » (Room 479C) de 16h à 18h aux côtés d’une collègue de l’Université de Paris (par ailleurs organisatrice du colloque) :

  • Florence Xiangyun Zhang (Université de Paris) : « Je or nous? Translating the Universal of the Singular Plural »A psychiatrist, philosopher and theorist of decolonisation, Frantz Fanon is an author that cannot be categorised. Although he has been relatively ignored for decades in France, he has enjoyed great popularity in the USA and many other countries. His first book, Peau noire, masques blancs (Black Skin, White Masks), was translated into English in 1967, and then re-translated in 2008; while his last and most famous essay, Les Damnés de la terre (The Wretched of the Earth), was published in English and other languages since 1963, and retranslated in 2004. However, historical circumstances did not allow the Martinican author to get well known in China during the Cold War years, and none of his works had been introduced into Chinese before 2005. It is from the perspective of a retranslation of Black Skin, White Masks in Chinese that we approach this work. Although there are many different Fanonian studies, everyone agrees that, apart from its philosophical and psychological content, Black Skin, White Masks is also a literary work. Its style is both academic and poetic, rich in philosophical, psychological, psychoanalytical and ethnological references, critical quotations from literary works, long narrative passages, meticulous descriptions and lyrical exclamations. This paper aims to illustrate the singular problems that this essay presents for translators. This is especially true when Fanon juxtaposes the pronouns “I” and “we” in a disturbing fashion, as the linguistic subject blurs the distinction between thought and existence (is the person a real figure or a mere construct?) and mixes singular feeling and plural pathos. Indeed, the first translation of Black Skin, White Masks into English suggests an attempt to “re-arrange” these subjects. Through an in-depth analysis of Fanon’s language, we could detect the singularity of the “we” and the plurality of the “I”, from which the universal of Fanon’s thought could be transmitted.
  • Kevin Henry (Université de Mons) : « A bird’s-eye view: On the Translations of Maeterlinck and The Blue Bird in China »Our paper, which intersects the fields of literature, translation and Chinese studies, is part of a research project in the University of Mons. This initiative, financed by the National Fund for Scientific Research of French-speaking Belgium (FNRS), aims at investigating the position of French-speaking Belgian literature in the global cultural heritage, through the lens of translation. In a first step, we will introduce the genesis and the main lines of this enterprise, which includes setting up a bibliographic database and a text corpus online that will provide an exhaustive list of the translations of works by French-speaking Belgian writers. That tool, which fills a major gap, intends to offer a collection of relevant quantitative data to answer the following questions: Which works by Belgian authors have been translated? Thanks to which mediators have they been produced? Based on these premises, we will outline our personal project, devoted to the influence of the symbolist playwright Maurice Maeterlinck, to date the only Belgian Nobel Prize winner for literature (1912), within the Chinese world. We will show that, from the 1920s onwards, this prominent figure of Belgian symbolism was well known, translated and appreciated in China. Thus, during the so-called Republican period (1911–1949), more than twenty translations of his plays were issued, some of them by major authors such as Mao Dun, Dai Wangshu and Tian Han. After the Maoist interlude, two new anthologies of Maeterlinck’s works were then released in 1982 (theatre) and 1997 (all genres); subsequently, between 2000 and 2018, translations of the playwright’s essays were the subject of at least 37 publications (in the form of monographs or anthologies). In the last section, we will discuss the case of the play L’Oiseau bleu (The Blue Bird), which, after three Chinese versions during the Republican period, gave rise to more than 150 translations or (intersemiotic) adaptations from the 1980s onwards, in a very wide variety of formats. Using a model combining translation criticism, qualitative corpus analysis and sociology of translation, we will show that the so-called retranslation hypothesis is not confirmed when we see the evolution of The Blue Bird in China, towards a complete reappropriation of the fictional material of the play. At the end, we will try, through the assessment of two renditions of this “fairy play”, to understand its exceptional fate in China.
  • Manon Hayette (Université de Mons) : « Deconstructing the Chinese Différance: An Analysis of the Reception of Derrida’s Essay Of Grammatology in China »The French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, who created and embodied the deconstruction movement, was one of the most influential post-structuralist thinkers of his time, and consequently, one of the most controversial personalities of the 20th century (Stocker, 2006, back cover). Derrida’s works such as the Of Grammatology (De la Grammatologie, 1967a), Speech and Phenomena (La Voix et le Phénomène 1967b) and Writing and Difference (L’Écriture et la Différence, 1967c), in which he coined some of his most revolutionary concepts such as Différance, Logocentrismn and Aporia, have been incredibly successful and have established his reputation as an intellectual in Europe as well as in the United States. Despite this n, prominence, Derrida was still disregarded by his peers, who considered deconstruction a “fake philosophy” because of its applications in domains such as linguistics, literature and cultural studies (Stocker, 2006, 3–6). However, the harsh criticism against Derrida has not impeded the global and lasting impact of his thinking, even beyond the Western world. Concerning China, a concrete illustration of Derrida’s influence can be found in the numerous productions that have been issued about the philosopher and deconstruction since the “reform and opening” policy in the early 1980s. Indeed, the National Library of China displays almost 3,500 works on Derrida, the first being an article by the expert in comparative literature 张隆溪 Zhang Longxi published in the literary magazine 读书 Dushu (which was instrumental in introducing Western philosophy in China) in 1983, with quotations from Writing and Difference and Of Grammatology. However, it is quite striking to observe that the Chinese readers had to wait until 1999 to get their hands on the complete version of Derrida’s most notorious essay, Of Grammatology, which will be further studied in the present communication. This essay was translated under the title 《论文字学》Lun wenzixue by 汪堂家 Wang Tangjia, an influent professor at Fudan University and specialist of modern French philosophy. After an introduction to Derrida’s work and a look at its transfer into Chinese from an historical point of view, the translations of the above-mentioned key terms of deconstruction (Difference, Logocentrism and Aporia) will be investigated in Wang Tangjia’s version of Of Grammatology through the lenses of translation criticism and corpus analysis tools, to determine how the Chinese academic public was able to grasp Derrida’s thinking.
  • Loïc Aloisio (Université de Mons) : « Translation and Reception of French-language Science Fiction Literature in China, From the Late Qing (1860-1911) to Date »Chinese science fiction has acquired a sudden visibility in recent years, notably thanks to the recognition provided twice by the Hugo Award, for the best novel in 2015 (《三体》 The Three-Body Problem, by 刘慈欣 Liu Cixin) and for the best novelette in 2016 (《北京折叠》 Folding Beijing, by 郝景芳 Hao Jingfang). Science fiction literature in China has nonetheless more than a hundred years’ history in which it has experienced tumultuous development. The Chinese were first introduced to SF through several translations of Western and Japanese works, which had a great impact on promoting and supporting the rise and flourishing of the genre in the country. It is well known that throughout the 20th century successive translation waves occurred in China in line with the political climate of the time. Indeed, the Maoist period was marked by the massive influx of productions from the Soviet Union, including science fiction novels and short stories. Concurrently, since the end of the 19th century, the English-written SF works have been the most prevalent in the Chinese polysystem. But what about French-language science fiction literature? Apart from Jules Verne, who was the first Western SF writer introduced in the Middle Kingdom, which French-speaking authors have been translated in Chinese, and what significance have they had in China since the late Qing? That is what this paper aims to clarify, by looking at authors from the nineteenth century (such as Jules Verne and J.-H. Rosny aîné) to the twenty-first century (such as Elisabeth Vonarburg and Alain Damasio). We will try to find out the proportion and the importance of French-language science fiction works in the literary SF landscape in China, including productions from France, Belgium, Switzerland, Quebec, and other French-speaking countries.

Pour le programme complet, voir la page dédiée ICI.