Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explains the relations between translation and literature in three East Asian cultures, namely, China, Japan and Korea. It explores the connections and contrasts that appear within the full spectrum of linguistic and literary negotiations. The book presents Christopher Potts’s multi-modal, expressive semantics and Michael Halliday and Christian Matthiessen’s systematic functional linguistics. It sets out to trace some of the varied translational activities surrounding Bai Juyi’s poetry in premodern Japan, exploring how they might suggest a more flexible and inclusive model of translation. The book asserts that it is important to recognise the role of the translator. But it also argues for the primacy of the translator’s discretion. Translation studies involving East Asia have demonstrated that there is a significant asymmetry between translating East Asian material into English and English material into East Asian languages.