Chinese Discourse on Translation as Intercultural Communication ——Ulterior Agendas of the Chinese Literati in their Collaborative Translation with Jesuit Missionaries in Late Ming and Early Qing

From the end of the 16th century (Ming Dynasty, the Wanli Emperor) to the late 18th century (Qing Dynasty, the Qianlong Emperor), there was an approximately two-hundred-year prosperous China-Europe cultural communication. Such cultural exchange was partly characterized by the essential role of printing that produced a large number of translations of Western works into Chinese, mainly attributed to Jesuits, which were usually completed through the collaborative endeavor of Chinese literati and Jesuit missionaries. This research aims to investigate and differentiate the roles played by Chinese literati in their collaboration with Jesuit missionaries in the translation of Western works in Late Ming and Early Qing where Chinese collaborators will be regarded as an intercultural community as a whole instead of on a personal level, to explore their ulterior agendas in the translational acts which are usually neglected or underestimated by the academy, and to observe the interaction between the two cultures in the space of a textual community of translations for a more comprehensive understanding of translation as intercultural communication. The research intends to take advantage of compilations of Chinese translations of Western works in Late Ming and Qing by modern scholars, examine paratexts such as prefaces and postscripts accompanying translated texts, and external texts including journals, letters and other collections of the writing of both Chinese literati and Jesuits. Moreover, Interaction and Communication Framework will be taken as the theoretical framework of the research, with the four types of interaction found in Intercultural Communication Studies (ICS), insights from translation studies as well as the paratextual theory, and concepts of internal, external history assisting in the discursive analysis.