Quote:
Originally Posted by ahi
Ok, so it's the attitudal component (is that a word/phrase?) that makes "foreign devil" a more appropriate translation?
- Ahi
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Ambiguity is one of the characteristics that translators have a love-hate relationship with in Chinese. It underscores certain ideological incongruities between what we think of as "Western" cultures, heavily defined and influenced by Greek philosophy, and what used to be called "Oriental" cultures (though most students of Asian Studies have to read Edward Said's "Orientalism" to cleanse themselves of that word and its inherent fallacy and racism).
I'm not certain where you're from, but I'll try to use an American analogy that has logical flaws but still gives a sense of how it can be interpreted.
Imagine a convenience store in Nebraska (a bit of irony there). There are 10 customers, one clerk, and another worker stocking aisles. One of the customers is a man of profound color, while the rest are of a more alabaster persuasion, and all are standing near the counter. The black man asks the clerk if they have any lubricious latex anatomy enclosures named after a famous Greek city that evokes images of a large wooden horse. The clerk yells back to his colleague "the black gentleman wants to know if we have any lubricious latex anatomy enclosures".
Same situation, different wording: "a black gentleman wants to know if we have any lubricious latex anatomy enclosures".
The articles "the" and "a" can carry significantly different semantic values. Sensitivity is more subjective and variable. As you may know, Chinese lacks these articles altogether, as well as many other things like plurals and countable/uncountable variations or the manifold arbitrary prepositions that nevertheless contain value in English.
I don't translate 鬼佬 as "foreign devil", though it can be used in such a way, and it does sometimes roll off the tongue in a way that emanates disdain. Even the simple and generally matter-of-fact 外國人
waiguoren or casual 老外
laowai can be used in such a way. I think the "foreign devil" is more a translation of convention and history, rather than one of direct semantic accuracy. Racism, whether manifest negatively or positively (in the form of racial sycophancy), is rampant in this part of the world, though when I think of many of the foreigners I know here in East Asia, I am often surprised the negative attitudes aren't more common.
We minorities often lean one direction when interpreting the ambiguity presented by the language. I myself am fairly sensitive to it, and whenever someone unnecessarily refers to me as a foreigner, I get mildly offended. When done with casual slurs (again, political correctness isn't really important here), I'm even more likely to take it negatively, even if the statement was done without implied negativity. I certainly know better, but my individuality is trampled nevertheless as I am clumped, for better or for worse, with all other people who were born somewhere else, and the potential stereotypes thereof.
Oh and thanks Derek for the reminder. I almost forgot the title of the thread
