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Article ID: CBB142366610

Translating Words, Building Worlds: Meteorology in Japanese, Dutch, and Chinese (2018)

Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Volume: 109
Issue: 2
Pages: 326-332

DOI: 10.1086/697993

URI: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/697993

Publication Date: 2018
Edition Details: Part of: "Focus: Translating Science over Time"
Language: English

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Cross-national interaction Meteorology Transmission of texts Transmission of ideas Translations 19th century China Netherlands Japan

Translations between languages that are grammatically and culturally distant reveal that translated texts are not the source but, rather, the result of an already ongoing process of conceptual transformation. Looking at the processes behind early nineteenth-century Japanese translations of Dutch works on barometers and thermometers, this essay argues that a translator’s task is first and foremost to construct a conceptual world that makes space for radically different forms of knowledge. The essay explores the processes that occur before the appearance of textual translation by tracing Japanese translators’ attempts to interpret foreign devices according to a worldview rooted in Chinese natural philosophy, as well as their experimentation with devices and their exploration of European concepts described in Jesuit writings in Classical Chinese. The essay argues that these processes brought about changes to the conceptual world of early nineteenth-century Japan and subsequently transformed the Japanese and Chinese languages.

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Article Sven Dupré (2018) Introduction: Science and Practices of Translation. Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 302-307). unapi

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