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Cross-cultural Translatability: Challenges and Prospects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2015

Zhang Longxi
Zhang Longxi*
Affiliation:
Department of Chinese and History, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong. E-mail: ctlxzh@cityu.edu.hk
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Abstract

In our quest of a new paradigm for cultural or cross-cultural understanding, we must first take a look at the very concept of a paradigm, as Thomas Kuhn expounded in his celebrated book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and the related concepts of incommensurability and untranslatability. Kuhn’s concepts have a significant influence on social sciences and the humanities, and they put an overemphasis on the difference and the impossibility of communication among different groups and cultures. Such a tendency has led to the fragmentization of the social fabric and the resurgence of a most tenacious tribalism. This essay launches a critique of such concepts and argues for the possibility and validity of cross-cultural understanding, and proposes world literature as an opportunity to embrace cross-cultural translatability as the first step towards a new paradigm in the study of different cultures in our globalized world today.

Type
Focus: A Dialogue of Cultures
Information
European Review , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , July 2015 , pp. 369 - 378
Copyright
© Academia Europaea 2015 

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References

References and Notes

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