A Deaf Take on Non-Equivalence in Written Chinese Translation

A Deaf Take on Non-Equivalence in Written Chinese Translation examines the issue of lexical non-equivalence between written Chinese and Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL) translation, describing its theoretical and practical implications.
This research foregrounds the semiotic resources in the Deaf community of Hong Kong by analyzing translation strategies exhibited by Deaf Hongkongers when they were invited to translate written Chinese passages with specialized and culturally specific concepts in a monologic setting. With discourse analysis as a framework, the major findings of this research were that: (1) a taxonomy of strategies featured depiction, manual representations of Chinese characters and visual metonymy, writing and mouthing; (2) employment of multisemiotic and multimodal resources gave intended viewers access to different facets of meaning; and (3) repeated renditions of the same concepts gave rise to condensed, abbreviated occasionalisms.
Observations from this research serve as a point of reference for interpreting scholars, practitioners and students as well as policymakers who formulate interpretation service provision and assessment.

Chan Yi Hin was born and raised in Hong Kong and has been a Hong Kong Sign Language interpreter for over 15 years. She obtained her Master's in Deafhood Studies from Bristol University, UK. Since moving to the US in 2015, Yi Hin has received national certifications in both ASL/English (NIC) and Cantonese/English (NBCMI). She is also the first Asian graduate of the Ph.D. program in Interpretation and Translation from Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. In the US, she practices medical interpreting; while in Hong Kong, she is an interpreting practitioner, trainer and a published author on sign language interpretation, Deaf history and culture. The last name of the author is Chan and should be used in citations.

Acknowledgement Citing conventions Annotation conventions of language examples and translation data Chapter 1 Orientation to the sociolinguistic context of Deaf and hearing people in Hong Kong Chapter 2 Foundation concepts: translation studies and discourse analysis Chapter 3 Engaging the Deaf community in written Chinese translation studies Chapter 4 A taxonomy of Deaf translators' discourse strategies Chapter 5 How discourse strategies come together: intertranslator styles, construction of discourse space and translanguaging Chapter 6 Maintaining referents and their evolution Chapter 7 Guiding expectations Appendix I: Chinese source texts and their English translations Appendix II: list of target items Index