The Poetics of Recontextualization: Intertextuality in a Chinese Adaptive Translation of The Picture of Dorian Gray

A key mechanism in the reader's processing of a text (that is to say, its textualization) involves the building of connections between the signs within the text and the systems of signs beyond it. It can be said that because of the infinite possibilities for such connections, a reader can interpret the text in a myriad of ways, though always within the parameters set by the text as well as by what Stanley Fish has designated as the "interpretive community." Beginning with the literal meaning—or the dictionary meaning—conveyed by each and every word of the text, the reader can proceed to successively higher levels of textual configuration, focusing the reading strategies at his disposal on the task of integrating the individual elements into ever-expanding textual realms. In determining the exact significance of the parts, s/he relates them to various systems—which may be the entire text as a system, systems of other literary texts, or semiotic systems located in the "world out there."

The reader of a translation is most likely to be aided by his/her knowledge of, on the one hand, the source-system in which the text has its root, and on the other, the target system into which it is introduced. These two systems together provide virtually all the parameters needed for understanding to take place. The reader's degree of acquaintance with the two systems will inevitably determine the facility with which s/he interprets the translated text, as well as the possibility of his/her coming to more reliable—if not more correct—interpretations. But in addition s/he, as interpreter, will be greatly assisted by the literary-critical writings which exist on the source-text concerned—so much so that conclusions may even be reached without adequate reference to the signs on the printed page. This is the classic case of the reader who takes the translation as a perfect replacement for the original, standing for the latter in a second language. Alternatively, a reader may approach a translation as a text in its own right and seek to understand it from the position s/he occupies in the target cultural system. This is the case of the translation as a self-sufficient original. Elsewhere I have discussed the interpretive difficulties such readers might have since the translation will be made up of heterogeneous elements which, if not competing, co-exist in a hybrid form.¹

With an adaptive (or "manipulative") translation, the issues of interpretation are further problematized. For in this case the translator's likely intentions, though ultimately inaccessible to the reader, have to be taken into account. Not all adaptive translators provide clues as to what they intend, and this impedes interpretive efforts. The translation becomes a more or less autonomous text, standing open to interpretation, though to an extent it also sets constraints on the possible meanings to be derived. Because of the wide range of adaptive modes, it will not be easy to generalize from any one type of adaptation about what happens in the textualization process. However, since a great many adaptations—especially in drama translation—involve retaining the content of the original but relocating the text in a target context, it may be useful to consider the complex hermeneutic processes that apply in adaptations of this type.

Since the new "context" is the key to approaching an adaptive translation, recontextualization becomes inseparable from interpretation. Into the translation, a completely different semiotic system is inserted, to enable the reader to realize, or, as Umberto Eco puts it, "concretize" the text.² At the same time, traces of the original will remain embedded in the translation. A great deal that is related to the source cultural system of the original might have been erased, but not all will have disappeared. The translator may even have made a conscious attempt to integrate some of the original textual elements into the translation, but the extent and degree of the integration, like the translator's success in doing so, will vary enormously from...