Topic: Translating the Asian Games

Speaker: Associate Prof. Andrew Lambert,

Host: Porf. Yang Yuhong,  Faculty of International Studies

Time: Dec.21th, 2023  10:00-11:30

Platform and meeting ID: Tencent meeting, 205-797-707

Speaker：

Associate Professor Andrew Lambert, Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Hawaii, is one of the founders of the American Society for Comparative Philosophy (ASCP) and teaches in the Department of Philosophy at the City University of New York. He has been teaching in the Department of Philosophy at the City University of New York. He has studied under Prof. Roger T. Ames, a world-renowned comparative philosopher of Chinese and Western philosophy, and has devoted himself to the study and teaching of Chinese and Western philosophy for more than 17 years. His major publications include “The challenge of teaching Chinese philosophy: Thoughts on method.”, “Confucian Ethics and Care: An amicable split?”, “Friendship in the Confucian Tradition”, “The way of the football fan as the life of virtue.”, “Lost in Translation: The author versus the reader in contemporary Chinese philosophy translations”, and so on. He has also worked as a scholarly translator of renowned Chinese scholar Li Zehou's masterpiece, A History of Classical Chinese Thought.

Content:

The 2022 Asian Games was held in Hangzhou, and brought the attention of the world’s media to Zhejiang. Beyond the domestic consumption of the Games, how was the Games be perceived outside of China, particularly among English language audiences? Much depended upon translation and interpretation. This talk looks at the various ways in which the Asian Games was brought into the English-speaking realm. Three aspects of the challenges of translating the Asian Games into English are considered. First, what sort of specific content or moments are typically the focus of translation efforts? Second, what values and ideas do or should guide those translations? Third, what are the practical difficulties and challenges of translating and interpreting in a highly dynamic and time-sensitive environment, such as that of a post-match media event? This talk will address a number of philosophical questions that shape such translation, highlights some practical difficulties of interpretation connected with sporting events, and provide an overview of the professional and employment opportunities arising from the task of translating major multi-sport events like the Asian Games and the Olympic Games.