Creative Treason: Appropriation or Development—A Discussion with Professor Wang Xiangyuan

 Social Sciences in China Review

No.2, 2019

Creative Treason: Appropriation or Development—A Discussion with Professor Wang Xiangyuan(Abstract)

Liu Xiaogang

Professor Wang Xiangyuan’s article “The Original Intention, Context and Applicability of ‘Creative Treason’” argues that Robert Escarpit’s word “creative betrayal” is misunderstood and misused in medio-translatology. However, Wang has a double misunderstanding about Escarpit’s “creative betrayal” and “creative treason” in medio-translatology. He weakens the strong color of “betrayal,” which was part of Escarpit’s original intention. He argues that “creative betrayal” only exists in a broad-ense of translation, but in fact it was discussed both in the broad-ense and narrow-ense by Escarpit. Moreover, he believed that the subject of creative treason in medio-ranslatology is the translator, but ignored the multiple subjects explicitly mentioned in Medio-Translatology. Furthermore, he argued the content of creative treason was not added value but variation; however, he ignored the interpretation in medio-translatology of the “second life” of a translation. Creative treason is not the appropriation of the original concept, but the theoretical exploration and illustration of the original concept based on its full range of connotation, which is a development of its meaning. Medio-ranslatology is not as Professor Wang said, unable to research within the text, but rather able to research both within and outside of the text.