抄録
The purpose of this paper is to shed new light on one of the most comprehensive yet somehow neglected discourses on translation in Japan. It will scrutinize Nogami Toyoichiro’s book entitled Honyakuron: Honyaku no riron to jissai (On translation: theory and practice in translation) together with his short essays in the socio-cultural context of the Taisho and early Showa periods (roughly speaking the 1910s to the 1930s). In order to problematize contradictory ideas that appear in his remarks, Nogami’s early theoretical works on translation will be firstly reviewed. Then this paper will focus on his key concepts claimed in Honyakuron as compared with those of a British classicist, John Percival Postgate’s Translation and translations: Theory and practice. Inspired by Beverley Curran, the author highlights the influence from Postgate’s theoretical framework and also discusses Nogami’s Honyakuron in the environment of translation in pre-war Japan.
