Translational Discourses in the Hon’yaku Jihō Journal During the Late-Meiji Period in Japan

Abstract

This paper constitutes our research project, which examines a wide range of translational discourses from the Meiji period (1868–1912) and theorizes a socio-cultural role of translation in modern Japan. We analyze the translational discourses in all 11 issues of the journal Hon’yaku Jihō published between October 1900 and March 1901, in which articles were written in a bilingual format—English and Japanese. We focus on “peritext” (Genette 1987/2001), such as translators’ notes and editors’ remarks, to reveal their intentions, strategies, and thoughts about translation. Adopting a context-oriented approach (Saldanha and O’Brien 2013) and juxtaposing the translational discourses in the context of English language publications in the mid to late Meiji period, we show that the function, purpose, and impact of translation are closely related to the socio-cultural imperatives of promoting English learning and sharing Japanese information with foreigners in English.