Translating Transculturality: Mediation of Identity in John Rabe’s Diaries

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ISSN online: 2444-1961

Prefijo Doi: 10.14201

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Yingjie Zhang
Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Germany
Vol. 5 No. 1 (2019), Articles, pages 45-62
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14201/clina201514562
Accepted: Jun 19, 2019
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Abstract

Along with people’s movement and technology, local and foreign components in language and culture become interconnected. Hence translation and cultural studies need approaches, beyond the national, to fuzzy linguistic and cultural forms. One such case originates from the Nanking Massacre, which occurred in the East Asian theatre of WWII. John Rabe, a businessman from Hamburg and a foreign resident in Nanking, was elected by the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone to be its chairman. His humanitarian efforts eventually won him a special cultural identity, «the Living Buddha». This article focuses on mediation of identity. It presents «translating transculturality» as a new research approach, and applies it to the mediatedness related to Rabe’s identity in his diaries and their revised, edited and translated versions.

Keywords:

translating transculturality, mediation, identity, John Rabe’s diaries, WWII

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