From Translation Up to Cultural Coexistence: A Study of Foreignness Preservation in the Chinese Translation of Things Fall Apart

Abstract

Translation is a crucial vehicle for cross-cultural communication and constructing meaning across linguistic boundaries. At the heart of this process is how "Foreignness" is accommodated or preserved within the target language system. While African literature has gained prominence within global literary discourse in recent years, it continues to occupy a marginal position in the Chinese literary landscape in terms of readership and translation volume. This marginalization is further entangled with the asymmetrical power relations between China and Africa, which complicate efforts to faithfully preserve cultural distinctiveness. Using Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart as a representative case, this study explores the preservation of Foreignness in its Chinese translation through the lens of Translation UP. It adopts an analytical framework that considers the translator’s agency, prevailing translation norms, and audience reception to evaluate strategies employed in maintaining cultural specificity. The findings indicate that, despite the peripheral status of African literature in China, the translator actively resisted cultural homogenization. The translation retains a significant degree of cultural authenticity through transliteration, annotation, metonymic substitution, and adaptive methods. This signals an increasing openness within Chinese cultural discourse and reflects a shift toward more ethically engaged translation practices.