Languages, Cultures and Visual Studies

Photo of Dr Wenqian Zhang

Dr Wenqian Zhang

Lecturer in Chinese and Translation Studies

W.Zhang3@exeter.ac.uk

Overview

I obtained my PhD in the fields of Translation Studies and Chinese Studies from the University of Leeds in January 2020, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Leeds Arts and Humanities Research Institute (March-August 2020). Prior to joining the University of Exeter in September 2022, I taught on the MA Chinese language programme and the MSc Translation Studies programme at the University of Edinburgh (2020-2022). 

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Research

Research Interests: 
  • the translator’s brand
  • literary translation
  • sociology of translation
  • contemporary Chinese literature and culture
  • translation and media
  • book history and print culture

Research in Progress:

I'm now co-editing an edited volume on the translation, adaptation and dissemination of Chinese Internet literature (CIL) on the global stage. To date, there has been an extensive body of research on CIL in literary, gender, platform and cultural studies in a monolingual stance, but only a handful of scholarly articles delve specifically into its interlingual, intersemiotic and intercultural dissemination. To bridge this gap, this volume will be the first book in English that offers a critical examination of the translation, adaptation and circulation of CIL. As a timely addition to the scholarship on this topic, we aim to provide a contextual background and a framework for navigating the emerging subfield in the literary landscape, approaching its translation and dissemination across national, cultural, medial and linguistic borders. This book will be published within the series Routledge Studies in Chinese Translation. 

  • Literary Translators’ Brand-Building in Contemporary Chinese-English Translation

My PhD research examines the brand-building of the prominent Chinese-English literary translator Howard Goldblatt in international literary exchanges. Building on it, I’m working on a monograph on Literary Translators’ Brand-Building in Contemporary Chinese-English Translation, which will be published within the series Routledge Studies in Literary Translation. 

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Supervision

I am open to PhD supervision enquiries and discussing research proposals on any relevant subject given my research expertise. I am especially happy to consider working with candidates with interests in the following areas:
  • sociology of translation
  • (literary) translator studies
  • translation and publishing in the digital age
  • Chinese Internet literature in translation, adaptation and dissemination

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Publications

Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.

| 2024 | 2023 | 2021 | 2019 |

2024

2023

  • Zhang W. (2023) Constructing the literary translator as a brand: Methodological considerations, Translation in Society, volume 2:2, pages 123-145, DOI:10.1075/tris.23009.zha.
  • Zhang W. (2023) The Brand-building of Contemporary Chinese Writers Overseas - The Case of Chen Qiufan (中国当代作家在海外的品牌塑造 —— 以陈楸帆为例), Yangtze River Series (长江丛刊), volume 547, pages 122-129.

2021

  • Yang L, Zhang W. (2021) Foreign Research Institutions and the Translation and Dissemination of Contemporary Chinese Literature: The Case of The Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing (国外研究机构与中国当代文学的译介传播——以“利兹大学当代华语文学研究中心为例”), Comparative Literature in China (中国比较文学), volume 2, pages 40-55.
  • Zhang W. (2021) The Making of a Translator’s Brand in International Literary Exchanges: The “Discoverer” Howard Goldblatt, Situatedness and Performativity: Translation and Interpreting Practice Revisited, Leuven University Press, 127-146.
  • Yu J, Zhang W. (2021) From Gaomi to Nobel: The Making of Mo Yan’s Fiction as World Literature through English Translation, Archiv orientální, volume 89, no. 2, pages 261-282, DOI:10.47979/aror.j.89.2.261-282.

2019

  • Zhang W. (2019) Translation networks and power: An archival research on the English translation of Mo Yan’s The Garlic Ballads, New Voices in Translation Studies, volume 20, pages 185-205.

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