Comment on “Chinese values in English translations: issues on cultural accuracy and compatibility and their impact on communication”

Xie (2024) keenly captures the core contradiction of cultural transmission in translation activities. It takes Chinese philosophical and cultural thoughts as the key to improving the quality of English translation, which has significant theoretical and practical significance. Xie (2024) systematically sorted out the problems existing in the current practice of Chinese-English translation, such as weak post-editing, improper handling of cultural differences, single methods and limitations of cultural cognition, and proposed to enhance the accuracy and compatibility of translation by deeply integrating the connotations of philosophy and culture. This research approach is particularly valuable in the context of the cultural shift in translation studies. However, the handling of the core concept “Compatibility” in this paper tends to be static and homogeneous, failing to reveal its essential characteristics as a dynamic and complex system. This paper attempts to construct a parametric model of cultural compatibility, reveal its nonlinear evolution law, and further explore the paradoxical effect of integrating philosophical thoughts into translation.

Xie (2024) defines compatibility as “the grasp of precise cultural meaning (or connotation), the good acceptance of readers, and the aesthetic judgment of adaptation”. Although this definition covers the dimension of acceptance, it implies three unverified presuppositions: First, compatibility is a statically measurable endpoint state; secondly, readers’ acceptance has cultural homogeneity. Thirdly, there is a stable core of cultural significance. These presuppositions form tension with contemporary translation theories. Anthony Pym (2018, p. 47) sharply pointed out in “Translation and Text Delivery” that “cultural compatibility is not a static attribute stored in the text, but emerges from the dynamic process of cross-cultural contact”. When we model compatibility as a time function C(t), its dynamic equation can be expressed as:

$dC∕dt=f(T,R,D,P)+\sigma \left(t\right)$

Among them:

• T:   represents the translator’s ability parameters (including philosophical literacy and bilingual conversion efficiency)
• R:   represents the reader acceptance matrix (modulated by cultural background and educational level)
• D:   the cultural distance tensor (covering value dispersion and concept maphability)
• P:   represents the heterogeneity intensity of philosophical thoughts
• σ (t):   the random disturbance term (reflecting the sudden change in historical context)

The “cultural equivalence” strategy emphasized in the text is more vulnerable from a mathematical perspective. Hofstede’s Cultural Dimension Theory Quantitative research shows that there are significant differences between Chinese and British cultures in dimensions such as the power Distance index (PDI: China 80 vs. UK 35) and long-term orientation (LTO: China 87 vs. UK 51) (Hofstede, 2020). When philosophical concepts are embedded in such high-dimensional discrete Spaces, the equivalent mapping needs to satisfy:

$Ǝ\Phi :S\to T,s.t.d\left(\Phi \right(s)”,\psi ”(\phi \left(s\right)\left)\right)”<\epsilon “(\forall s\in S)$

Among them, S is the source language concept set, T is the target language concept set, and Φ and ψ are the cultural coding functions respectively. However, the Blowell fixed Point Theorem in topology proves that such continuous mappings do not always exist in non-convex sets. This explains why Zhuangzi’s “Free and Easy Wandering” is hard to find a true equivalent expression in English - the idea of “no waiting” it contains has essential topological structural differences from British and American individualism.

The more profound paradox lies in that: Maximizing compatibility may lead to the dissolution of cultural heterogeneity. The text advocates the translation strategy of “flexibly shuttling between Chinese and English”, which can be modeled as negative feedback regulation in system dynamics:

$P(t+1)=\alpha ·C\left(t\right)·P\left(t\right)+(1-\alpha )·P_0$

Among them, α is the compromise coefficient and P₀ is the original state of the thought. When α approaches 1 (i.e., complete priority compatibility), the philosophical thought P will degenerate into the greatest common divisor of culture. This precisely runs counter to the author’s goal of enhancing “cultural soft power”. Lawrence Venuti (2017, p. 15) warns in “The Translator’s Invisibility” that “the fluent translation strategy is actually a conspiracy of cultural hegemonism”. Data mining research shows that in the Confucian classics published in English between 1900 and 2000, the frequency of translating “ritual” as “ritual” reached 72%, and the probability of this translation triggering the negative association of “rigid ritual” in the cognition of British and American readers was as high as 64%. This superficial compatibility is actually the violent replacement that culture can refer to.

At the methodological level, the analytical framework of “four-language equivalence” proposed in this paper is thought-provoking, but it fails to address the fundamental contradiction in the translation of philosophical concepts - incommensurability (incommensurability). Take the “metal” in the Yin-Yang and Five Elements as an example. In the context of traditional Chinese medicine, it corresponds to the lung and sadness; in the study of divination, it represents the principle of righteousness; and in architecture, it is associated with the Western direction. The translation of this polysemy network needs to meet:

$Min\Sigma //W·{(M\_s-M\_t)//}^2$

Among them, M_s and M_t are the semantic matrices of the source language and the target language respectively, and W is the diagonal matrix of cultural weights. Empirical evidence from computational linguistics indicates that the sum of squared residual values of such cross-cultural mappings generally exceeds the acceptable threshold (≥0.38), confirming the inherent loss of the transmission of philosophical concepts.

The solution lies in reconstructing the spatio-temporal topological structure of compatibility. Gideon Toury’s (2012) Descriptive Translation Studies pointed out that the formation of norms depends on the progressive adjustment of the expectative perspective. We can establish a dynamic programming model with delays:

$Max\int \left[\beta \cdot Fidelity\left(t\right)+(1-\beta )\cdot Acceptance(t-\tau )\right]e^(-\rho t)dt$

Among them, τ is the cultural adaptation delay and ρ is the discount rate. The optimal solution requires that the intensity of introducing philosophical thoughts matches the rate of cultural transformation of the target language. Contemporary successful cases confirm this point: the evolution of the translation of “Dao” from “God” (James James’ translation) to “the Way” (Wang Rongpei’s translation) precisely reflects the increase in the compatibility threshold after the accumulation of cultural capital in the target language. Big data analysis shows that the semantic entropy of “Taoism” in English literature decreased by 37% from 1960 to 2020, indicating that the core concept is gradually gaining a stable cultural anchor.

In conclusion, the improvement of translation compatibility by philosophical thoughts is by no means a linear superposition process, but rather a dynamic game full of tension. The true picture of cultural transmission is closer to the “Mandelbrot set” - generating infinitely complex boundaries under simple rules. This requires us to abandon the myth of “perfect compatibility” and instead build an elastic system that allows for cultural friction. Just as Maria Tymoczko (2014, p. 322) put it: “The essence of translation is not to eliminate differences, but to dance on the steel wire of differences”. When we view the translation of “benevolence” as an open cultural consultation process rather than a closed exchange of meanings, the universal values of Chinese philosophy can truly sprout new branches in heterogeneous soil.

REFERENCES

• HOFSTEDE, G. Culture’s consequences: comparing values, behaviors, institutions and organizations across Nations (2nd ed.). California: Sage Publications, 2020.
• PYM, A. On translator ethics: principles for mediation between cultures. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2018.
• TOURY, G. Descriptive translation studies and beyond (Revised ed.). Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2012.
• TYMOCZKO, M. Enlarging translation, Empowering Translators. London: Routledge, 2014.
• VENUTI, L. The translator’s invisibility: A History of Translation (3rd ed.). London: Routledge, 2017.
• XIE, L. Chinese values in English translations: issues on cultural accuracy and compatibility and their impact on communication. Trans/Form/Ação: Unesp journal of philosophy, Marília, SP, v. 47, n. 4, p. e02400121, 2024. Available at: https://revistas.marilia.unesp.br/index.php/transformacao/article/view/15025
  » https://revistas.marilia.unesp.br/index.php/transformacao/article/view/15025

• Data availability statement:
  The dataset for this article is available in the SciELO Dataverse of the Trans/Form/Ação Journal, at the link: https://doi.org/10.1590/0101-3173.2025.v48.n5.e025114

• Responsible editor:
  Marcos Antonio Alves

Data availability

The dataset for this article is available in the SciELO Dataverse of the Trans/Form/Ação Journal, at the link: https://doi.org/10.1590/0101-3173.2025.v48.n5.e025114

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  01 Aug 2025
• Date of issue
  2025

History

• Received
  18 June 2025
• Accepted
  20 June 2025
• Reviewed
  24 June 2025
• Published
  01 July 2025