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Translating Sociology into Japanese, Chinese and Korean Languages
Translating Sociology into Japanese, Chinese and Korean Languages Jeremy CA Smith, Federation University Australia, VIC, Australia Myoungkyu Park, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea Albert Tzeng, International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden, The Netherlands Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Abstract East Asia’s encounters with the West include an interesting era of translation of sociological concepts into Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. This includes the concept of ‘society’ itself. This article explores how the concept of ‘society’ and sociology as a discipline were translated from European languages into East Asian languages in significantly different contexts to that of Europe. The authors focus on the role of intellectuals, organizations, and social movements in the process of development of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean vocabularies of sociology.
The intriguing history of East Asia’s encounters with the West includes unusual cases of translation of sociology and sociological concepts into Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. This is simultaneously a regional process and three distinct (though connected) national processes associated with East Asian modernities. It is part of a phase of intercivilizational encounters of an exceptional kind.
East Asian Sociology: Western Modernity and Japanese Translation Development of East Asian sociology is one of the civilization processes in which Western modernity was expanded to the far eastern region. In encounters with other civilizations, or the world religions or universal ideologies, Japanese intellectuals actively interpreted and relativized those civilizations, religions, and ideologies against a native cultural core. The Japanese case of translation of ‘society’ and ‘sociology’ is a case in point and an instructive case because of Japan’s sudden encounter with Western sociology. ‘Society’ can be difficult to translate and would be doubly so with transliteration from one set of languages to another language family. Japan’s acquisition of sociological concepts provides a rich case study in engagement with the unfamiliar in two respects. Firstly, the commitment to interpretation of Western sociology and the conceptual apparatus behind it produced a rapid change of understanding. Secondly, the change of understanding took place in a different language family and involved transliteration into kanji. That made the process of adaptation of sociology more complicated.
Meiji Japan’s Engagement of Western Sociology The young generation of converted samurai, which led the Meiji Restoration (1868) prioritized the acquisition and comprehension of Western sociology. The quest for knowledge stimulated the 1871 Iwakura Mission, an large-scale international tour of hundreds of Japan’s leaders to the United States and much of Europe, a tour which must rate as one of the most systematic fact-finding missions in world history (Nish, 1998). The cultural learning that took place after nearly 400 days of
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Volume 24
travel incorporated many of the main disciplines in the physical and social sciences and humanities. Subsequently, the knowledge of engineering techniques, systems of government, and political philosophy and social science acquired was spread to a literate and intelligent populace. Within this wider engagement with global knowledge, three features of Western sociology attracted Japanese interest: 1. Comtean social thought encountered first by the Japanese appeared coherent and persuasive. Nishi Amane (1829– 97) – a pivotal figure in early translation of sociological concepts – adapted it. He studied Comte in the Netherlands for 4 years in the 1860s. Comte’s Cours de philosophie positive greatly impressed him and, like Comte, he introduced the term and idea of ‘sociology’ to the Japanese universe of learning. Comte’s comprehensive and encyclopedic sociology provided one entire system of knowledge that could frame intercultural learning for the Japanese. The receptivity of the Meiji elite to the encyclopedic nature of the Western social sciences made Comte’s evolutionary sequencing appealing in the 1870s. 2. For a new program of modernization, the Meiji elite needed an ideological vehicle. Comte’s sociology – and succeeding it, Herbert Spencer’s social evolutionism (Yamashita, 1984) – presented a theory of history, which validated the Meiji transformation and provided further cultural resources for it. The world-historical sweep of Spencerian and Comtean evolutionism was pliable enough to the climate of debate about the Meiji program of modernization (Nozomu, 1994: pp. 4–6). Ideologically, evolutionism made sense to a new regime striving to realize a place in the world order of empires. Comtean and Spencerian sociologies cast a world of modernizing states that were empire building, large-scale industrial capitalist economies. 3. Sociology as a body of thought presented itself as the science of social change, which was precisely the historical process that Japan was undergoing. As the transformation was led by a highly reflexive social force it had to involve an activist disposition toward the process of transformation itself. Sociology appeared to the Meiji elite to accommodate such a disposition. Learning and translating its conceptual apparatus became an urgent endeavor.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.03121-4
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Translating Sociology into Japanese, Chinese and Korean Languages
The translation and interpretation of social sciences associated with the project of ‘civil society’ separate from the state in a society that did not generate any such civil society was quite difficult. Even a word to connote the core concept of ‘society’ was hard to formulate.
Concepts in Translation From the 1860s to the 80s, there were at least three Japanese words that could act as a translation of ‘society’: nakama, setai, and the part-neologism shakai. ) connotes a voluntarily instituted group of Nakama ( townspeople, in which members share a certain aim or belief and communicate as equals. Some were guildlike or corporate in nature. There were countless numbers of informal nakama, such as religious groups, hobby clubs, and alumni organizations. The Meiji intelligentsia experimented with the term nakama as an equivalent to ‘society,’ because it inferred qualities of civil society such as voluntary association and the institution of groups outside the range of kinship. ), has Buddhist origins and The second option, setai ( denotes the tacit norms of the earthly world. In the Buddhist world view invoked by setai, we have to obey tacit rules in ordinary life, even if we find them irrational and detestable. In contrast to a heavenly existence the mundane world appears a transient and provisional place (Sako, 2006: pp. 5–6). This phenomenological term for ‘society’ distinguishes the transcendental from the mundane. Setai is normative in effect as it implies tacit rules for ordinary life. On the occasion when sociology was taught for the first time at the University of Tokyo setaigaku was the translation for ‘sociology’ chosen. ) has the most telling history. Nishi Amane Shakai ( ( 1829–97) was the vital figure in the emergence of this term as the main one to translate ‘society.’ He operated in a rich intellectual milieu. Together with Arinori Mori (1847–89), ) publishing Nishi founded the famous Meirokusha ( house and the journal Meiroku Zasshi. The Meirokusha (‘Meiji Six Society’) worked at the interstices of Western and Japanese perspectives on societal transformation. The work of the group’s members couched the project of modern reconstruction in sociological terms for Japan (Braisted, 1976). They were translators also. Nakamura Masanao translated Smiles’ Self Help and then Mill’s On Liberty. Amane too was involved with translation of whole texts, including Mill’s Utilitarianism. These translations and others presented touchstone works of Western thought to the Japanese. The thinking of the Meirokusha took place at the interstices of civilizational engagement laying out for the Japanese urban public “description of a received world and construction of a new one” (Howland, 2002: p. 5). They were not merely translators or conveyors of Western ideas. Their translations were an exercise in interpretative work that began the development of new sociological and philosophical ideas in Japan. Translation across languages and language groups of key words featured in their early discussions. Nishi was the first to use the term shakai to denote ‘society’ in 1874. He translated ‘philosophy’ as tetsugaku and a number of other crucial terms. With shakai, Nishi intended to convey ‘society’ in the sense of ‘associations’ or rather ‘societies.’ Nishi’s use is part neologism
and part adaptation. Shakai was derived from twelfth to thirteenth-century Chinese literature and referred to “peasants festivals” (Sako, 2006: pp. 6–7). In Japan, shakai had a different use. In Nishi’s hands, and in wider use by the Meirokusha and university authorities, shakai could be effective as a term for ‘society.’ Despite its novelty, the careful recombination of kanji based on the Chinese original proved salient. Etymologically, the word shakai is compounded from sha ( , she in Chinese, sa in Korean) and kai ( , hui in Chinese, hoe in Korean). Sha ( ) indicates shrine. Kai ( ) denotes meeting or assembly. In Chinese, as noted, it signified ‘festival.’ The term shakai inherited by the Meiji intelligentsia carried the connotation of a meeting at a temple. The connotation of gathering in a public place of an open crowd was the closest equivalent to ‘society’ in the sense of constellation of ‘associations’ that Nishi was seeking. He was not alone in his use of this term. Spencer’s work Education: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical was first trans). He used shakai-gaku lated in 1880 by Shinpachi Seki ( for ‘sociology.’ Seki’s translation was followed, in 1884, by ) translation of Spencer’s Koutaro Noritake’s ( Principle of Sociology as Shakai-gaku no genre ( ). Nishi’s role was more general than that of other Meiji intellectuals who specialized in large but particular problematics: the national spirit (Yukichi Fukuzawa), constitutional arrangements (Kato Hiroyuki), and the adoption of foreign customs (Tsuda Mamichi) (Motoyama et al., 1997: pp. 269–270). His intellectual authority helped consolidate recognition of shakai as the legitimate term in educational and government circles. Shakai and shakai-gaku had successfully emerged as translations of ‘society’ and ‘sociology’ in Japanese.
Chinese Development of Sociology The idea of sociology entered the Chinese Empire in the 1890s, roughly two decades behind Japan. The rapid intake of Western knowledge caused a pressing need for Chinese translations of Western concepts. There were two approaches. The first, adopted mainly by reformists who were familiar with Chinese scholarship, was to create new phrases with characters carefully chosen to link the Western concepts with elements in Chinese heritage. The second was to borrow from the readily available stock of Japanese-made Chinese phrases. In many cases, there were parallel translations from an identical Western concept competing for recognition and acceptance (Huang, 2011). The term ‘sociology,’ too, had been associated with two Chinese ), a term that was related by its terms. The first was qunxue ( user to the classical Confucius doctrine. The second was she), a term of identical Chinese characters of shahuixue ( kai-gaku in Japanese. Qunxue literally means the study (xue ) of qun ( or ), a character that consist of a figurative part meaning sheep ( ) and the phonetic part reads jun ( ). Etymologically qun means ‘sheep flock’ or ‘to drive sheep into flock.’ It was later appropriated to refer to ‘the action that leads to the formation of 312–230 BC) a group.’ The Confucius philosopher Xunzi ( wrote a paragraph that became widely cited in the elaboration , literally ‘king’s institution’), an essay qun. In Wang Chi ( on the art of governance, Xunzi asked: why men, who ‘are not
Translating Sociology into Japanese, Chinese and Korean Languages
as strong as cow, nor can run as fast as horse,’ could master the natural? The answer he suggested was ‘the ability to qun.’ He pointed out that this ability relied on ‘division’ ( ) (of roles or resources); and division relied on yi ( , righteous and appropriate ethic). The ‘division according to yi,’ he argued, was the foundation for harmony, unity, and strength (Zhang, 1992: pp. 5–6). This ‘ability to qun’ became a central concern for many nineteenth-century Chinese intellectuals who attributed the series of defeat by the Western powers to the lack of national unity and cooperation (Yao, 2006: p. 19). There is dispute on who first coined the term qunxue. Its first appearance in existing literature is in the 1895 article ‘yuan , literally “original strength”), in which the author qian’ ( ), a renowned translator, illustrated the theories of Yen Fu ( Darwin and Spencer and translated sociology into qunxue. Yen Fu also translated Spencer’s The Study of Sociology and published ) in 1903. However, it it under the title Qunxue Yiyan ( ) was alleged by the political reformist Liang Q-Chao ( that his mentor Kang You-Wei ( ) had in 1891 included qunxue as a subject in the teaching curriculum of Changxing ) in Wanmu Cottage ( ), GuangzSchool ( hou (Liang 1928). Some scholars accept the account while tracing the origin of qunxue (e.g., Zhang, 1992: p. 5), while others suggest that Liang might have borrowed the term from Yen’s writing and labeled their earlier agenda as such (Chen, 1984; Yao, 2006: p. 24). It is important to note that the version of qunxue described by Liang is of very different nature from Yen Fu’s. The reformists’ qunxue might have been inspired by Western ideas, but their understanding of Western sociology was superficial at the best and the project was largely a reinterpretation of Chinese classics (Yao, 2006: p. 24). By contrast, Yen employed the term qunxue only to connect the translated Spencerian sociology with the legacy of Xunzi. Yen’s use of qunxue was imbued with Spencerian sociology. Shehuixue, the alternative translation, was introduced in the aftermath of the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95). The bitter defeats by the small Asian neighbor cast a huge impact. Eager to discover the secrets of Japan’s rapid modernization, Chinese students started to flood into this Eastern neighbor to study a wide range of disciplines that include social sciences. Those students were exposed to Western scholarship through literature in Japanese language, which was linguistically more accessible to them than Western languages. Many started to introduce the modern sciences to China via introductory texts published on press, or even via translations of Japanese textbooks (Harrell, 1992). This flow of modern knowledge inevitably caused the proliferation of “Japanese made Chinese language” ) – the modern phrases translated by Japanese ( scholars (notably Nishi Amane) using Chinese characters. These imported phrases triggered strong criticism and resistance among the conservative elites in China, who considered those phrases a contamination of classical aesthetics of writing. Policies to ban their usage were seen in some schools or examinations. However, those imported phrases still grew in their popularity and continuously marginalized the translations coined by Chinese scholars. Four reasons are suggested. First, the inflow of modern knowledge was just explosive, highlighting gaps in Chinese language where the Japanese
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made phrases were the only communicable terminology. Second, even in places where a domestic translation existed, the texts translated from Japan just outnumbered and gave their terminology more popularity. Third, the translation coined by Chinese scholars generally showed a preference for classical aesthetics (e.g., fewer characters-per-phrase and links with Chinese classics), which restricted their acceptance among those who demand more comprehensible language. Fourth, Japan had already constructed a consistent system of terminology that makes its understanding more easily. By contrast, the translation efforts in China remain individual and fragmented (Huang, 2011). The term Shehuixue first appeared in Chinese in 1896 when , 1865–98) listed shehuixue as the Tang Si-Tong ( , “study of Western scholarship anyone devoted to renxue ( benevolence”) should learn. He did not elaborate what shehuixue meant. Read in context, the term might be adopted to loosely refer to a general idea of “social studies” (Han, 1987: pp. 25–26). Ding Yi (1988) identified Han Tan-Shou as the first Chinese scholar who used shehuixue to translate sociology. The systematic introduction of shehuixue into China started , 1869–1936), a philosopher in 1902. Zhang Tai-yan ( and revolutionary in exile in Japan, published the first sociology textbook in China. This book was based on his trans). The lation of Sociology by Kishimoto Nomuta ( ) translation of Ethnic Evolutionism by Ariga Nagao ( was published in the same year too. 1903 marked the publi) translation of Giddings’ cation of Wu Jian-Chang’s ( Theory of Socialisation based on its Japanese translation by ) and Ma Jun-Wu’s ( ) Ichikawa Genzu ( translation of Spencer’s The Introduction of Sociology (Yen, 2004: p. 2).
Concepts of Society and Sociology in Korea There were also early encounters between Koreans and Western sociology via Japanese translation. The earliest instance of ) was translation of ‘society’ is found in 1896 when sahoe ( first used as a newly translated version of shakai by Korean students sent to Japan by the government to learn ‘civilization and enlightenment’ (Park, 2000). The students formed the Daejoseon Ilbon Yuhaksaeng Chinmokhoe (Fraternal Society of Korean Students in Japan) and published the bulletin ‘Chinmokhoe hoebo.’ In its second issue in March 1896, Sin Haeyeong, vice-president of the society, and others wrote articles that utilized the term ‘society.’ The impact of this bulletin was limited but it took a relatively short time for the newly imported concept to become a commonly used word in Korea. By the early twentieth century, sahoe was in use in the articles of journalists and intellectuals educated in Japan. As with Japanese adaptation of the conceptual apparatus of sociology, the process of translation was not a simple one-way expansion of Western thought, but a deep entanglement of Western, Japanese, and Korean conceptual universes. Sahoe was linguistically and conceptually different to shakai, even though both originated with the same Chinese characters as oral Korean was the real medium of communication in the Korean sphere of the public opinion not the written Chinese form understood in all three countries of East Asia.
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This entanglement became more complex with Japan’s colonization of Korea in 1910. The sharp divergence of spoken Japanese and Korean proved a flashpoint of conflict with colonial authorities. Koreans understood sahoe from the vantage point of their own semantic paradigm and experiences. Semantic independence could easily be mobilized as a cultural resource for political movement for national sovereignty. In order to suppress this sphere of independence, the Japanese colonizers tried to enforce the policy of using Japanese language in official life-provoking huge resistance. By the 1920s, the notion of ‘Korean society’ (Joseon Sahoe) was in widespread usage. A number of conditions contributed to this enlarged meaning of society: emergence of a public sphere with consolidation of two famous vernacular daily newspapers, Dong-A Ilbo and Chosun Ilbo; an increase of scholarly and political debates in journals; the rapid growth of newly formed social organizations and social movements; and the increasing influence of socialism. Those conditions were all accepted as an interrelated phenomenon in that ‘social’ groups were engaged in a changing ‘society,’ which had to be analyzed by ‘social’ ideas. Socialism was translated into ‘sahoe-ism,’ which was easily understood an ideology related with ‘sahoe.’ Many collective movements both for national liberation and for class struggle were called ‘sahoe-movements.’ The ideas and thoughts that supported these collective movements were named as ‘sahoe-thought.’ Under colonial rule, sociology generally served different and conflicting purposes. On one side, it was an instrument of Japanese colonial scholars who designed programs of sociological research to legitimatize colonial rule. Thus diverse research projects mapping Korean traditional folk culture, kinship structure, traditional organization, local markets, and religious life were carried out by scholars trained in sociology and anthropology. On the other side, the development of sociological knowledge and sociology’s conceptual apparatus was utilized broadly by oppositional movements. Through this, sociology helped establish a terrain of conceptual tension, albeit within a tightly controlled public sphere. The very meaning of ‘society’ was disputed. Sahoe carried three diverse connotations of ‘society’: a contract of independent individuals, the public character of social associations, and morality of integration. Developments in the latenineteenth century created fertile conditions for the development of social contract theory. The abolition of traditional status estates in 1894 and rapid weakening of Confucianism provided a receptive environment for accepting the idea of individualism. The new concept of society was welcomed since it gave a chance to develop individuality against traditional conceptions of humanity. With the circulation of sahoe, a paradigm of three structures, ‘individual-society-state,’ came to be widely accepted. There was a plethora of essays written about the difference between state and society and the difference between individual and society. Society was regarded as a medium, buffer, linkage, and center between state and individual. It allowed imagination of a new space where independent individuals found their own position. Another characteristic of sahoe was the legalization of voluntary establishment of associations and groups. This formalized an embryonic associationalism to which the
concept of society could be applied. ‘Society’ suited the set of organizations that emerged. These applications in usages of the concept of society resulted in the dismantling of traditional corporate boundaries delimiting the public. Up until 1894 – when the social status system was abolished – the public was monopolized by the yangban class centering on the king, and any public authority or activities to criticize or refuse this monopoly were suppressed. Consolidation of the concept of society provided an occasion to understand a new public sphere that was different from the state and the ruling class. It was at this time that a word for public opinion was also ). Even introduced. Yeoron displaced the word of kongron ( though there were some disagreements regarding the effects of self-interest-oriented groups, the idea of ‘the public’ had changed as a result of increased interest and discussion about the idea of society. A third important connotation of sahoe was a perspective that social community was an organic entity with moral solidarity. In textbooks strongly influenced by the governing Japanese, ‘society’ was explained in relation to the goal of moral consensus. This understanding of society as an organism carried a completely different implication from the social contract theory. In place of a tension between the social and the political, a general and fundamental institutional integration of individual, family, and state was emphasized. In this third connotation, ‘society’ was conceptualized with an uncritical set of depoliticized moral principles. Most Korean intellectuals could not accept that depoliticized notion of the public. Nationalists argued that public opinion had to be found within the people who had kept strong orientation to independence. For them, Korean society meant Korean national identity and hope. With increasing influence of socialism, intellectuals of the Left argued that society was a historical community characterized by class conflict, not by moral integration. In addition they argued that such struggle rather than moral harmony was the real driving force of historical development including socio-political independence. During almost four decades of colonial rule, Japan tried to depoliticize the concept of society in colonial Korea, while Koreans continuously stressed the political implication of social elements for the national independence. It was not only a political conflict but also a cultural struggle for hegemony. The concept of society was freely used from the 1920s onward, but its meaning was not unitary, and its political implication also contained heterogeneous elements in many instances of its usage.
Conclusion Taken as a whole, the circulation of translated sociological concepts at this time in East Asia can be seen as regional process made up of three separate (though linked) national episodes. As a case of intercivilizational encounters the translation of sociology and sociological concepts into Japanese, Chinese, and Korean is exceptional in that Western colonialism was not directly involved, though Japanese colonialism had a hand in Korea’s case. East Asia has been a distinct site state of intercultural exchange in this period where the context of colonial power is different to other world regions.
Translating Sociology into Japanese, Chinese and Korean Languages
See also: Asia, Sociocultural Aspects: China; Civilization, Concept and History of; Colonization and Colonialism, History of; Japan: Sociocultural Aspects; Spencer, Herbert (1820–1903).
Bibliography Braisted, W.R., 1976. Meiroku Zasshi: Journal of the Japanese Enlightenment. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Chen, S.L.( ), 1984. ‘Wuxu shiqi weixinpai de shehui guan – qunxue’( the sociological view of the reformists in wuxu era – qunxue). Studies of Modern History ( ). Ding, Yi, 1988. An investigation into the first introduction of western sociology into China. Study of Sociology 6, 87. Han, M.M.( ), 1987. Zhongguo Shehuixue Shi ( A History of Chinese Sociology). People’s Publihser, Tiangjing. Harrell, 1992. Sowing the Seeds of Change: Chinese Students, Japanese Teachers. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA. Howland, D., 2002. Translating the West: Language and Political Reason in Nineteenth Century Japan. University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI. Huang, M.K.W.( ), 2011. The war of neologisms: the competition between the newly translated terms invented by Yan Fu and by the Japanese in the late qing. Approaches to Translation Studies 34. Motoyama, Y., Elisonas, J.S.A., Rubinger, R. (Eds.), 1997. Proliferating Talent: Essays on Politics, Thought and Education in the Meiji Era. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, HI.
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Nish, I. (Ed.), 1998. The Iwakura Mission in America and Europe, a New Assessment. Curzon Press, Surrey. Nozomu, K., 1994. Sociology and Society in Japan. Kegan Paul International, London. Park, Myoung-Kyu (Bak, Myeong-gyu), 2000. “Hanmal sahoe gaenyeom-ui suyonggwa geu uimi chegye-e gwanhan yeongu” (On the acceptance of the concept of society and its system of meaning in the Late Great Han Empire period). Sahoe-wa Yeoksa (Society and History) 58. Sako, T., 2006. Japanese early importation of the Western concepts ‘society’ and ‘sociology’. Bulletin of Seikei University 38 (5). Sako, T., 2007. The founding fathers of Japanese sociology. In: Sako, T., Steinmetz, S.K. (Eds.), Japanese Family and Society. Words from Tongo Takebe, a Meiji Era Sociologist. The Hamworth Press, New York. Yamashita, S., 1984. Herbert spencer and Meiji Japan. In: Conroy, H., et al. (Eds.), Japan in Transition: Thought and Action in the Meiji Era 1868–1912. Associated University Press, London. Yang, Y.B.( ), 1987. Zhongguo Shehuixue Shi ( A History of Chinese Sociology). People’s Publishing, Shangdong. Yao, C.A.( ), 2006. Shehuixue zai jindai zhongguo de jincheng 1895–1919 ( 1895–1919 The Progress of Sociology in Contemporary China). SDX Joint Publishing, Beijing. Yen, M.( ), 2004. Yimen Xueke Yu Yige Shidai ( a Discipline and a Time: Sociology in China). Tsinghua University Press, Beijing. Zhang, Z.( ), 1992. Zhongguo Shehui He Shuhuixue Bainian Shi ( a Centurial History of Chinese Society and Sociology). Chung Hwa Book Co., Hong Kong. Zheng, H.S.( ), Li, Y.S.( ), 2003. A History of Chinese Sociology (Zhang Chun, Trans. English ( )). China Remin University Press, Beijing.
Abstract East Asia’s encounters with the West include an interesting era of translation of sociological concepts into Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. This includes the concept of ‘society’ itself. This article explores how the concept of ‘society’ and sociology as a discipline were translated from European languages into East Asian languages in significantly different contexts to that of Europe. The authors focus on the role of intellectuals, organizations, and social movements in the process of development of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean vocabularies of sociology.
The intriguing history of East Asia’s encounters with the West includes unusual cases of translation of sociology and sociological concepts into Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. This is simultaneously a regional process and three distinct (though connected) national processes associated with East Asian modernities. It is part of a phase of intercivilizational encounters of an exceptional kind.
East Asian Sociology: Western Modernity and Japanese Translation Development of East Asian sociology is one of the civilization processes in which Western modernity was expanded to the far eastern region. In encounters with other civilizations, or the world religions or universal ideologies, Japanese intellectuals actively interpreted and relativized those civilizations, religions, and ideologies against a native cultural core. The Japanese case of translation of ‘society’ and ‘sociology’ is a case in point and an instructive case because of Japan’s sudden encounter with Western sociology. ‘Society’ can be difficult to translate and would be doubly so with transliteration from one set of languages to another language family. Japan’s acquisition of sociological concepts provides a rich case study in engagement with the unfamiliar in two respects. Firstly, the commitment to interpretation of Western sociology and the conceptual apparatus behind it produced a rapid change of understanding. Secondly, the change of understanding took place in a different language family and involved transliteration into kanji. That made the process of adaptation of sociology more complicated.
Meiji Japan’s Engagement of Western Sociology The young generation of converted samurai, which led the Meiji Restoration (1868) prioritized the acquisition and comprehension of Western sociology. The quest for knowledge stimulated the 1871 Iwakura Mission, an large-scale international tour of hundreds of Japan’s leaders to the United States and much of Europe, a tour which must rate as one of the most systematic fact-finding missions in world history (Nish, 1998). The cultural learning that took place after nearly 400 days of
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Volume 24
travel incorporated many of the main disciplines in the physical and social sciences and humanities. Subsequently, the knowledge of engineering techniques, systems of government, and political philosophy and social science acquired was spread to a literate and intelligent populace. Within this wider engagement with global knowledge, three features of Western sociology attracted Japanese interest: 1. Comtean social thought encountered first by the Japanese appeared coherent and persuasive. Nishi Amane (1829– 97) – a pivotal figure in early translation of sociological concepts – adapted it. He studied Comte in the Netherlands for 4 years in the 1860s. Comte’s Cours de philosophie positive greatly impressed him and, like Comte, he introduced the term and idea of ‘sociology’ to the Japanese universe of learning. Comte’s comprehensive and encyclopedic sociology provided one entire system of knowledge that could frame intercultural learning for the Japanese. The receptivity of the Meiji elite to the encyclopedic nature of the Western social sciences made Comte’s evolutionary sequencing appealing in the 1870s. 2. For a new program of modernization, the Meiji elite needed an ideological vehicle. Comte’s sociology – and succeeding it, Herbert Spencer’s social evolutionism (Yamashita, 1984) – presented a theory of history, which validated the Meiji transformation and provided further cultural resources for it. The world-historical sweep of Spencerian and Comtean evolutionism was pliable enough to the climate of debate about the Meiji program of modernization (Nozomu, 1994: pp. 4–6). Ideologically, evolutionism made sense to a new regime striving to realize a place in the world order of empires. Comtean and Spencerian sociologies cast a world of modernizing states that were empire building, large-scale industrial capitalist economies. 3. Sociology as a body of thought presented itself as the science of social change, which was precisely the historical process that Japan was undergoing. As the transformation was led by a highly reflexive social force it had to involve an activist disposition toward the process of transformation itself. Sociology appeared to the Meiji elite to accommodate such a disposition. Learning and translating its conceptual apparatus became an urgent endeavor.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.03121-4
583
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Translating Sociology into Japanese, Chinese and Korean Languages
The translation and interpretation of social sciences associated with the project of ‘civil society’ separate from the state in a society that did not generate any such civil society was quite difficult. Even a word to connote the core concept of ‘society’ was hard to formulate.
Concepts in Translation From the 1860s to the 80s, there were at least three Japanese words that could act as a translation of ‘society’: nakama, setai, and the part-neologism shakai. ) connotes a voluntarily instituted group of Nakama ( townspeople, in which members share a certain aim or belief and communicate as equals. Some were guildlike or corporate in nature. There were countless numbers of informal nakama, such as religious groups, hobby clubs, and alumni organizations. The Meiji intelligentsia experimented with the term nakama as an equivalent to ‘society,’ because it inferred qualities of civil society such as voluntary association and the institution of groups outside the range of kinship. ), has Buddhist origins and The second option, setai ( denotes the tacit norms of the earthly world. In the Buddhist world view invoked by setai, we have to obey tacit rules in ordinary life, even if we find them irrational and detestable. In contrast to a heavenly existence the mundane world appears a transient and provisional place (Sako, 2006: pp. 5–6). This phenomenological term for ‘society’ distinguishes the transcendental from the mundane. Setai is normative in effect as it implies tacit rules for ordinary life. On the occasion when sociology was taught for the first time at the University of Tokyo setaigaku was the translation for ‘sociology’ chosen. ) has the most telling history. Nishi Amane Shakai ( ( 1829–97) was the vital figure in the emergence of this term as the main one to translate ‘society.’ He operated in a rich intellectual milieu. Together with Arinori Mori (1847–89), ) publishing Nishi founded the famous Meirokusha ( house and the journal Meiroku Zasshi. The Meirokusha (‘Meiji Six Society’) worked at the interstices of Western and Japanese perspectives on societal transformation. The work of the group’s members couched the project of modern reconstruction in sociological terms for Japan (Braisted, 1976). They were translators also. Nakamura Masanao translated Smiles’ Self Help and then Mill’s On Liberty. Amane too was involved with translation of whole texts, including Mill’s Utilitarianism. These translations and others presented touchstone works of Western thought to the Japanese. The thinking of the Meirokusha took place at the interstices of civilizational engagement laying out for the Japanese urban public “description of a received world and construction of a new one” (Howland, 2002: p. 5). They were not merely translators or conveyors of Western ideas. Their translations were an exercise in interpretative work that began the development of new sociological and philosophical ideas in Japan. Translation across languages and language groups of key words featured in their early discussions. Nishi was the first to use the term shakai to denote ‘society’ in 1874. He translated ‘philosophy’ as tetsugaku and a number of other crucial terms. With shakai, Nishi intended to convey ‘society’ in the sense of ‘associations’ or rather ‘societies.’ Nishi’s use is part neologism
and part adaptation. Shakai was derived from twelfth to thirteenth-century Chinese literature and referred to “peasants festivals” (Sako, 2006: pp. 6–7). In Japan, shakai had a different use. In Nishi’s hands, and in wider use by the Meirokusha and university authorities, shakai could be effective as a term for ‘society.’ Despite its novelty, the careful recombination of kanji based on the Chinese original proved salient. Etymologically, the word shakai is compounded from sha ( , she in Chinese, sa in Korean) and kai ( , hui in Chinese, hoe in Korean). Sha ( ) indicates shrine. Kai ( ) denotes meeting or assembly. In Chinese, as noted, it signified ‘festival.’ The term shakai inherited by the Meiji intelligentsia carried the connotation of a meeting at a temple. The connotation of gathering in a public place of an open crowd was the closest equivalent to ‘society’ in the sense of constellation of ‘associations’ that Nishi was seeking. He was not alone in his use of this term. Spencer’s work Education: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical was first trans). He used shakai-gaku lated in 1880 by Shinpachi Seki ( for ‘sociology.’ Seki’s translation was followed, in 1884, by ) translation of Spencer’s Koutaro Noritake’s ( Principle of Sociology as Shakai-gaku no genre ( ). Nishi’s role was more general than that of other Meiji intellectuals who specialized in large but particular problematics: the national spirit (Yukichi Fukuzawa), constitutional arrangements (Kato Hiroyuki), and the adoption of foreign customs (Tsuda Mamichi) (Motoyama et al., 1997: pp. 269–270). His intellectual authority helped consolidate recognition of shakai as the legitimate term in educational and government circles. Shakai and shakai-gaku had successfully emerged as translations of ‘society’ and ‘sociology’ in Japanese.
Chinese Development of Sociology The idea of sociology entered the Chinese Empire in the 1890s, roughly two decades behind Japan. The rapid intake of Western knowledge caused a pressing need for Chinese translations of Western concepts. There were two approaches. The first, adopted mainly by reformists who were familiar with Chinese scholarship, was to create new phrases with characters carefully chosen to link the Western concepts with elements in Chinese heritage. The second was to borrow from the readily available stock of Japanese-made Chinese phrases. In many cases, there were parallel translations from an identical Western concept competing for recognition and acceptance (Huang, 2011). The term ‘sociology,’ too, had been associated with two Chinese ), a term that was related by its terms. The first was qunxue ( user to the classical Confucius doctrine. The second was she), a term of identical Chinese characters of shahuixue ( kai-gaku in Japanese. Qunxue literally means the study (xue ) of qun ( or ), a character that consist of a figurative part meaning sheep ( ) and the phonetic part reads jun ( ). Etymologically qun means ‘sheep flock’ or ‘to drive sheep into flock.’ It was later appropriated to refer to ‘the action that leads to the formation of 312–230 BC) a group.’ The Confucius philosopher Xunzi ( wrote a paragraph that became widely cited in the elaboration , literally ‘king’s institution’), an essay qun. In Wang Chi ( on the art of governance, Xunzi asked: why men, who ‘are not
Translating Sociology into Japanese, Chinese and Korean Languages
as strong as cow, nor can run as fast as horse,’ could master the natural? The answer he suggested was ‘the ability to qun.’ He pointed out that this ability relied on ‘division’ ( ) (of roles or resources); and division relied on yi ( , righteous and appropriate ethic). The ‘division according to yi,’ he argued, was the foundation for harmony, unity, and strength (Zhang, 1992: pp. 5–6). This ‘ability to qun’ became a central concern for many nineteenth-century Chinese intellectuals who attributed the series of defeat by the Western powers to the lack of national unity and cooperation (Yao, 2006: p. 19). There is dispute on who first coined the term qunxue. Its first appearance in existing literature is in the 1895 article ‘yuan , literally “original strength”), in which the author qian’ ( ), a renowned translator, illustrated the theories of Yen Fu ( Darwin and Spencer and translated sociology into qunxue. Yen Fu also translated Spencer’s The Study of Sociology and published ) in 1903. However, it it under the title Qunxue Yiyan ( ) was alleged by the political reformist Liang Q-Chao ( that his mentor Kang You-Wei ( ) had in 1891 included qunxue as a subject in the teaching curriculum of Changxing ) in Wanmu Cottage ( ), GuangzSchool ( hou (Liang 1928). Some scholars accept the account while tracing the origin of qunxue (e.g., Zhang, 1992: p. 5), while others suggest that Liang might have borrowed the term from Yen’s writing and labeled their earlier agenda as such (Chen, 1984; Yao, 2006: p. 24). It is important to note that the version of qunxue described by Liang is of very different nature from Yen Fu’s. The reformists’ qunxue might have been inspired by Western ideas, but their understanding of Western sociology was superficial at the best and the project was largely a reinterpretation of Chinese classics (Yao, 2006: p. 24). By contrast, Yen employed the term qunxue only to connect the translated Spencerian sociology with the legacy of Xunzi. Yen’s use of qunxue was imbued with Spencerian sociology. Shehuixue, the alternative translation, was introduced in the aftermath of the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95). The bitter defeats by the small Asian neighbor cast a huge impact. Eager to discover the secrets of Japan’s rapid modernization, Chinese students started to flood into this Eastern neighbor to study a wide range of disciplines that include social sciences. Those students were exposed to Western scholarship through literature in Japanese language, which was linguistically more accessible to them than Western languages. Many started to introduce the modern sciences to China via introductory texts published on press, or even via translations of Japanese textbooks (Harrell, 1992). This flow of modern knowledge inevitably caused the proliferation of “Japanese made Chinese language” ) – the modern phrases translated by Japanese ( scholars (notably Nishi Amane) using Chinese characters. These imported phrases triggered strong criticism and resistance among the conservative elites in China, who considered those phrases a contamination of classical aesthetics of writing. Policies to ban their usage were seen in some schools or examinations. However, those imported phrases still grew in their popularity and continuously marginalized the translations coined by Chinese scholars. Four reasons are suggested. First, the inflow of modern knowledge was just explosive, highlighting gaps in Chinese language where the Japanese
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made phrases were the only communicable terminology. Second, even in places where a domestic translation existed, the texts translated from Japan just outnumbered and gave their terminology more popularity. Third, the translation coined by Chinese scholars generally showed a preference for classical aesthetics (e.g., fewer characters-per-phrase and links with Chinese classics), which restricted their acceptance among those who demand more comprehensible language. Fourth, Japan had already constructed a consistent system of terminology that makes its understanding more easily. By contrast, the translation efforts in China remain individual and fragmented (Huang, 2011). The term Shehuixue first appeared in Chinese in 1896 when , 1865–98) listed shehuixue as the Tang Si-Tong ( , “study of Western scholarship anyone devoted to renxue ( benevolence”) should learn. He did not elaborate what shehuixue meant. Read in context, the term might be adopted to loosely refer to a general idea of “social studies” (Han, 1987: pp. 25–26). Ding Yi (1988) identified Han Tan-Shou as the first Chinese scholar who used shehuixue to translate sociology. The systematic introduction of shehuixue into China started , 1869–1936), a philosopher in 1902. Zhang Tai-yan ( and revolutionary in exile in Japan, published the first sociology textbook in China. This book was based on his trans). The lation of Sociology by Kishimoto Nomuta ( ) translation of Ethnic Evolutionism by Ariga Nagao ( was published in the same year too. 1903 marked the publi) translation of Giddings’ cation of Wu Jian-Chang’s ( Theory of Socialisation based on its Japanese translation by ) and Ma Jun-Wu’s ( ) Ichikawa Genzu ( translation of Spencer’s The Introduction of Sociology (Yen, 2004: p. 2).
Concepts of Society and Sociology in Korea There were also early encounters between Koreans and Western sociology via Japanese translation. The earliest instance of ) was translation of ‘society’ is found in 1896 when sahoe ( first used as a newly translated version of shakai by Korean students sent to Japan by the government to learn ‘civilization and enlightenment’ (Park, 2000). The students formed the Daejoseon Ilbon Yuhaksaeng Chinmokhoe (Fraternal Society of Korean Students in Japan) and published the bulletin ‘Chinmokhoe hoebo.’ In its second issue in March 1896, Sin Haeyeong, vice-president of the society, and others wrote articles that utilized the term ‘society.’ The impact of this bulletin was limited but it took a relatively short time for the newly imported concept to become a commonly used word in Korea. By the early twentieth century, sahoe was in use in the articles of journalists and intellectuals educated in Japan. As with Japanese adaptation of the conceptual apparatus of sociology, the process of translation was not a simple one-way expansion of Western thought, but a deep entanglement of Western, Japanese, and Korean conceptual universes. Sahoe was linguistically and conceptually different to shakai, even though both originated with the same Chinese characters as oral Korean was the real medium of communication in the Korean sphere of the public opinion not the written Chinese form understood in all three countries of East Asia.
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This entanglement became more complex with Japan’s colonization of Korea in 1910. The sharp divergence of spoken Japanese and Korean proved a flashpoint of conflict with colonial authorities. Koreans understood sahoe from the vantage point of their own semantic paradigm and experiences. Semantic independence could easily be mobilized as a cultural resource for political movement for national sovereignty. In order to suppress this sphere of independence, the Japanese colonizers tried to enforce the policy of using Japanese language in official life-provoking huge resistance. By the 1920s, the notion of ‘Korean society’ (Joseon Sahoe) was in widespread usage. A number of conditions contributed to this enlarged meaning of society: emergence of a public sphere with consolidation of two famous vernacular daily newspapers, Dong-A Ilbo and Chosun Ilbo; an increase of scholarly and political debates in journals; the rapid growth of newly formed social organizations and social movements; and the increasing influence of socialism. Those conditions were all accepted as an interrelated phenomenon in that ‘social’ groups were engaged in a changing ‘society,’ which had to be analyzed by ‘social’ ideas. Socialism was translated into ‘sahoe-ism,’ which was easily understood an ideology related with ‘sahoe.’ Many collective movements both for national liberation and for class struggle were called ‘sahoe-movements.’ The ideas and thoughts that supported these collective movements were named as ‘sahoe-thought.’ Under colonial rule, sociology generally served different and conflicting purposes. On one side, it was an instrument of Japanese colonial scholars who designed programs of sociological research to legitimatize colonial rule. Thus diverse research projects mapping Korean traditional folk culture, kinship structure, traditional organization, local markets, and religious life were carried out by scholars trained in sociology and anthropology. On the other side, the development of sociological knowledge and sociology’s conceptual apparatus was utilized broadly by oppositional movements. Through this, sociology helped establish a terrain of conceptual tension, albeit within a tightly controlled public sphere. The very meaning of ‘society’ was disputed. Sahoe carried three diverse connotations of ‘society’: a contract of independent individuals, the public character of social associations, and morality of integration. Developments in the latenineteenth century created fertile conditions for the development of social contract theory. The abolition of traditional status estates in 1894 and rapid weakening of Confucianism provided a receptive environment for accepting the idea of individualism. The new concept of society was welcomed since it gave a chance to develop individuality against traditional conceptions of humanity. With the circulation of sahoe, a paradigm of three structures, ‘individual-society-state,’ came to be widely accepted. There was a plethora of essays written about the difference between state and society and the difference between individual and society. Society was regarded as a medium, buffer, linkage, and center between state and individual. It allowed imagination of a new space where independent individuals found their own position. Another characteristic of sahoe was the legalization of voluntary establishment of associations and groups. This formalized an embryonic associationalism to which the
concept of society could be applied. ‘Society’ suited the set of organizations that emerged. These applications in usages of the concept of society resulted in the dismantling of traditional corporate boundaries delimiting the public. Up until 1894 – when the social status system was abolished – the public was monopolized by the yangban class centering on the king, and any public authority or activities to criticize or refuse this monopoly were suppressed. Consolidation of the concept of society provided an occasion to understand a new public sphere that was different from the state and the ruling class. It was at this time that a word for public opinion was also ). Even introduced. Yeoron displaced the word of kongron ( though there were some disagreements regarding the effects of self-interest-oriented groups, the idea of ‘the public’ had changed as a result of increased interest and discussion about the idea of society. A third important connotation of sahoe was a perspective that social community was an organic entity with moral solidarity. In textbooks strongly influenced by the governing Japanese, ‘society’ was explained in relation to the goal of moral consensus. This understanding of society as an organism carried a completely different implication from the social contract theory. In place of a tension between the social and the political, a general and fundamental institutional integration of individual, family, and state was emphasized. In this third connotation, ‘society’ was conceptualized with an uncritical set of depoliticized moral principles. Most Korean intellectuals could not accept that depoliticized notion of the public. Nationalists argued that public opinion had to be found within the people who had kept strong orientation to independence. For them, Korean society meant Korean national identity and hope. With increasing influence of socialism, intellectuals of the Left argued that society was a historical community characterized by class conflict, not by moral integration. In addition they argued that such struggle rather than moral harmony was the real driving force of historical development including socio-political independence. During almost four decades of colonial rule, Japan tried to depoliticize the concept of society in colonial Korea, while Koreans continuously stressed the political implication of social elements for the national independence. It was not only a political conflict but also a cultural struggle for hegemony. The concept of society was freely used from the 1920s onward, but its meaning was not unitary, and its political implication also contained heterogeneous elements in many instances of its usage.
Conclusion Taken as a whole, the circulation of translated sociological concepts at this time in East Asia can be seen as regional process made up of three separate (though linked) national episodes. As a case of intercivilizational encounters the translation of sociology and sociological concepts into Japanese, Chinese, and Korean is exceptional in that Western colonialism was not directly involved, though Japanese colonialism had a hand in Korea’s case. East Asia has been a distinct site state of intercultural exchange in this period where the context of colonial power is different to other world regions.
Translating Sociology into Japanese, Chinese and Korean Languages
See also: Asia, Sociocultural Aspects: China; Civilization, Concept and History of; Colonization and Colonialism, History of; Japan: Sociocultural Aspects; Spencer, Herbert (1820–1903).
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