朱纯深：翻译的阴阳诗学：太极推手、浩然之气和纯语言（上）
文章来源：国际汉学研究与数据库建设
Towards a yin-yang poetics of translation
Tai Chi pushing-hands, hao-ran
zhi qi, and pure language
Chunshen Zhu
We have [in translation] indeed what may very probable be the most complex type of event yet produced in the evolution of the cosmos.
(I.A Richards 1953)
This chapter is developed from a plenary speech titled "Pushing Hands": Getting translation down to a fine (martial) art’ (Zhu 2008) at a Systemic Functional Linguistics conference on Translation, Language Contact and Multilingual Communication. As the Call for Papers of theconference suggests, translation should not only be viewed as a textualproduct, but more importantly, as a process, a context and a vehicle oflanguage contact. Such a perception distinguishes translation from other modesof writing in that it is a process of textualization in the target languagethat is triggered by, and launched in response to, the approach of a text fromthe source language. Looking at translation in the context of language contact, we may then ask: How would the target language engage this approaching text,and, in its response to it, bring forth a new text that can be called atranslation? That is, how should translation be described as a reciprocalprocess of engagement between a (target) language and a (source) text, since itis a process that will produce a new text that 'mirrors' its provenance inideational, interpersonal, and textual functions? Or simply, what istranslation?
A similar concern was raised at a televised forum ontranslation organized by the Open University of Hong Kong chaired by ProfessorJohn Mnford (Pearl, 25 February 2007). Among the panelists was the lateProfessor Martha Cheung who insightfully and fruitfully applied pushing-handsphilosophy in her discussion of the 'mediated nature of knowledge' and, byextension, knowledge dissemination in translation and through translation (Cheung 2012a; this volume, Chapter 1). At the forum, a few 'quite provocativequestions' (in Minford words) were posed about the nature translation. One ofthem was: Is translation a form of kungfu? For Minford, one of the mostacclaimed translators of Chinese Martial arts fiction, the answer isobliviously yes. In his (1997) article, Minford has postulated that translationas Kungfu is not theoretical knowledge, it is more an attitude a perennialphilosophy. It is way of life (Minford 1997: 6). This inter-semoitic analogybetween translation translation and kungfu is indeed thought-provoking if wetrace kungfu to its root of qi (or ch’i 氣) in Chinese philosophy: if kungfu brings two human beings, body andsoul, into close contact as two flows of qi, or 'energy' as translatedby Bloom (2009), then translation, viewed as kungfu, is a process that bringstwo languages into close contact, if not evident combat, as two flows of qi,or 'articulate energy' in Davie’s terms (Davie 1955).
We may preliminarily describe such an engagement between two languages as follows:
In translation, the source language makes the initial moveby thrusting, so to speak, its articulate energy in the form of a text into thedomain of the target language. In response to that thrust, the target language,through the agency of translator, will put all its articulate energy on thealert, and be ready to meet, contain and absorb the incoming energy, by leadingit into its articulate energy in and for the creation of a target text.
Minford claim that translation as kungfu 'is nottheoretical knowledge', however, invites a more refined examination. While itmay be true that the practical act of translation is not 'theoreticalknowledge', as an intellectual phenomenon it is certainly open to informedtheorization and philosophical contemplation. Or, as Minford himself puts it, it is possible to observe how it is grounded in a philosophy that pursues an'intense peace' —and balance—that lies in 'both action and contemplation'(Minford 1997: 4).
In this chapter, therefore, we will see how such a cross-semiotic analogy of translation as kungfu especially with itsexpress interest in the philosophical aspect of Chinese martial arts, can helpus better understand the nature of translation. Following Minford’s lead, we will try to characterize the interaction between two languages throughtranslation from the perspective of an internal school (nei-jia, 内家) of kungfu, namely Tai chi kungfu (or Taijiquan in pinyin, henceforth TaiChi), which is widely held to be one of the most academically studied Chinesemartial arts since the early twentieth century (Xiang 1940/1982: 242, 266 and267), with particular reference to pushing hands, a sparring exercise practisedbetween two people in Tai Chi training.
What does Tai Chi, or its pushing-hands exercise, tell us about reciprocal engagement between two energy flows, then? For its intellectual sophistication, Tai Chi draws on the Daoist (or Taoist) cosmology which views the universe as as once a manifestation and a process of reciprocation between two fundamental energies in cycles of alternation: anadvancing yang and an accommodating yin. The reciprocation of alternation of two energies is actually what Tai Chi philosophy is all about underneath its martial art application. And the universe itself is believed to be a Tai Chi movement sustained by this energy reciprocation (see, for example, Yang 2003: 193ff).
In the Tai Chi philosophy of Dao (or Tao), there are a few concepts, as we shall see that are particularly pertinent to our perception of translation as pushing hands between two languages engaged in contact.
To begin with, there is a relation of isomorphism between a constituent part and the universe as a whole. For instance, the human body, while being part of the universe, is a cosmos, a Tai Chi in itself, in the sense that both are dynamic processes and manifestations of the reciprocation between yin and yang energies (Hu 1940/1982: 196,Liu and Liu 1980: 89). And this is omorphism pervades Tai Chi performance in which every detail of the movement is viewed as an instance of yin-yang reciprocation contributing to the overarching one (Zhai 1992: 105-6; Xiang 1940/1982: 245,256-7). More importantly, at each level of this isomorphic coherence of reciprocation, there is a critical point at which the two energies meet and alternate with each other, with the yin becoming yang by absorbing the yang energy, and the yang becoming yin as the result of losing its momentum. Hence in every instance of contact, there is Tai Chi, because at every point of contact there is reciprocation of the two energies. In pushing hands, this point is where one's hand touches the partner's.
In a human body as Tai Chi, there is a meeting point of the two energies as well, which is called dan-tian(丹田), often glossed in English as the elixir field. It is a point located in the lower abdomen corresponding to the centre of gravity, a point which is crucial to the effectiveness of one's performance; this is because it is through this point of dan-tian that the supporting energy from the base of one's stance on the ground is gathered and transformed into a mobile energy for performance, to be ready, say, for a strike in martial arts, or a stroke in calligraphy. In pushing-hands terms, this state of readiness is called ‘firm in foundation and agile in movement’ (xia-pan wen-gu, shang-ti xu-ling ‘下盤穩固。上體虛靈’, see Zhou 1978: 48) to maintain a tenacious engagement of neither-seeparation-nor-confrontation, or bu-diu bu-ding (不丟不頂，Jiang 1940/1982: 209).
Such readiness entails a thorough state of relaxation, which means in practicing Tai Chi one is expected to maintain a relaxation-induced flexibility and agility. The relaxation in Tai Chi terms, however, involves an intensive state of concentration, both physically and psychologically (Jiang 1940/1982 :22 l). To achieve this relaxation-concentration one is advised to she ji (‘捨己’), that is, to put aside one's self-assumed ego, to empty one's mind by assuming no predetermined position or using no pre-planned tactics (Xin-zhony kong-dongdong. Si-lv-quan-wu‘心中空洞洞。思慮全無’, Chen 1940/1982: 235, see also Liu and Liu 1980: 66). Putting aside one's ego in pushing hands serves a twofold purpose: that is, to open oneself up to the supporting energy from the base of the stance, and to free one’s mind to concentrate on the dynamic movement of the point of contact with the partner. Such a state of concentration without tension enables a ‘stigmergy’ among the faculties of a human body, both physical and spiritual, to bring about a kinaesthetic articulation of one's energy in a yin-yang response to the lightest touch from the other party (shao chu ji ying‘稍觸即應’ ), by letting go one's presumed ego so as to agilely follow the other's energy flow, that is, she ji cong ren ‘捨己從人’. (See Jiang 1940/ 1982: 209 and 211.)
In Tai Chi, this kinaesthetic articulation is described as xing yun liu shui(行雲流水), that is, "drifting like clouds and flowing like water'. Through this water motif, we may see a poetic analogy between Tai Chi and Bachelard's moulding in his Water and Drenms(1983), and perceive pushing hands as a mode of kneading the other's energy like clay in its basic combination of manoeuvres, that is, pushing, stroking, squeezing, and pressing, or bing, lv, ji, an (掤捋擠按) in Tai Chi terminology. Bachelard's description of moulding serves as a footnote to pushing hands as ‘a continuing dream' that involves she ji, in which the mind or one's ego ceases to dictate and the hand ‘becomes directly conscious' with its own ‘dreams and its hypotheses’. Indeed in pushing hands, as in Bachelard's moulding, ‘there is no more geometry, no more sharp edges, no more breaks' but a neither-separation-nor-confrontation round of movement with 'a heavy rhythm that takes hold of the whole body' as 'the dominant characteristic of duration', with a 'special will for power' and a 'masculine joy of penetrating a substance, feeling the inside of substances', or the partner's energy flow in the case of pushing hands (Bachelard 1983: 107-8,italics original).
In pushing hands, this freedom and consciousness is borne up by a rhythmic flow of qi rather than guided by the mind. However, the notion of qi, translated as 'energy' by Bloom (above), has to be distinguished from the notion of jin(勁) which, too, is often glossed as energy. In this connection, Davie's conception of language as ‘articulate energy' (above) may offer some insight: if the energy of language can only be manifested in its articulation, then the qi is perceivable only when it is actualized in action. Thus jin is the qi in action. That is why in pushing hands, it is one's jin, not qi, that can be 'listened to' (or 聽勁，see below).That is, in pushing hands, one's jin is the flowing articulation of one's qi, or it is through one's jin that the qi becomes 'hearable' with a buoyant rhythm of undulation (Xiang 1940/1982: 258). In Tai Chi, this rhythm is maintained by a form of deep breathing called gu-dang (鼓蕩，that is, (breathing like) a bellow or surging tide) that surges up from the dan-tian. And a Tai Chi practitioner is encouraged to perfect this skill of tide-like breathing (qi yigu-dang‘氣宜鼓蕩’，Liu and Liu 1980: 89, also 68; and Jiang 1940/1982: 204 ). Indeed, in this sense both qi and jin can be referred to as energy. Yet unlike jin, as a time-honoured notion internal to Chinese cosmology, qi has become so profound if not cryptic that it requires further characterization, especially, as in this chapter, when we take note of its interpersonal implications that indicate one's relationship with other humans as well as the universe at large.
The most basic meaning of qi is ‘air’. Through breathing, air becomes related to one's being as a life-giving energy to sustain, with a perceptible rhythm, one's physical and spiritual existence. As such, qi can also mean 'breathing' as in our observation of tide-like breathing above. Or, conversely, we can say that by breathing one is related to the universe- by inhaling and exhaling its air or qi in a certain manner. And one's 'breathing' is believed to shape, and to show, one's personality or psyche, as seen in such words as qi-zhi (氣質‘qi-quality’,meaning temperament) and yong-qi(勇氣'brave-qi', meaning courage or confidence). One's psyche, in turn, shapes one's relation with the environment or fellow human beings, by projecting one's qi onto the surroundings. While mutual projection of qi onto each other may give rise to a communal atmosphere that is called qi-fen (氣氛 'qi-atomosphere'), a one-way projection of one’s qi onto others will create an imposing profile regarded as one’s qi-shi (氣势'qi-momentum').
Corresponding spiritualization of air/breathing is also found in English. For instance, in ABC Chinese-English Dictionary (DeFrancis 1997: 487), qi-fen is glossed as 'atmosphere', among others-and, most tellingly, qi-shi as one’s 'air'. This perception of air, breathing and the projection of one’s mental being has also been philosophized in Bachelard’s poetics of reverie, which hails the spirituality of breathing as 'the glory of breathing'. According to Bachelard, '[t]he man who reaches the glory of breathing breathes cosmically', that is, ‘with the world[coming] to breathe within [him]’. To breathe cosmically is ‘the original breathing of the child who breathes the world’. And a child, as Bachelard sees it, has ‘his absolute right to imagine the world’, because he has not (yet) been ‘stuffed with sociability’ (see Bachelard 1971, esp. pp. 107, 179,181 and 182).
With the basic concepts of qi and jin clarified as such, we now return to the she ji cong ren in pushing hands: that is, putting aside one’s ego to follow the other’s energy flow. Like its gloss ‘follow’ in English, meaning not only going after but also watching/listening and understanding, cong refers not just to a passive act of physically going after the other party but to one of observing, listening and understanding, to maintain the agility and immediate responsiveness. In Tai Chi terms,this is called ‘listening to energy’ and ‘understanding energy’ (ting-jin ‘聼勁’ and dong-jin ‘懂勁’， see Wang 2005: 309). Similar to the oneiric moulding that ‘can be done with one’s eyes closed’ (Bachelard 1983: 107), in pushing hands, this listening is done not by the sensuous ear but by a hand that is free to follow, to respond, with an undulating rhythm that, as in moulding, ‘takes hold of the whole body 38 42754 38 16463 0 0 4557 0 0:00:09 0:00:03 0:00:06 4556. And a she-ji body is willing to give itself up to be taken hold of and become the bearer of the rhythm. Thus, by putting aside one’s ego in following the other’s jin, one is in a better position to penetrate and get to the innermost articulation of the other’s qi, to enable one to let in and redirect the partner’s energy into one’s own ‘orbit’ in order to deflect and absorb it, an achievement, called yin jin luo kong (‘引進落空’, Wang 2005: 312）in Tai Chi. Or as Xie puts it, this is the way by which one can ‘take in the partner’s energy and absorb it into ones ’s own’ (translated from Xie 2005: 131). This Daoist poetics of Tai Chi pushing hands is graphically visualized in the chiaroscuro of the Tai Chi diagram in Figure 3.1.
In the diagram, the curve in the middle traces out - rhythmically without sharp edges or breaks - the neither- separation-nor-confrontation engagement between the two hemispheres, while in the white there is a black ‘seed’ and in the black a white one, marking the potential of each to blossom into the other. The cycle thus depicts a process that is, to borrow Bachelard’s words in describing moulding, ‘ a substantial becoming, a becoming from within’ (Bachelard 1983: 108).
1.3 Hao-ran zhi qi and yi yi ni zhi:
listening to language as Saying
In Tai Chi as a philosophical martial art, taking in the partner’s qi andabsorbing it into one’s own is to attain a hao-ran zhi qi (浩然之氣,see below), storing it up in one’s dan-tain (Jiang 1940/1982: 223, seealso Yang 2003: 183 and 193) to power various feats. This hao-ran zhi qiis regarded as the ultimate qi of the ontological being that underpins,among other intellectual pursuits, the Chinese discourse on verbal a well asmartial arts. The concept is originated in the Mencius. When asked by one ofhis disciples what he as good at, Mencius replied ‘I understand words. I amgood at nourishing my vast, flowing qi (Bloom 2009: 30). In the Chinesetext, the ‘words’ is yan (言’speech’)or the actual saying or uttering of those words, and the ‘vast, flowing qi’is hao-ran zhi qi. According to Mencius, this hao-ran zhi qi isineffable, that is, ‘difficult to put into words’, and:
Is consummately great and consummately strong. If one nourishes it with uprightness and does not injure it, it will fill the space between Heaven and Earth. This qi is the companion of rightness and the Way, in the absence of which, it starves. （Bloom 2009: 30）
Similar to Lau and in line with the gloss in the Han-yu Da Ci-dian (Luo et al. 2007) which gives the word ‘hao-ran’ as a description of the immensity waterbody, Pollard has translated hao-ran zhi qi in his article on Chinese literary theory as a ‘floodlike ch’i’ that ‘fills the space between Heaven and Earth’ with a more conspicuous water motif (Pollard 1978: 51) and 58; see also Lau 1970/2003: 61,63), suggesting an imaginary breathing that denies and defies dimensional measurement and that imbues the universe with a rhythm undulating like a perfect deluge.
For Mencius, the hao-ran zhi qi, borne up and borne out by rightness, or’ integrity’ in Lau’s translation (1970/2003: 63), is a spiritual tranquility and equilibrium indifferent and immune to such social values as ‘riches and honour’, ‘poverty and privation’. and ‘power or force’. For him, one who attains it will emanate the qi-shi or air of ‘a great man’ (da zhang-fu ‘大丈夫’), or a ‘great person’ (da-ren ‘大人’) while retaining a pure ‘child’s mind’ (chi-zi zhi xin ‘赤子之心’). As such, a great personality will breathe in a consummately great and strong way, or in terms of Bachelard’s cosmic breathing, ‘breathes the world’ like a child. For him, cultivating this hao-ran zhi qi is to ‘fully [develop] one’s mind’ in order to ‘ [know] one’s nature’ and eventually to ‘ [know] Heaven’ (see Bloom 2009: 62, 88 and144; and He and Zhou 2008: 156, 179 and 225 for the Chinese texts). Knowing heaven, according to the Zhuangzi, is to follow and identify oneself with Heaven instead of the world as naturally and directly as a child would (yu tian wei tu ‘舆天爲徒’ )(Zhuangzi n.d: 105, also note 3 on p.106; and Chen 1983: 113 and 115 ) with an internal uprightness and purity of the mind.
This pursuit of the purity of the mind was brought to bear on literary writing in ‘ On the child-Mind’ (see Owen 1996: 808-11 for an English translation ) by Li Zhi (李質, 1527-1602 ). In this brief yet pungent essay, the author takes issue with the doctrine of the so-called Neo-Confucianism that was institutionalized and enshrined as the dynasty’s orthodox ideology, and proclaims that ‘the most perfect works of writing in the whole world always come from the child-mind’ (Owen 1996: 808, 810), a genuine and original mind that is not contaminated by social values. As Owen observes, Li’s argument has been ‘[a] major inspiration’ in the literature of the time and ‘immensely influential in subsequent literature’(p,807). The connection between the child-mind and writing thus argued alerts us to one point of particular interest at least for our present study: that is, the connection between language and Mencius’ cultivation of the hao-ran zhi qi. In the Mencius, cultivating hao-ran zhi qi is mentioned in conjunction with language as writing, or saying: ‘I understand others' yan’. But what is the relation between understanding words, or gaining ‘an insight into words’ in Lau’s (2003: 61 ) translation, and cultivating the qi ? The classical original, without the modern system of punctuation, gives little clue, and different representations may thus ensue. For instance, the two statements are separated with a full stop in Bloom’s and Lau’s translations while in Xu’s (2008) modern Chinese translation, they are connected with a comma to this effect: ‘I can understand others’ words, I am good at cultivating my hao-ran zhi qi’ (p. 83). But logically and discursively, the relation is not explicated in these versions: Is it one of simple concurrence or coincidence, or of causality or instrumentality? From the vantage point of language philosophy, we may claim that it is one of mutual facilitation: being good at understanding others’ words is conducive to the cultivation of one’s hao-ran zhi qi, and with an upright hao-ran zhi qi one is better capable of understanding others by their words2.
But what did Mencius mean by ‘ understanding others’ words’ ? The question takes us to another much quoted proposition of his, which is about interpretation (of povtry): yi yi ni zhi, shi wei de zhi (以意逆志， 是爲得之’, He and Zhou 2008: 191). Bloom’s (2009) translation reads: ‘If one thinks about understanding the intent, one will get it’ (p. 102), which, as we shall see, may not have completely captured the hermeneutic insight of the saying. How to interpret this approach has itself been a topic for debate in Chinese history, but Zhu Xi’s commentary obviously makes more intersubjective sense (see Lin 2008) and has been endorsed by Zhu Ziqing (2004: 62-3). According to Zhu Xi, this engagement of ni (逆) should be a kind of ‘writing and treating’ (deng dai ‘等待’) and ‘meeting and appropriating’ (ying qu/ ying shou ‘收取’ / ‘逆’): ‘to read with empathy’ by ‘[putting] aside one’s proconceptions’ as Cheung (2006: 37) has glossed and commented, echoing Lau’s (2003: 201) translation ‘[meeting the intention of the poet] with sympathetic understanding’. That is to say, during such reading one is expected to willingly give up one’s presumptions, to touch base with what Li Zhi would call ‘the original mind of one’s very first thought’ (Li in Owen 1996: 808), with a ‘child-mind’ to take in what the text says in the way it says it, so as to realize the author’s will (see Lin 2008, esp. 110, 115, 117, 118 and 121-2), or, as Bachelard would see it, the author’ thought that ‘willed and re-willed’ (Bachelard 1988: 246, italics original) to speak, and to speak the way it is spoken. The reader’s yi that greets and engages the author’s ‘will’ as an expression of humanity, according to Mencius, is based on zhi ren lv shi (‘知人喻世’）: that is, knowing ‘what they were like as persons ... in their own time’ (Bloom 2009: 119); and this engagement is possible because of the universality of human nature or ren-qing bu yuan (‘人情不遠’（see Iin 2008: 117)，that is, human feelings are not far different from person to person), the basis for any compassion that Cheung has termed ‘empathy’ and Lau ‘sympathetic understanding’ in reading.3 In the Zhuangzi, such understanding of human nature in its universality has been explained with reference to the qi，in that one has to empty one’s mind of one’s (culturally embedded) egoistic presumptions when treating things (xu er dai wu ‘虚而待物’and listen to the saying with qi(ting zhi yi qi £聽之以氣’，as against listening with the ear or the mind). And this is regarded as the highest attainment of an extremely pure and refined (chun jing ‘纯精’) heart that gathers the Dao or the Way with immense readiness (dao ji xu ‘道集虛’）（see Chen 1983: 117, and 117-18 note 3; also Zhuangzi n.d.: 107, notes 15 and 16).
In this light, Mencius, yi yi ni zhi can be seen as a hermeneutic pushing hands and the circle of mutual facilitation is complete: emptying one’s mind prepares one to understand the world as it is instead of as it should be, and this understanding in return will quicken one’s inner ear in listening to others’ speaking as an expression of humanity. The listening will then expand and deepen one’s identity with humanity at large, to become a more perceptive listener to the world. Such a listener is more capable of cultivating the consummately great and consummately strong’ hao-ran zhi qi, of becoming a ‘great man’ who is uncontaminated by worldly values of ‘riches and honour’, ‘poverty and privation’, and ‘power or force’.
A water image is prominent in the Chinese discourse on qi, as seen in such qualifiers as flowing and floodlike to describe the rhythm of its workings. As the symbol of Dao, or the Way, in Chinese philosophy (yi shui yu dao ‘以水喻道’，Zong 2000: 220), water serves as the pivot in our inter-semiotic analogy between martial and verbal arts in characterizing translation as pushing hands. Water also underpins Bachelard’s phenomenological poetics of imagination and language: (‘Liquidity is a principle of language; language must be filled with water’（Bachelard 1983: 192). In this liquidity the rhythm of the ethereal ‘air’ of saying can be heard. And it is in this and by this hydrodynamics of language that poetry becomes ‘a beautiful temporal thing that creates its own tempo’ (Bachelard 1988: 248). To listen to the poetics of language in ‘its own tempo’ requires a listening that is unlike listening with the mind that stops at, and commits itself to, the sign and the assumptions it carries as its meaning (xin zhi yu fu ‘心止於符’, Zhangzi n.d.: 105) which, as Meschonnic (2011: 66) argues, are ‘only a representation of language’; instead it is a listening that listens with qi which, in its water-like unassuming xu-er-dai-wu manner, awaits, meets and responds to whatever comes its way. And the rhythm of the listener’s qi is realized in such listening - meeting, following and responding - to the other’s qi like the water in a river that realizes its rhythm by meeting, following and responding to the banks. Here lies the ontological affinity between the listening to jin in Tai Chi pushing hands and Mencius’ yi-yi-ni-zhi in reading and understanding ‘words’ for the cultivation of one’s hao-ran zhi qi.
As Mencius posits, the hao-ran zhi qi is nurtured by ‘an accumulation of rightness’ (Bloom 2009: 30) that is without egocentric assumptions, and would be injured by a single piece of misconduct (Xu 2008: 84). This indicates an isomorphic correspondence in which the soundness of details contributes to the manifestation of the cosmic qi. The importance of observing details in perceiving the qi has been summarized by Pollard as follows, with reference to Yao Nai (姚鼐）， a nineteenth-century literary critic:
ch’i... is the ultimate factor that decides the choice and order of words ... something above technique. ... If the ch’i that informs a whole work or passage is difficult to apprehend, you break it down and concentrate on small units, mark modulations in phrase and shifts in tone and pace: such things are the more concrete manifestations of the more abstract ch’i.
(Pollard 1978: 63, italics original
Such ‘modulations in phrase and shifts in tone and pace’ point to the existence of syntactic patterns of rhythm. Although rhythm is often mentioned on a par with other features such as tone, vocabulary, image, balance, symmetry, and proportion as ‘formal structures’, for instance in Li Zehou (2013), it should not be seen as identical with these formally perceivable features. Rhythm is generated or registered by such features. As such, the qi of an artwork does not directly ‘come from’ these formal structures as Li has claimed but breathes through them - at once enabled and channeled by these formal features - to be felt as the underlying rhythm of the work, as Li himself observes, in relation to a historical or cosmic rhythm: for example, ‘the rhythm in [an agricultural] society’ and ‘the rhythm of nature’. Following Li’s argument that ‘the genius of artists lies in the use of form’, we may point out further that the genius of artists is seen in their creation of syntactic patterns of rhythm to generate an overall pattern of rhythm, which is the work's voice/mode of expression, or qi; this will bear out, in an original and unique manner, ‘the dynamic structures of [isomorphic] correspondence’ between humans and the universe in both spatial and temporal terms, by bringing objective regularity and subjective purposiveness into a new unity’ (see Li 2013: 12, 15 and 18).
The isomorphism between local syntactic rhythm and rhythm in a broader, cosmic sense is further expounded in what Hu (2006) has regarded as Zong Baihua’s ‘rhythmics of aesthetic criticism’. In Zong’s theory, rhythm, which interconnects life and soul with the universe, is hailed as the fundamental symbol of the spirit and identity of Chinese culture (Hu 2006:131). According to Zong, underneath the interconnections among constituent details there is a governing ‘internal rhythm’ of the work of art, the rhythm of its qi (qiyun ‘氣韻’). In tune with the qi of the universe, to bring about a sense of beauty, the language of the work in either visual or verbal arts, or rather the rhythm of its qi, will manifest the musicality of nature and thus the ‘rhythm of a divine spirit’, or shen yun (‘神韻’，where shen can mean both divinity and spirit in Chinese) that is above the confinement of the material world (see Zong 2000, esp. 28, 30, 60, 66, 77 and 132). As in a she-ji pushing hands or Bachelard’s oneiric moulding, to create a ^'-driven piece of art, the artist has to let the heart follow the pen, xin sui bi yun (‘心隨筆運’ (Jing Hao 荆浩，an eighth-century artist quoted in Zong 2000: 31，see also 182), rather than letting an egocentric will manipulate the pen.
Zong’s inclusive, multimodal rhythmics calls for a broader conception of language, text, and translation that ties in with Meschonnic’s (2011, chapter 9) theory of ‘rhythm-translating’ in explaining a semi-classic tenet in the Chinese conception of translation: that is, a translation should stylistically be similar to the original in spirit rather than in form, which was put forth by Fu Lei, one of the most celebrated translators and art critics in Modern China who has related translation to the practice of traditional Chinese painting (Fu 1984a: 80, first published in 1951). If similarity in spirit sounds anything but methodologically operable, it is of interest to note that, in his (1951?) letter to a translator friend, Fu maintains that, while a creative author should have seen to it that the syntactic details are in coherence with and contributing to the overall style of the text, for a translator there is no other way but by syntactic means to translate the original’s style (Fu 1984b: 84r-5), or, as Zong would see it, to bring out the internal rhythm of the original’s qi. Certainly, by saying this Fu was not backing off and advocating instead ‘similarity in form’ with recourse to those language-specific formal features. Informed by Zong and with linguistic hindsight, we may argue that the similarity at the ‘formal’, syntactic level should not and cannot be one in grammar but that it should be a correspondence in the rhythm of information presentation. Indeed, in Meschonnic (2011), rhythm, which ‘includes ... all syntactic effects’ (p. 64), is presented as the basis for ‘every theory of language’, and translation - or rather rhythm-sensitive translation - is viewed as having profound implications for ‘the whole representation of language, and of society’ (p. 57). If translation has to be an art, then for Fu, art, with all the form-enabled multiplicity and variations in its representational rhythm, is to engender in the audience a ‘most complex, delicate and lively frisson’ (translated from Fu’s critique of Sandro Botticelli, Fu 2002: 129). We will return to this issue of rhythm in the next section.
1.4 Translation as pushing hands between two
languages: listening to language for its saying
Since formal features are by and large language-specific and may not travel well between languages in translation, the intertextual affinity that justifies a text as a translation of another text should not be formal similarities but a corresponding underlying rhythm. This rhythm is what the formal features of the source text have made possible in a creative and unique manner, and what the target language tries to bear out by its formulation means and in its own creative and unique manner. To be creative, the target language has to be set free - or ‘let itself go’ (Benjamin 1923/1970: 79) - in its meeting and following the rhythm of the source language’s articulate energy (coming through the source text) to generate a pattern of rhythm in its response to this energy. Such translation, for Benjamin (1923/1970), is a ‘real’, ‘transparent’ and ‘literal rendering’ that organizes the target-language words as ‘the primary element of the translator’ (p. 79). In such translation, the two languages are being glued ‘lovingly’ together, matched ‘in the smallest details’ (p. 78), as seen in the chiaroscuro of the Tai Chi diagram, in an attempt to reach a rhythmic harmony, as an effort ‘[to] regain pure language fully formed in the linguistic flux’ (p.80) and thus the task of the translator. To accomplish it requires a she-ji approach, one that ‘[refrains] from wanting to communicate something, from rendering the sense’ (p.78). In such translation, communicating the sense or information cases to be the end but a means that urges the target language to be creative by putting aside its assumed ego.
As Davie has observed, ‘the whole Romantic movement in poetry tended to minimize the responsibilities of poetry towards what the Augustan critics understood as “sense” (Davie 1955: 61). Steering writing and translating away from the sense, for Benjamin, is to perceive language ‘ as such’ (Benjamin 1916/1997), that is , removed from (communicating) ‘sense’ to get closer to a language that is divine and creational, greater than any of the human languages which have served as means of communication. This language is pure, in the sense that it is free of culturally biased knowledge or judgement of good and evil (or ‘sociability’ as Bachelard would call it) that is inherent in, and assumed by, individual human languages. This ‘pure language’ can only be symbolized by way of the ‘fragments’. Such a translation is meant to be a linguistic re-creation rather than a reproduction of meaning. For Benjamin, translation as re-creation is to ‘liberate the [pure] language imprisoned in a work [of art]’ so that it can be symbolized in its own right (see Benjamin 1923/1970: 80).
Following this line of thinking, we may ask further: How can one translate in she-ji way: that is, without thinking of rendering the sense? To this question, Heidegger’s argument of language as Saying points to an answer and endorsement of she ji beyond its Chinese context.
According to Heidegger, Saying is ‘an offering and a releasing, but without will and force, without addiction and dominance’, and language speaks through the human beings who speak it (see Heidegger 1982: 120, 154). In this light, the translator is called upon to speak the target language - or rather to be the target language’s speaker so it can speak- in response to the saying of the source language via the source text, through a target text that is emerging from this responsive speaking. To translate in this sense is to bring the saying of the source language, soundless hitherto in this target language, to the sound of the target language, to ‘reach speech’ in that language (Heidegger 1982: 129, see also 131). To listen and hear this saying of the source language, the translator, as a listener-reader, has first to get rid of ‘the calculative frame of mind’, and embrace a meditative mode of thinking that is free of intention - ‘we leave open what we are waiting for’ (Heidegger 1966: 68). The more open one is in one’s listening, the more the language will allow one to dwell in it, or belong within it, for ‘[we] hear Saying only because we belong within it’ (Heidegger 1982: 124, italics added). And the more one belongs within a language, the more sensitive one will be to its saying. To hear the pure saying of a language, one has to be unassuming, to put aside one’s egoistic presumptions so as to belong within the language in the listening and to stay open as the saying presents itself, as in a she-ji pushing hands where one is ‘listening and open to the other’s flow of qi in order to follow it. Different from waiting-for with a purpose, this is a waiting-upon, or Mencius’ waiting-treating-appropriating (yi-yi-ni-zhi) approach to texts. In this yi-yi-ni-zhi pushing hands of reading, the translator, with her stance resting on the universal human nature as its base, listens to the jin or the saying of the source language as it speaks through the author in the source text.
If the reading of the source text is like the dissolving process in moulding, then the writing of a target text should be like the binding action in which ‘the hand becomes directly conscious of the growing success of the union of earth and water’ (Bachelard 1938: 107). At this stage, the translator’s listening is to the target language, in her capacity as a verbal artist through whom the target language speaks. Similarly, the listening requires the translator to put aside her judgemental ego as an assumed possessor or master of the language, to ‘renounce having words under [her] control’ (Heidegger 1982: 147, see also 75, 120, 123 and 124), and become one of the language’s followers’ who listen to the language while speaking it, letting the heart follow the pen. A she-ji listener-translator listens to the target language as it speaks in the translation, following the rhythm of its reciprocal engagement with the saying of the source language as the language has followed her to hear in the speaking of the source text, to experience the ‘growing success’ of the target language’s effort to redirect the articulate energy of the source language into its own orbit, and absorb it in the making, or the ‘moulding’, of a target text.
In both reading the source text and writing a target text, this meditative listening to how language says, to language as it speaks through its speakers, is to capture the rhythm of its qi or articulate energy. And saying carries no intention, or intentional meaning, but shows and signals - ‘saying in terms of showing, pointing out, signaling’ (Heidegger 1966: 68, 1982: 123,148) - and leaves open what it shows or signals.
Heidegger’s following observation of poets holds for translators as well:
But when the issue is to put into language something which has never yet been spoken, then everything depends on whether language gives or withholds the appropriate word. Such is the case of the poet. Indeed, a poet might even come to the point where he is compelled - in his way own way, that is, poetically - to put into language the experience he undergoes with language.
(Heidegger 1982: 59）
Yet what distinguishes translation as cross-lingual writing from monolingual writing is that the experience the translator undergoes is with two languages, in that the articulate energy of the target language remains mute and unsounded until it meets the energy of the source language that articulates in the form of a (source) text advancing into its domain. Through the agency of a translator, the target language articulates in response to the source language. In translation as pushing hands between two languages, a she-ji translator listens to the saying of the source and target language alternately as each of them flows out rhythmically in their syntax. If the she-ji approach has enabled the translator to increase her understanding of humanity and thus belong within the source language more thoroughly in order to hear its original saying, the same approach will enable her to more thoroughly belong within the target language to listen to its past saying and to gather from the target language - as much as she is allowed to hear - what ‘well up from the formerly spoken and so far still unspoken Saying which pervades the design of language’ (Heidegger 1982: 124); she can then transform this supporting energy into the performing one by ‘lovingly’ and agilely following the articulation of the source text to ensure a neither-separation-nor-confrontation translation. In translation as such, the target language works to redirect the articulate energy of another language in the guise of a source text into its own orbit and absorb it into its own saying to say what it has not yet spoken before. In this way, the target language acquires an increased and more accommodating capacity of saying in its evolution. Thus, the seed of translatability - both the capability of being translated and the ability to translate - of the two languages grows and comes to fruition in a yin-yang alternation. And it is in this way that, according to Benjamin, by meeting language free to relieve itself of the mission of conveying ‘information’, ‘sense’, and ‘intention’ and the translator free to ‘[break] through decayed barriers of his own language’5 so as to watch its ‘growth’ and ‘evolution’, pure language ‘seeks to represent, to produce itself’ (Benjamin 1923/1970: 73, 79 and 80).
Chunshen Zhu. 2016. ‘Towards a yin-yang poetics of translation: Tai Chi pushing hands, hao-ran zhi qi, and pure language’. Douglas Robinson (ed.) The Pushing Hands of Translation and its Theory: In Memoriam Martha Cheung, 1953-2013. Routledge. 60-81.
朱纯深：《翻译的阴阳诗学：太极推手、浩然之气和纯语言》，见道格拉斯·罗宾逊主编，2016年，《翻译推手及其理论：张佩瑶（1953-2013）纪念文集》，路特里奇出版社出版，第60-81页。
朱纯深
福建莆田人，1966年初中二年级之后于1969年上山插队，在父亲指导下通过翻译自学中英文，1978年春以英语几近满分成绩考入福建师范大学外语系七七级，1979年秋考入该系硕士研究生班，攻读英文与翻译，1982年硕士毕业并留校任教。1987年底赴英国留学，继续翻译研究，1993年获诺丁汉大学博士学位。其后分别任教于新加坡国立大学（1993-1998）与香港城市大学（1998-2017），现为香港中文大学（深圳）翻译学教授、北京外国语大学客座教授及香港浸会大学翻译学中心荣誉研究员，并担任The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 和《中国翻译》编委、中国译协理事会理事；研究兴趣涵盖翻译学、诗学、语言学、文体学和机助翻译教学等，研究成果有《翻译探微》及各种论文，自1986年起先后发表于《中国翻译》、British Journal of Aesthetics、META、Target、Multilingua、TTR、Journal of Pragmatics, 以及ITT等学刊，分别于2000、 2001和2006年获得宋淇翻译研究纪念奖；译著包括《短篇小说写作指南》、王尔德《自深深处》、《古意新声 – 中诗英译今译（品赏本）》和《夜莺与玫瑰：王尔德短篇小说及童话全集》。