ArticleTranslation Theories and Skills http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/tfll.2025.11.014
A Study of Textless Back Translation Strategies: The Case of Song Biyun’s Chinese Translation of The Gay Genius
Wei Wei
School of Foreign Languages, Nanfang College, Guangzhou 510000, Guangdong, China.
*Corresponding author: Wei Wei
Published: November 30, 2025
Article history: Updated on June 29, 2026
Abstract
Lin Yutang was an influential Chinese author and translator who significantly contributed to the introduction of Chinese culture to Western civilization. His book about the life and times of Su Tung-p’o (Su Shi) entitled The Gay Genius: The Life and Times of Su Tung-p’o, which is written in English, is considered one of the major works introducing this Song Dynasty figure in the West. After this book was published, translators within China prepared Chinese versions based on the English text. This method of back-translating a text without the original source text is sometimes referred to as “textless back translation”. One of the most widely recognized translations is that of Song Biyun, who is noted for the high quality of her translation. This study analyzes Song Biyun’s Chinese translation of The Gay Genius to identify the strategies of cultural identity and cultural coordination that guide textless back translation. Through comparative textual analysis, it aims to contribute to the understanding of translation practices that operate without a stable source text.
Keyword
The Gay Genius: The Life and Times of Su Tung-p’o; Lin Yutang; Song Biyun; textless back translation
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Copyright
© 2025 by the author(s).
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license, which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not modified or adapted.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
How to cite this paper
A Study of Textless Back Translation Strategies: The Case of Song Biyun’s Chinese Translation of The Gay Genius
How to cite this paper: Wei Wei. (2025). A Study of Textless Back Translation Strategies: The Case of Song Biyun’s Chinese Translation of The Gay Genius. Translation and Foreign Language Learning, 1(4), 682-686.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/tfll.2025.11.014