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Translation and Foreign Language Learning

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ArticleTranslation Theories and Skills http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/tfll.2026.01.001

From Objects to Knowledge: The Knowledge Transformation Pathways in the Translation of Clothing in The Book of Songs

Xi Zhang

College of Foreign Languages, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China.

*Corresponding author: Xi Zhang

Published: January 31, 2026

Abstract

Clothing in The Book of Songs has many material forms, as well as ritual norms and cultural symbolism. Traditional translation studies usually emphasize lexical equivalence instead of the complex functions of clothing as carriers of knowledge. According to transknowledge theory, the clothing in the book is a multi-layered knowledge system, with material forms, institutional meanings, and cultural symbols that call for decoding, reconstruction and redissemination of knowledge in translating. To translate clothes in The Book of Songs is to create a path for transforming knowledge. By means of knowledge explicitation, knowledge reconstruction, and knowledge compensation, translators can realize cross-cultural transmission from objects to knowledge, enabling effective translation and international communication of Chinese clothing culture.

Keyword

The Book of Songs; clothing translation; transknowletology; cultural communication

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Copyright

© 2026 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

From Objects to Knowledge: The Knowledge Transformation Pathways in the Translation of Clothing in The Book of Songs

How to cite this paper: Xi Zhang. (2026). From Objects to Knowledge: The Knowledge Transformation Pathways in the Translation of Clothing in The Book of Songs. Translation and Foreign Language Learning2(1), 1-5.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/tfll.2026.01.001