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Translation and Foreign Language Learning

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ArticleTranslation Theories and Skills http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/tfll.2026.01.004

The Translator as Social Person: Herbert A. Giles’ Utility-oriented Translation of The Old Drunkard’s Arbour

Ziqi Liu*, Hao Liu

School of Interpreting and Translation Studies, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou 510420, Guangdong, China.

*Corresponding author: Ziqi Liu

This work was supported by the 2025 Tianjin Philosophy and Social Science Planning Project, Tianjin School of Culture Research Special Topic: Research on the Translation and International Communication Influence En-hancement Strategy of Tianjin School Intangible Cultural Heritage (NO. TJJW01-04).
Published: January 31, 2026

Abstract

In the background of Chinese culture globalization and cultural diversity, revising the translation of classical literature is essential for examining power dynamics and translators’ agency in Sino-Western cultural exchange. This study adopts Zhou Lingshun’s Translator Behavior Criticism theory as its main tool to analyze Herbert A. Giles’s 1922 English translation of The Old Drunkard’s Arbour. This theory defines the translator as an agent dynamically mediating between the roles of “cultural person” (truth-seeking) and “social person” (utility-attaining). Through textual close reading, comparative analysis and historical contextualization, this paper finds that Giles’s translation behavior shows a consistent tendency toward the utility-attaining orientation. In the late Victorian era of colonialism and Orientalism, his translation adopts a thorough domestication strategy aiming to produce a fluent literary piece for English readers. While this strategy functioned successfully in cultural introduction, it inevitably simplified or even dis-placed the distinctive literary specificity and philosophical connotation of the source text. The study argues that translation forms deeply reflects the interaction between power, knowledge and culture in certain historical period. By assessing its contributions and limitations in a historical perspective, this study provides historical reference and reflection for contemporary Chinese classics translation, especially in terms of the dialectical balance between cultural fidelity and reader acceptance.

Keyword

Translator Behavior Criticism; The Old Drunkard’s Arbour; Herbert A. Giles; Translation Criticism; Truth-seeking and Utility-attaining

References

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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

The Translator as Social Person: Herbert A. Giles’ Utility-oriented Translation of The Old Drunkard’s Arbour

How to cite this paper: Ziqi Liu, Hao Liu. (2026). The Translator as Social Person: Herbert A. Giles’ Utility-oriented Translation of The Old Drunkard’s Arbour. Translation and Foreign Language Learning, 2(1), 21-26.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/tfll.2026.01.004

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