ArticleInterdisciplinary Studies of Translation http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/tfll.2026.02.015
A Study on the Co-Translation of The White Pony by Robert Payne and the Local Translator Group of the National Southwest Associated University from the Perspective of the Field Theory
Qin Li
School of Foreign Languages, Yunnan University, Kunming 650091, Yunnan, China.
*Corresponding author: Qin Li
This work is supported by the Project of Yunnan Provincial Department of Education Science Research Fund (Grant No. 2026Y0259) and the Practical Innovation Project of Postgraduate Students in the Professional Degree of Yunnan University (Grant No. ZC-252511908)
Published: February 28, 2026
Abstract
Based on Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory, this paper explores the co-translation of The White Pony: An Anthology of Chinese Poetry from the Earliest Times to the Present Day by Robert Payne (a foreign faculty member at the National South-west Associated University, NSAU) and a local translator group. Within this translational field, Payne possessed significant linguistic and cultural capital, while local translators contributed their cultural habitus and indigenous knowledge to the translation process. The ongoing interactions between these parties ultimately produced the distinctive co-translation characteristics of The White Pony. Employing literature review and close textual analysis, the study systematically investigates how capital asymmetry, habitus adaptation, and field dynamics shaped the co-translation model, text selection, translation strategies, and communication outcomes. The findings further indicate that their collaboration extended beyond linguistic transfer, functioning as a form of social negotia-tion during a period of turbulence and facilitating both cultural inheritance and effective cross-cultural communication.
Keyword
Field Theory; National Southwest Associated University; Robert Payne; Local Translator Group; The White Pony
References
Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital (pp. 241-258). Greenwood Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice (pp. 53). Stanford University Press.
Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. J. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology (pp. 97). University of Chicago Press.
Deng, Z. (2022). A study on the poet group of National Southwest Associated University from the perspective of literary field (pp. 5-21, 63-115, 151-229). People’s Publishing House.
Feng, H. (2006). Culture chosen and culture spirit of Southwest Associated University (pp. 133-135). Yunnan People’s Publishing House.
Lin, Y. (1994). The complete works of Lin Yutang (Vol. 14): Xingsu collection & Pijing collection (pp. 38-39). Northeast Normal University Press.
Payne, R. (1947). The white pony: An anthology of Chinese poetry from the earliest times to the present day (pp. vii, xix, 24, 31-32, 132-133, 167). The John Day Company.
Wang, Y., & Dai, S. (2025). Robert Payne’s cross-cultural translation and the dissemination of China’s literary image. Journal of Social Sciences, 3, 77-92. https://doi.org/10.13644/j.cnki.cn31-1112.2025.03.015
Wang, Z. (2022). A study on the subjects’ collaborative action in collaborative translation. Foreign Language Research, 3, 69-73. https://doi.org/10.16263/j.cnki.23-1071/h.2022.03.011
Zhu, H. (2009). Studies on English translation of Chinese poetry in England and the United States (pp. 273-274). Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.
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
A Study on the Co-Translation of The White Pony by Robert Payne and the Local Translator Group of the National Southwest Associated University from the Perspective of the Field Theory
How to cite this paper: Qin Li. (2026). A Study on the Co-Translation of The White Pony by Robert Payne and the Local Translator Group of the National Southwest Associated University from the Perspective of the Field Theory. Translation and Foreign Language Learning, 2(2), 281-285.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/tfll.2026.02.015