Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how a scholarly Chinese work on science was reworked through adaption, synthesis and vernacularization for a readership of early Meiji tradesmen. It examines the various intralingual translation strategies adopted by the work's creator to hone his message for his new audience.

Paper long abstract:

Following the opening of treaty ports in 1859, among the first imports to Japan were science books written in, or translated into, Chinese by British and American protestant missionaries. These works eventually moved beyond a Chinese-literate scholarly circle to a wider public realm, especially with their adoption as textbooks in the new Meiji school system. As they proliferated, they were appropriated by a new generation of readers who sometimes reworked them for new audiences. This paper scrutinizes one such work, Hatsumei Kiji (Accounts of Invention), which was compiled by an Osaka-based merchant who adapted, supplemented and vernacularized scholarly translations to produce a work targeted at those working in the manual trades. The work's creator aimed to persuade his readers that they could be Japan's own James Watts and George Stephensons, and encouraged them to turn their attention to steam-based technologies to secure a prosperous future for themselves in the unsettled social and economic landscape of the early Meiji period. This paper explores how Hatsumei Kiji's creator transformed his sources to make them suitable for his new audience and, in doing so, pays special attention to the adaptation of illustrations and technical terminology. It argues that investigating such examples of intralingual translation, whereby translations are reworked in their new context, are a necessary part of understanding the translation of scientific knowledge in early Meiji society. It also demonstrates how, in an era of heady excitement at elite levels about the potential of science and technology to transform Japan into a prosperous nation-state, science was not seen by all as being narrowly related to nation-building, but was perceived instead as a means of improving one's own personal circumstances and a way to secure a stable future for one's own family.