The notion of yanyi and its contribution to the study of intralingual translation in pre-modern China

In my paper I will discuss the notion of yanyi (lit. exposition of the meaning; elaboration on the meaning) in pre-modern Chinese culture in the light of the research on intralingual translation. The term yanyi, whose usage in the title of a work probably originated within the Buddhist tradition of sutra commentary and explanation during the Tang dynasty (618-907), is nowadays primarily associated with pre-modern narrative tradition of fictionalized histories, but in its diachronic configuration it more generally referred to the elaboration/interpretation of one or more source texts. The term therefore refers to a process and practice of cultural transmission of texts that encompasses commentary, translation and adaptation. As a specific case study, in my paper I will analyze a Chinese collection of narratives from the seventeenth century, the work Lienü zhuan yanyi, which, for the most part, constitutes a (pseudo-)vernacularization in Vernacular written Chinese of the text in Classical Chinese Lienü zhuan (Biographies of Women, I c. B.C.), a classic of women education since ancient times. Proceeding through the comparison of excerpts from the yanyi version and the source text, I will present a description of the macro- and microstrategies employed in the yanyi version. As a result I will argue that the notion of yanyi reveals important elements to assess the role of intralingual translation in the diglossic culture of pre-modern China.