Translation studies as a discipline in the Chinese academia

The study of translation in the Chinese language context, with particular regard to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), has developed with unprecedented momentum since the early 1980s. Indeed, when Bassnett and Lefevere declared in the General Editors’ Preface to their Routledge translation studies series that ‘[t]‌he growth of Translation Studies as a separate discipline is a success story of the 1980s’ (Lefevere 1992: xi), their words rang true of the Chinese situation, whether or not they had this in mind when making that statement. Admittedly, the 1980s was a span of ten years and Bassnett and Lefevere did not specify any exact starting year for the development, nor did they give any reason why it was during the 1980s that the given ‘success story’ happened. However, with regard to the Chinese situation, as we will discuss in Section 37.2, three indicators can be identified of the beginning of such a development. These were then followed by further progress that contributed to the disciplinary consolidation of translation studies (TS) in the Chinese context.