On September 13th, 2024, the thesis proposal meeting of the 2023-2024 Chinese Academic Foreign Translation Project of the National Social Science Fund of China "Cultural History of Thirty Key Words (Italian Version)" was held online. The project was jointly declared by Dr. Shi Dou from the Italian Department of School of Foreign Studies (SFS) of Nankai University (NKU), and China Social Sciences Press, with Dr. Shi Dou as the project leader.
Professor Li Min, deputy dean of the SFS of NKU, presided over and delivered a speech. Professor Nie Changshun, author and project consultant of Cultural History of Thirty Key Words, and Ms. He Ziwen, chief of the Project and Achievement Office of the Department for Humanities & Social Sciences research administration of Nankai University presented and delivered speeches. Two Chinese members of the project team and three foreign members attended the meeting, namely: Prof. Nie Changshun, Wuhan University (expert member), author of Cultural History in Thirty Keywords and advisor of the project; Dr. Shi Dou, lecturer of the Department of Italian of SFS and the project host (main translator); Dr. Natalia Francesca Riva, Associate Professor of Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (second translator); and Dr. Paolo Magagnin, Associate Professor of Università Ca' Foscari Venezia (reviser) and Dr. Chiara Piccinini, Assistant Researcher of Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (other translators).
Prof. Li Min first extended a warm welcome to the guests and invited them to speak in turn.
Professor Nie Changshun, the author of Cultural History of Thirty Key Words, was responsible for the downsizing of the original text for this foreign translation. In his speech, he first recognized the professional ability and rigorous attitude of the team and expressed his full support for the translation of this book.
Ms. He Ziwen expressed her gratitude to all the experts attending the thesis proposal meeting. She emphasized the importance of the Chinese academic foreign translation project for the construction of the national discourse dissemination system and affirmed the outstanding achievements made by SFS in this project in recent years. She also hoped that the members of the project team would complete the translation work efficiently under the leadership of the main translator, so as to promote cultural and academic exchanges between China and Italy. On behalf of SFS, Professor Li Min expressed his gratitude to the Department for Humanities & Social Sciences research administration of Nankai University for its trust and support, and said that SFS would give necessary support to the project and wished the project a complete success.
After the opening ceremony, Professor Wen Zheng presided over the defense session. The judging committee was composed of Professor Wen Zheng, director of the Italian Teaching and Research Section of Beijing Foreign Studies University and president of China Italian Teaching and Research Association; Professor Yang Lin, director of the Italian Department of SFS of NKU, deputy director of the Center for Area Studies of Nankai University, head of the master's program of Area Studies; and Prof. María Francesca Staiano, director of the China Research Center of the Argentine Institute of International Relations of Universidad Nacional de La Plata (IRI-UNLP), director of the Latin American Research Academy on a Community with Shared Future and BRI, founding member of China Studies Portal-WACS, and researcher of the working group "China and World Power Map" of Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales (CLACSO), with Professor Wen Zheng as the chairman of the judging committee.
Dr. Shi Dou, the leader of the project, introduced the project from the aspects of topic selection, team composition, translation planning, quality control, project progress and publication promotion. This project stresses cultural inheritance and promotion in addition to academic study, which has significant social and academic importance. Consisting of Chinese and foreign experts with rich translation experience and academic backgrounds, the team innovatively formulated a detailed Translator's Guide to guarantee work efficiency and translation quality. They also used translation assistance tools and online collaboration platforms to ensure the balance, readability, completeness, depth, terminology consistency and effectiveness of their translation. From pre-translation preparation to finalization, the project is organized into five phases, each with clear objectives and time points, so as to make it easy to monitor the development and quality of the project. At the same time, the project team has also formulated backup plans to cope with possible risks and challenges. In publishing and publicity, the team plans to expand the influence of the project and the popularity of books through multiple channels, including academic journals, social media, academic conferences and media cooperation.
In the evaluation and discussion session, members of the defense committee affirmed the project report and put forward valuable comments.
Starting from the long tradition of translation and research work of Italian sinologists, Prof. Wen Zheng affirmed the ability of the Chinese and Italian translators in this project, made suggestions on the translation work of this project based on his own experience, and expressed his expectations for the final results.
Professor Yang Lin summarized the important role of this project with the word “key”, suggesting that we can link translation and research, learn from the experience and methods of experts and scholars from different countries, and summarize our experience in the process of work, so as to provide a reference for teaching, research and translation practice.
Professor María Francesca Staiano pointed out that the best way to understand contemporary China is to have contact and dialogue with it. In today's fierce collision between Chinese and Western cultures, intercultural studies have a particularly prominent role to play, and this program will contribute to this aspect of research.
The expert group fully affirmed the academic value and practical significance of the project, and believed that the project is conducive to enabling the Italian academic community to understand the evolution of the meaning of different Chinese keywords in the time and space coordinates of ancient and modern China and foreign countries, and is conducive to promoting the construction and dissemination of the Chinese cultural discourse system for foreigners, as well as to strengthening the mutual understanding between Chinese and foreign civilizations.
The translator members of the project team, Dr. Natalia Francesca Riva, Associate Professor of Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dr. Paolo Magagnin, Associate Professor of Università Ca' Foscari Venezia and Dr. Chiara Piccinini, Assistant Researcher of Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, respectively spoke and expressed their pleasure to participate in this translation work, and promised to do their best to use all kinds of resources and tools to complete the translation of various parts, in an effort to promote mutual understanding between different cultures through this work.
At present, the project has completed the compression of the translated version, and formulated a detailed translation plan and Translator's Guide. The team plans to complete the translation and revision work by the end of 2025.
