Biographical Note
Wenyan Luo received her PhD in 2019 from Durham University, UK, before working as a postdoctoral researcher at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University between 2020-21. She then joined the Department of Translation of Lingnan University in August 2021. Her research interests lie in text analysis in translation, history of translation between English and Chinese, translation ethics, translator studies, and sociology of translation, in particular Actor-network Theory-approached translation studies. Her recent book Translation as Actor-Networking applies actor-network theory (ANT) to study the process of producing Arthur Waley’s canonical English translation of the Chinese literary classic Journey to the West. The book investigates how various translation actors (agents) worked in very specific historical, social, translation, and publishing conditions, towards the production of the translation. It reveals what those actors put into the translation project, how they interacted towards its success, and how the actors, at the same time, were constantly changed, shaped, and transformed during translation.
Research InterestS
- Translation Studies
- Sociology of Translation
- Translator Studies
- Translation History
- Translation Production and Dissemination (process-oriented)
- China in the West
Books
- Tyulenev, Sergey & Luo, Wenyan. (eds.). Routledge Handbook of Translation and Sociology. London and New York: Routledge, 2024 (expected).
- Luo, Wenyan. Translation as Actor-Networking: Actors, Agencies, and Networks in the Making of Arthur Waley’s English Translation of the Chinese ‘Journey to the West’. London and New York: Routledge, 2020.
(Series: Routledge Advances in Translation and Interpreting Studies)
Book Chapters
- Luo, Wenyan. “Microsociological approaches to Translation and Interpreting Studies” in Sergey Tyulenev and Wenyan Luo (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Translation and Sociology. London and New York: Routledge, 2024 (expected).
- Tyulenev, Sergey & Luo, Wenyan. “Systems approaches” in Reine Meylaerts and Kobus Marais (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Concepts and Theories of Translation. London and New York: Routledge, 2023 (expected).
- Luo, Wenyan & Zheng, Binghan. “Monkey’s Journey to the West: How translations under ‘One Title’ Helped to Disseminate a Classical Chinese Novel” in Lintao Qi and Shani Tobias (eds.) Translation and Overseas Dissemination of Classical Chinese Literature. New York: Springer, 2022.
Journal Articles
- Luo, Wenyan. “Modes of ‘Translation’, the Concept of Inscription, and Their Implications to Sociological Studies on Translation”. Foreign Languages Research, 3, 2022. (in Chinese)
- Luo, Wenyan. “The Name and Nature of Actor-network Theory and Its Implication to the Sociology of Translation”. Foreign Language Research, 3, 2022. (in Chinese)
- Luo, Wenyan. “Applying Actor-Network Theory to the Description of Translation Production: A Case Study of Arthur Waley’s translation of Journey to the West from Chinese to English”. Foreign Languages Research, 2, 2020. (in Chinese)
- Luo, Wenyan and Zheng, Binghan. “Visiting elements thought to be ‘inactive’: non-human actors in Arthur Waley’s translation of Journey to the West”. Asia Pacific Translation and Intercultural Studies, 4:3, 2017.
Conference Presentations
- “行動者網絡理論視角下的《西遊記》翻譯研究：以亞瑟·韋利的英譯本《猴》為例 (The Translation of Xi You Ji from An Actor-Network Perspective: Actors and networks in the production of Arthur Waley’s Monkey: A Folk-tale of China)”, 社會翻譯學前沿探索高層論壇, Beijing and Guangzhou (Invited Presentation), July 2021
- “Actor-Network Theory and Translation”, at lecture series “Sociology of Translation”, School of Modern Languages and Cultures, Durham University (Invited Lecture), February 2016
- “Applying Actor-Network Theory to Translation Production Research”, The Fourth Asia-Pacific Forum on Translation and Intercultural Studies, Durham, October 2015