Categorising references to interpreting in ancient Chinese texts

This article aims to categorise and theorise references to “interpreting” in ancient China. Based on a corpus and textual analysis of texts composed before 600 CE, I observe that these references are primarily the generic engagement of interpreting relating to China-bound tributary trips and assimilation or acculturation “achievements” and not so much the individual interpreter, less still interpreting competence. If interpreting competence received such limited attention, it raises the question: What aspects of interpreting were emphasised? How was “interpreting” presented in the Chinese narratives? The recurrent textual references suggest a conscious linguistic and chronicling choice, especially in the way China, in its strength, even supremacy, was perceived or romanticised. This observation leads to the question: Did the symbolic meaning of interpreting embodied in the character yi (译)—as associated with hurdles, indirectness, blockage, differences, and geographical remoteness between two political, ethnic, or cultural entities—bear an ideological dimension in classical writing? I argue that it indeed did and that this ideological dimension consisted in the construction of the Chinese image or identity. Simply put, the downplaying of interpreting competence becomes understandable at this time, in which interpreting played mostly an ideological role.