This article examines how the Jiangnan Arsenal mediated China’s encounter with Western science during the Self-Strengthening Movement (1860s – 1890s) through a tripartite ecosystemic framework. At the macro-level, the Arsenal is observed as a state-led translation apparatus aimed at bolstering China’s defensive modernization while maintaining cultural sovereignty. The meso-level focuses on Shu Gaodi, a Chinese-born, US-educated physician, teacher, and translator. A microhistorical analysis of his life and practice sheds new light on how translators operated within the institution. The micro level contains a comparative lexical analysis of excerpts from two medical translations of the same source text. The comparison shows an evolution of translation solutions going from cultural adaptation to lexical codification. The study contributes to translation studies by showing how translators operated in late Qing China, when state-led institutional translation was mandated to access and control technological innovations as a matter of national security rather than multilingual governance.
Fan et al. (Wed,) studied this question.