Biography

I have a BA in English (Changsha), MA in modern literature (Leicester), and PhD in comparative semiotics (Bath Spa). Upon completing my PhD, I worked as a postdoctoral research fellow (on two consecutive major projects funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Leverhulme Trust) at the School of Oriental Studies, University of London.  

Since 1982, I have been teaching undergraduate and postgraduate modules in translation and comparative literary/cultural studies in Chinese and British universities including SOAS and the University of Leeds. I joined Portsmouth University in 2012. 

I'm also a practitioner of literary translation and Chinese calligraphy. 

Research interests

I have conducted research projects in the following areas: 

• Comparative literature and translation -- In the late 1980s, I completed a study of the influence of Western modernism on early 20th century Chinese poetry. In the 1990s, my focus was on the study and translation of postmodernist fiction into Chinese.  I was the first Chinese translator who introduced Toni Morrison’s post-modernist novel Beloved to the Chinese readers before Toni Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. My Chinese translation with a critical introduction (published in 1990) is still a popular topic for many MA dissertations and PhD theses in translation studies in China. I’m currently working on a Chinese translation (with critical analysis) of the regionalist poems by George Venn. 

• Comparative philosophy, textual scholarship and translation -- In my PhD thesis, I ventured into the terrain of comparative critical theory by taking up a semiotic strand in the Chinese Buddhist texts. In 2001, I published my first monograph Buddhism and Deconstruction: Towards a Comparative Semiotics (with a paperback edition published by Routledge in 2014). I’m currently writing a monograph on the development of formal logic in early Chinese Buddhist texts and translating these texts into English (with scholarly commentaries).

Teaching responsibilities

(1) Undergraduate modules:

• Theory and Practice of Translation

• Practical Translation 

• Mandarin Chinese

• BA Dissertation in translation and Chinese studies 

(2) MA modules:

• Critical approaches to specialised translation

• Translation project

• MA dissertation 

(3) PhD supervision:

I’ve supervised PhD thesis on Buddhist translation. I’m currently supervising PhD theses on 

• Film and TV subtitling (from English into Chinese)

• Translation of contemporary English fiction (from English into Chinese)

I will also be happy to supervise any topic in Chinese translation, Chinese language and Chinese literature.