Forensic Science in English Detective Stories and Their Translation into Chinese around the Turn of the 20th Century

The role played by translation during the late Qing period has been highlighted
in many researches, and the translation of detective stories is of course not a new area of academic inquiry. When the differences between the east and the west, the difference between Chinese Gong’an (court case) and western detective stories in particular, have been acknowledged, the Chinese translation of English detective stories merits further research and inquiry. Actually, western detective stories, especially English ones, are fraught with advanced knowledge and technology and associated with modernity. In lieu of this, we can observe the interest in the relationship between detective stories and the rise of forensic science. In terms of cross-cultural communication, it is indispensable to answer the following questions: How the part embedded with forensic science was translated into the less-technologically-oriented cultures, Chinese in this particular case? How was the translation perceived and accepted? What is the impact and influence on the local community, the creation of Chinese detective stories for example? This paper will focus on several aspects of forensic science, medicine and photography to be specific. How are western medicine and photography applied in English detective stories, and how are they presented in the Chinese translation? Case studies will cover masterpieces from Arthur Conan Doyle and less known writers like L.T. Meade, etc. Such forensic science is gradually acknowledged and appropriated in local detective writings, and examples will be taken from Cheng Xiaoqing and other writers at the beginning of the 20th century.