Mediation, Dissemination, and Reception of David Tod Roy’s English Translation of Jin Ping Mei in the Anglophone World

Abstract

Drawing on medio-translatology and a framework of translational mediation adapted from Lasswell’s model of communication, this article examines the mediation, dissemination, and reception of David Tod Roy’s English translation of Jin Ping Mei in the Anglophone world. It further introduces interpretive authority as an analytical concept, placing translational subject, content, channel, audience, and effect within a unified chain of inquiry to explore how a scholarly translation acquires influence in the target culture. Methodologically, the study combines qualitative discourse analysis of translator interviews, quantitative comparison of different English translations, sentiment analysis of platform-based reader reviews, and external dissemination data. The findings show that Roy continually constructs interpretive authority over Jin Ping Mei through redefinition of the object of translation, explicit strategic justification, and a proceduralized narrative of scholarly labor. This authority is further materialized in the scholarly textual form of the translation, as reflected in its lexical distribution, syntactic organization, information embedding, and paratextual system. University-press publication, academic reviews, and cultural media together constitute a mechanism for the institutional amplification of interpretive authority. Anglophone readers generally acknowledge the translation’s reliability, completeness, and scholarly value, while also displaying sensitivity to the reading friction generated by dense annotation and translator visibility. The article argues that the dissemination and reception of Roy’s translation in the Anglophone world should not be understood as the natural outcome of scholarliness itself, but rather as a dynamic cycle in which interpretive authority is continually constructed, amplified, validated, and negotiated among translator, text, institution, and readership.