Focusing on multimodality in translation studies, this edited volume presents insights into the models, trends, and practices of multimodal translation across a variety of media contexts in contemporary China.
The book is structured into five main themes, investigating audiovisual translation in digital media, multimodal translation of Chinese classics in print media, multimodal design in website translation, stance and ideology of paratexts in news translation, and the use of paralanguage and visual cues in quasi-on-site multimodal translation such as conference interpreting. Contributors draw on various theoretical models and research methods, including systemic functional multimodal discourse analysis, narrative theory, Skopos-functional theory, multimodal analysis of digital discourse, corpus-assisted multimodal analysis, questionnaire surveys, and interviews. The volume covers major topics in multimodal translation studies, ranging from emerging multimodal translation models to multimodal creativity in inter-lingual subtitling for social media, image framing in multimodal metaphor translation, and intersemiotic structure, information value, cohesion, and coherence in different textures of media translation. Through ample solid empirical studies, it aims to shed lights on the methodological development of multimodal translation across various media forms, including social media, websites, on-site interactions, and books.
The title will be of great value to scholars and students studying linguistics, translation studies, multimodal discourse analysis, and digital media.
Li Pan is Full Professor of Translation Studies, Head of the Translation and Interpreting Department of the Faculty of English Language and Culture, and Director of the Center for Translation and Communication, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, China. Her main research interests include discourse analysis of multimodal translation, audiovisual translation, and news translation.
Xiaoping Wu is Associate Professor at the Department of Languages and Cultures, Beijing Normal University–Hong Kong Baptist University United International College, China. She has published extensively on social media discourse studies, media and translation studies, and intercultural studies.
Tian Luo is Professor of Translation Studies at Southwest University, China. His main research interests include military translation history, multimodal translation studies, discourse analysis, and corpus-based translation studies.
Hong Qian is Associate Professor and Associate Head of Department of Languages and Cultures at Beijing Normal University–Hong Kong Baptist University United International College, China. Her research interests are multimodal discourse analysis, intercultural communication and translation, and technologyinfused translation pedagogy.
Multimodality in Translation Studies
Media, Models, and Trends in China
Edited by Li Pan, Xiaoping Wu, Tian Luo, and Hong Qian
This research was supported by the Key Project of National Social Science Fund of China (23AZD053), the Philosophy and Social Sciences Project of Guangdong Province (GD23CWY06 and GD23YWY07), Guangdong Provincial Innovation Research Team Project (2018WCXTD002), the Start-up Research Grant of Beijing Normal University at Zhuhai (29100310432103), and Center for Translation Studies of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies.
First published in English 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
The right of Li Pan, Xiaoping Wu, Tian Luo, and Hong Qian to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-032-64617-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-65099-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-65097-5 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781032650975
Typeset in Times New Roman by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
In honour of Professor Meifang Zhang,
This edited book is dedicated, with deep gratitude, to Professor Meifang Zhang, an exemplary mentor and esteemed teacher. Her unwavering commitment, profound expertise, and invaluable guidance have played an instrumental role in nurturing our intellectual growth and shaping us into the accomplished scholars and professionals we have become today. We express our heartfelt appreciation for her enduring impact on our lives and the immeasurable inspiration she continues to provide.
List of figures ix
List of tables x
List of contributors xii
Introduction: Multimodality in Translation Studies: Themes and Models 1
XIAOPING WU AND LI PAN
1 Modelling Audiovisual Translation of Non-fiction Videos: A Multimodal Approach to Subtitling 21
LI PAN AND SIXIN LIAO
2 Multimodal and Interactive Subtitling in Chinese Social Media: The Case of Danmu-Mediated Subtitling and Interaction on Bilibili 35
XIAOPING WU AND RICHARD FITZGERALD
3 Xinjiang in Harmony and Prosperity: A Discourse Analysis of Multimodal Metaphor Reframing in a Promotional Video of China’s Xinjiang 52
YUFENG LIU AND DECHAO LI
4 Intersemiotic Narrative Coherence in Costume Drama Subtitling: An SF-MDA Approach 81 HONG QIAN AND JIA ZHANG
5 Multimodal Translation of Conceptual Metaphor: A Case Study of Zhuangzi and Its Comic Book in English 103
TIAN LUO AND QIAN ZHU
6 Towards a Multimodal Analysis for Picturebook Translation: A Case Study of Mulan
XI CHEN
7 Framing the Government’s Image with Verbal and Nonverbal Resources in Macao’s Policy Addresses
SUT I LAM
8 Translating Multimodal Cohesion in Chinese Government Websites: A Case Study of Guangzhou International
HANTING PAN
9 Paratextual Reframing in News Reports: A Multimodal Study of the Chinese Translation of News on the Belt and Road Initiatives
10 The Multimodality of Ideological Discourse in Translated News on Chinese Social Media
XIAOYU ZHANG AND WEIXIN ZENG
11 Multimodal Meaning-making in Conference Speeches and Delivery Strategies of Professional Simultaneous Interpreters
2.1 A sketch of a video frame with danmu comments 36
3.1 Analytical framework of metaphor translation-based reframing (Liu & Li, 2022b, p. 7)
4.1 Chinese Lunar New Year wishes 86
4.2 Potatoes
4.3 Glue logic in ZHZC
5.1 The classification of conceptual metaphors
5.2 Multimodal metaphor analytical framework.
5.3 Analytical framework for the multimodal translation of metaphors
5.4 Coding frame in NVivo10
5.5 Type and quantity of conceptual metaphors
5.6 An overview of translation methods
5.7 Text–image relations in the multimodal metaphors
7.1 Frequency of different labelling of the government in CHPAC
7.2 Frequency of different labelling of the government in CCPAC
7.3 Pictures in PA2016p
7.4 Pictures in PA2018p
7.5 Pictures in PA2019p
8.1 Analytical framework for multimodal cohesion in websites
9.1 Attitudinal components in appraisal theory (Martin & White, 2005)
9.2 Verbal and visual attitudinal realisation (based on White, 2006; Economou, 2009)
10.1 The analytical framework
10.2 Examples of emphasis by bold type and bold type plus colour
10.3 Examples of addition of sub-headings
11.1 Analytical framework
11.2 Annotation interface of ELAN
11.3 PPT page of the segment in Table 11.4
1.1
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
2.5
2.9
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
3.8 Analysis of LIGHT and HAND metaphors
4.1 A summary of the 20 eventualities (E stands for eventuality)
4.2 Transcription and image–text relations of eight eventualities
4.3
4.4 Logico-semantic relations
6.1 Translation types in terms of mode, medium, and culture
6.2 Functions and their realizations in the images of picturebooks
6.3 Images and cultural representations of Mulan in the five bilingual picturebooks
7.1 Transitivity for realizing ideational meaning
7.2 Processes represented by social actors in images
7.3 Dimensions of colour and their meaning potential
7.4 Data of the study
7.5 Frequency of 我們 (we, us, our, ours) in ST and TT
7.6 Lexical verbs significantly collocating with We
7.7 Significant Collocates of We representing epistemic warranty 150
7.8 Significant Collocates of We representing boulomaic commitment 151
7.9 Significant Collocates of We in CHPAE, CCPAE, and CSOTU 152
8.1 Twenty sets of corresponding Chinese–English webpages as translation sets 166
8.2 Names and corresponding cohesive ties of the hyperlinks used in the headline column of the homepage of GPGWP captured on October 27, 2020 169
8.3 Comparison of cohesive ties in intra-text cohesion between the homepages of GPGWP and GI captured on October 27, 2020 171
8.4 Layout of intra-text meronymy examples identified in the homepages of GPGWP and GI 171
9.1 Research data of this chapter 185
9.2 Verbal attitudes in the English news headline (Example 1) 186
9.3 Representational and attitudinal meanings in an English news photo (Example 1)
9.4 Verbal attitudes in a Chinese news headline (Example 1)
9.5 Representational and attitudinal meanings in a Chinese news photo (Example 1)
9.6 Verbal attitudes in an English news headline (Example 2)
9.7 Representational and attitudinal meanings in an English news photo (Example 2)
9.8 Verbal attitudes in a Chinese news headline (Example 2)
9.9 Representational and attitudinal meanings in the Chinese news photo (Example 2)
10.1 Three ways to add supplemental news texts
11.1 Total length of Intersemiotic Texture and co-occurrence
11.2 Percentage of different cohesive devices in experiential meaning
11.3 Percentage of different cohesive devices in logical meaning
11.4 Transcription of Intersemiotic Parallelism, Intersemiotic Hyponymy, and Intersemiotic Comparative relations
11.5 Transcription of Intersemiotic Polysemy
11.6 Transcription of Intersemiotic Meronymy
11.7 Transcription of Intersemiotic Additive relation
11.8 Frequency of delivery strategies used by simultaneous interpreters
11.9 Transcription of compression
11.10 Transcription of explicitation
Contributors
Xi Chen is an Assistant Professor at University International College, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macao S.A.R., China. Her research interests are in multimodal discourse analysis, picturebook studies and translation, and cross-cultural studies.
Richard Fitzgerald is Professor of Communication at the University of Macau, China (SAR). He has researched and written extensively on methods of qualitative discourse analysis with a particular focus on Membership Categorization Analysis (MCA).
Sut I Lam is a Lecturer of Faculty of Languages and Translation, Macao Polytechnic University. Her research interests include corpus-assisted analysis, multimodal analysis, and discourse analysis to translation studies.
Dechao Li is a Professor at the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His main research areas include corpusbased translation studies, empirical approaches to translation process research, history of translation in the late Qing and early Republican periods, and problem-based learning and translator/interpreter training.
Sixin Liao obtained her PhD degree in linguistics from Macquarie University in Australia. Her PhD project and recent publications in international journals cited in this chapter focus on using eye tracking combined with post-hoc measures to understand the reading of subtitles in multimodal contexts such as educational videos.
Yufeng Liu is a PhD candidate at the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her research interests include metaphor translation studies, news translation studies, and corpus-based translation studies.
Tian Luo is Professor of Translation Studies at Southwest University, China. He received his PhD degree in English Linguistics (Translation Studies) from the University of Macau. His main research interests include military translation history, multimodal translation studies, discourse analysis, and corpus-based translation studies.
Contributors xiii
Qianhua Ouyang is Associate Professor of Translation Studies at School of Interpreting and Translation Studies, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. Her research interests range from multimodal analysis, and discourse analysis in interpreting to interpreting pedagogy. She is also a practicing conference interpreter.
Hanting Pan is Associate Professor at the College of Education for the Future, Beijing Normal University, China. Her research interests include translation practice and theory, discourse analytical approach to translation studies, corpusbased translation studies, and multimodal translation studies.
Li Pan is Full Professor of Translation Studies, Head of the Translation and Interpreting Department of the Faculty of English Language and Culture, and Director of the Center for Translation and Communication, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, China. Her main research interests include discourse analysis of multimodal translation, audiovisual translation, and news translation.
Hong Qian is Associate Professor and Associate Head of the Department of Languages and Cultures at Beijing Normal University–Hong Kong Baptist University United International College, China. Her research interests are multimodal discourse analysis, intercultural communication and translation, and technology-infused translation pedagogy.
Binjian Qin is a Lecturer in the School of Foreign Studies at Guangxi Minzu University. He received his PhD degree in English Linguistics (Translation Studies) from the University of Macau. His major research interests include journalistic translation and political discourse translation.
Xiaoping Wu is Associate Professor at the Department of Languages and Cultures, Beijing Normal University–Hong Kong Baptist University United International College, China. She has published extensively on social media discourse studies, media and translation studies, and intercultural studies.
Weixin Zeng is a PhD student from the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China. Her research interests include journalistic translation and media and political discourse analysis.
Jia Zhang is a PhD candidate in translation and interpreting studies at the University of New South Wales, Australia. He used to be a Lecturer of Applied Translation Studies at Beijing Normal University–Hong Kong Baptist University United International College, China, and a Lecturer of Translation at Sun Yat-sen University, China. His research interests include audiovisual translation, translation technology, and translator training.
Xiaoyu Zhang is Lecturer of the Department of English at National University of Defense Technology, China. Her research interests include institutional translation theory and practice, media studies, and critical discourse analysis.
Contributors
Jie Zhao is a postgraduate of the School of Interpreting and Translation Studies in Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. Her research interests are interpreting studies, Systemic Functional Linguistics, and multimodal discourse analysis.
Qian Zhu received her MA degree in English Linguistics from Chongqing Jiaotong University. Her research interests include translation history, multimodal translation studies, and discourse analysis.
Introduction
Multimodality in Translation Studies: Themes and Models
Xiaoping Wu and Li Pan
This introductory chapter serves to set the overarching research context for the book, which defines the key concepts, reviews the main strands in previous research on multimodality in translation studies, and provides an overview of emerging multimodal translation in relation to the chapters in the collection. Recent years have seen communication become increasingly multimodal, where people mobilize a wide range of semiotic modes such as words, colours, pictures, sounds, videos, and gestures for meaning making and communication (Forceville, 2020; Tseronis & Forceville, 2017; van Leeuwen, 2010). This is also evident in the field of translation and interpreting, where existing models and frameworks are being challenged by this shift towards increasing multimodality. Despite a growing interest in multimodality in various areas and disciplines, multimodal analysis in translation studies remains an area that has yet to be fully explored (Pérez-González, 2020b; Taylor, 2016; Zhang & Feng, 2021).
To bridge these two areas of multimodality and translation studies, the edited volume examines translation from a multimodal perspective in contemporary China where intercultural communication and interaction take on distinct forms due to its unique social and cultural environment. In multimodal communication, social and cultural norms co-determine in what mode(s) information is conveyed (Kress, 2010, p. 1), while the availability of technologies decides what affordances can be accessible for meaning making. Different societies, or even a single society at different points in time, do not possess identical technical means for engaging in multimodal communication (Kress, 2010, p. 11). With a focus on topics in contemporary China, it is therefore expected to explore how the combination of (technological) affordances, constraints, and sociocultural norms have a certain impact on multimodality in translation in a given context of a particular period of time. The themes covered include audiovisual translation (ATV) in digital media, multimodal translation of Chinese classics in print media, multimodal design in website translation, stance and ideology of paratexts in news translation, and paralanguage and visual cues in quasi-on-site multimodal translation such as conference interpreting. Special attention is paid to methodological discussion on multimodality in new and traditional media translation and the application of different theoretical frameworks and approaches, including systemic functional multimodal discourse analysis, narrative theory, Skopos-functional theory, social semiotic multimodal
analysis, digital conversation analysis, corpus-assisted multimodal analysis, questionnaire survey, and interviews. The volume covers major translation genres and modalities in multimodal translation studies, ranging from emerging multimodal translation practices to multimodal creativity in subtitling for social media, image framing in multimodal metaphor translation, and intersemiotic structure, information value, cohesion, and coherence in different textures of media translation.
Mode, semiotic, and multimodality
Modes, in Kress and van Leeuwen’s view (2001), are semiotic resources that allow the simultaneous realization of discourses and kinds of interaction. As a term commonly used in systemic functional linguistics and social semiotics, mode refers to a socially organized set of semiotic resources that are used to create meaning (Jewitt et al. 2016), which includes various forms such as images, writing, layout, and speech, among others. For something to be considered a mode, it must possess a recognized set of semiotic resources and organizing principles within a community to convey meaning. For example, gesture is a mode that has been shaped into a communicative resource for diverse communities. It serves as a means of communication for hearing-impaired communities as well as ballet dancers. In these contexts, gesture is recognized and used as a mode to effectively convey meaning beyond verbal communication. The concept of mode highlights the importance of understanding different semiotic resources and their organization in order to comprehend how meaning is constructed within a specific community or context. Strictly speaking, “mode” is means of expression, while “semiotic” refers to the meaning-making system (Bednarek & Caple, 2017). For example, multimodal texts make use of two or more modalities such as video or words, while multisemiotic texts employ two or more semiotic systems such as language or image (Bednarek & Caple, 2017).
Multimodality, when used to refer to communication phenomena, means the integration and interaction of different modes, such as verbal, visual, auditory, gestural, and spatial modes. It emphasizes the use of multiple semiotic resources to convey meaning and understanding. In Jewitt et al.’s (2016) words, multimodality, in a broad sense, highlights that people draw on distinctly different sets of resources for meaning making (e.g., gaze, speech, gesture), while its narrower definition stresses that in actual instances of meaning making, these resources are used in conjunction to form multimodal wholes. As an interdisciplinary approach, multimodality is an analytical approach conceiving analysis of discourse and interaction that involves more than language or two more non-linguistic semiotic systems (Kress, 2010). As a field of study, it offers a systematic network of concepts, methods, and frameworks to understand a wide range of forms of meaning making (Jewitt, 2016).
Multimodal research, on the one hand, emphasizes situated action (Jewitt, 2016) –context of situation and context of culture – to investigate different choices of forms of meaning making and their impacts on meaning. On the other hand, it focuses on the interaction between modes to examine the specific work of each mode and how each mode interacts with each other and contributes to the others
in the multimodal ensemble, a term that refers to representations or interactions consisting of more than one mode. According to Kress and van Leeuwen (2001), multimodal ensembles involved in the design and production of an event may reinforce each other, fulfil complementary roles, or be hierarchically ordered. For example, in some cases, the meaning realized by two modes may be “aligned”, while in other cases each mode may be used to refer to distinct aspects of meaning and be contradictory, or in tension (Bateman, 2014; Lemke, 1998). The relationships between modes as they are interwoven in interactions may realize tensions between the aspects of meaning in a text. This kind of tension can itself be meaningful and a means for encouraging reflection and critique. In this chapter, the term multimodality is used to mean both perspectives and studied as a research subject and analytical framework.
From intersemiotic translation to multimodal translation
One of the earliest attempts to examine multimodality in translation studies can be traced back to “intersemiotic translation”, a term coined by Roman Jakobson (1959). Jakobson distinguished three types of translation, namely intralingual translation, interlingual translation, and intersemiotic translation. Intersemiotic translation refers to the translation of verbal texts into non-verbal ones of different semiotic systems, such as translating Chinese fiction into audiovisual (e.g., films) or audio products (e.g., music) or images (e.g., painting or picture book). Intralingual translation refers to translation within the same language system such as translation from ancient Chinese to modern Chinese. Interlingual translation, also called “translation proper” by Jakobson (1959, p. 233), refers to translation between different languages, such as translation from English to Chinese.
Jakobson’s notion of intersemiotic translation relates the semiotic concept to translation and regards “intersemiotic translation” as “an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of nonverbal sign systems” (Jakobson, 1959, p. 233). which was then dominated by intra- and interlingual translation and thus, extended the boundary of translation. Intersemiotic translation is common practice in today’s diverse range of contexts of cultural communication and interaction which involves intersemiotic representation and transformation. However, in actual work, intralingual translation, interlingual translation, and intersemiotic translation are often simultaneously found in many cases (Chen et al., 2020). For example, film subtitling often involves both interlingual and intersemiotic translation. Noting the limited application of Jakobson’s definition, Toury used intersemiotic translation to refer to a series of transforming operations that replace “one semiotic entity” with “another entity, pertaining to another [sub-]code or semiotic system” (1986, p. 1128). He suggested that intersemiotic translation involved translation in which “the two codes [are] two different sign-systems, whether one of them is verbal or not” (Toury, 1986, p. 1129). As it is, the term refers to both translation between two non-verbal systems as well as that between verbal and non-verbal ones. Toury thus simplified Jakobson’s translation typology and proposed to classify translation into two types: intrasemiotic translating and intersemiotic translating.
Gorlée (2010, p. 58) argued that the concept of multimodality needed to be taken into consideration in translation typology since Jakobson’s trichotomy lacked a more detailed discussion of the transformation from non-verbal signs to verbal signs and that between non-verbal signs. This is particularly necessary with the prevailing of multimedia and multimodality in the increasingly intensive intercultural communication featuring the digital era.
To include multimodal translation in translation typology, Kaindl (2013) proposed a translation typology that offered a detailed division of translation including multimodal texts. He regarded translation as “a conventionalized cultural interaction which modally and medially transfers texts from a communication entity for a target group that is different from the initially intended target group” (Kaindl, 2013, p. 261). Taking into consideration the dimensions of mode, medium, and culture, Kaindl (2013) classified translation into three pairs of categories: intramodal and intermodal types; intramedial and intermedial types; and intracultural and transcultural types. Intracultural–intramodal translation refers to the transfer in the same mode within a culture (e.g., translating a Cantonese play into Mandarin, or translating visual parts of a documentary on Guangzhou for a promotional video of the city). Transcultural–intramodal translation is the translation in the same mode across cultures (e.g., translating Chinese comics into Japanese manga). Intracultural–intermodal translation is the translation from one mode to a different mode within a culture (e.g., translating a Chinese picture manual into a Chinese text). Finally, transcultural–intermodal translation refers to translation from one mode to a different mode across cultures (e.g., translating a Chinese poem on Mulan into an English picturebook) (see a more detailed summary in Chapter 6).
As we can see from the preceding review, multimodal translation involves the translation of multimodal texts that combine different modes of communication. In this chapter, multimodal translation is two-folded in meaning. The first one is similar to intersemiotic translation in the sense of Toury’s classification, which includes both translation between two non-verbal systems as well as that between verbal and non-verbal ones, for instance, the adaptation of government’s policy address into pictorial versions on the websites, as shown in Lam’s case study of the Macau government’s website translation in Chapter 7. The second refers to translation of any modal components into another in a multimodal text or interaction that engages simultaneously various modes within a particular social-cultural context. In this understanding, multimodality is regarded as the simultaneous engagement of multifarious modes, such as speech, writing, and image, within a given context, and multimodal translation encompasses the translation of not only written or spoken words but also the translation of visual or audio elements presented in the source text. For instance, the caption of the background sound (such as the sound of thunder) and subtitling of dialogues in AVT for the deaf or the hard of hearing or the audio description of the image for those having sight problems. Thus, by extension, multimodal translation deals with translation between verbal modes and non-verbal modes in both intracultural and intercultural communication. As the title suggested, this edited volume is composed of contributions that both examine the phenomena of multimodal translation through detailed case analysis and
explores the sociocultural, functional, and medial dimensions of multimodal translation with multimodal approaches.
Major strands of multimodal translation studies
With multimodality existing in communications all the time, both scholars and translators need to be more sensitive to the entire semiotic impact of any multimodal communication, especially in this age when new challenges keep coming with new technological developments that constantly bring us novel forms of information representation and increasing accessibility to both physical and virtual communication. However, as Roland Barthes argued, there had long been an asymmetrical hierarchical difference between verbal and other symbolic modes of communication in which verbal language takes on a dominant position, while other symbols are considered secondary (Barthes, 1977, p. 39). Such a viewpoint is quite representative. Gambier (2006, p. 6) also pointed out that people acknowledged the interactive relationship between language and visual symbols, as well as between verbal and non-verbal communication, but the prevailing research perspective had always been linguistic.
Translation, though inherently multimodal as any other form of communication, has been studied as verbal communication in most previous research, while multimodality has been increasingly taken both as a research subject and analytical framework in areas like media studies, discourse analysis, and visual communication. Multimodality has only started to attract the attention of scholars of translation studies in the recent two decades (Zhang & Feng, 2021). This is partly reflected in the addition of the research item of “multimodality” and discussion of genres like audiovisual translation and translation of advertisement to encyclopedias and textbooks of translation studies (see the second edition of Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies [Baker & Saldanha, 2009] and the fourth edition of Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications [Munday, 2016]).
The growing interest in multimodality in communication and translation studies is to, a great extent, due to the development and proliferation of (new) media technologies that support much richer forms of meaning making. Today, translation practices have become ever more multimodal with different semiotic resources or modes playing an interdependent role in meaning making and intercultural communication. In multimodal artefacts such as audiovisual products, websites, picture books, and social media news, different modes work together in an integral manner to produce meaning and engage with the audience. For example, video producers may use moving visual images, background music, voice-over, and subtitles in creating a video, while digital users may employ images, words, hashtags, and hyperlinks when composing social media posts. With the affordances and constraints of different modes, each mode contributes to the process of meaning making and communication.
As (inter)cultural communication is increasingly characterized by multimodality, more attention needs to be attached to multimodality in translation practices and studies. However, compared with disciplines such as linguistics, discourse
analysis, and semiotics that have heavily engaged with multimodality (see Djonov & van Leeuwen, 2018; Jewitt, 2016; Poulsen & Kvåle, 2018; Zhao et al., 2014), translation studies have not paid much attention to the systematic exploration of multimodality and the relationship between these disciplines. As Pérez-González (2020b) and Taylor (2016) noted, although translation has been increasingly characterized by multimodality, scholars in translation studies have been slow to bridge these two disciplines. However, Taylor (2016) also pointed out that, for a span of two to three decades, although “most of the major contributions to the field (of AVT) have been more purely linguistically based and intent on providing keys to the understanding of the interplay of semiotic resources such as words, images, gesture, music, light, etc.”, research adapting linguistic and semiotic theories and notions has provided insights into understanding how to research multimodal communication and hence contributed to the studies of multimodal translation. For instance, visual grammar by Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) and Martinec and Salway’s description of image-text relation in media (2005), both based on Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics, provide scholars an impetus to develop analytical models for multimodal translation.
In this way, multimodal translation studies, interdisciplinary in nature, have been developing through borrowing and incorporating theories and notions from all fields of related studies in the last decades. For instance, in their journal article, “A Multimodal Approach to Translation Studies”, Huang and Li (2014) stressed that multimodal translation studies aim to explore the interaction between language and other forms of expression, focusing on how multiple types of information can be effectively conveyed during the translation process. They stressed the significance of the integration of language texts with non-linguistic elements in research and translation practice. In a monograph by O’Hagan and Mangiron (2013), multimodal translation within the context of video games was understood as the process of effectively transforming and conveying various elements such as text, images, and sounds present in games to target audiences. Diao (2015), emphasizing the complexity and specific skills required in multimodal translation, suggested that multimodal translation involved not only dealing with different expressions in various domains or media but also needs to consider the cultural background and specific expectations of the target audience. Cintas and Remael (2017) included in their co-authored book, Audiovisual Translation in a Global Context: Mapping an Ever-changing Landscape, a discussion on multimodal translation as an essential form emerging in a constantly evolving globalized media environment, covering domains such as advertising, films, and television series. In Researching Audio Description: New Approaches, a book focusing on audio description research, Matamala and Orero (2016) considered audio description, which uses sound to describe scenes and actions, as a form of multimodal translation and presented new methods and approaches that can be applied in the study of multimodal translation.
We can observe that multimodal translation studies largely revolve around the central concept of integrating verbal texts with other modes of representation for research and translation purposes. The objective of multimodal translation studies is to understand and convey multiple types of information found in different media
while considering the cultural background and specific needs of the target audience. In various domains and environments, multimodal translation studies offer unique theoretical frameworks and practical approaches to address the challenges and requirements encountered in translation processes. The following is a review of the main research strands in multimodality in translation studies based on publications in the last two decades.
There are four prominent research themes in the scholarship of multimodality in translation studies (Pérez-González, 2020a). The first strand of research explores the intersemiotic links, especially verbal–visual relationships in translating genres like public notices, comics, and picture books (see Chen, 2020a, 2020b, 2022; Chueasuai, 2013; Yu & Song, 2017). For instance, Yu and Song (2017), drawing upon Systemic Functional Linguistics and visual social semiotics to examine the congruent relationship between cover pictures and verbal text through a case study of two English translations of the Platform Sutra, a popular Zen Buddhist text, showed that the consistency between the visual representation and verbal depiction of the protagonist is achieved by different visual and verbal techniques in the two translations respectively, creating different engagement with the reader/audience. Based on visual narratives, part of Chen’s (2020b) study of the retranslation of Bob Dylan’s songs in picture books also investigated the intersemiotic relations between images and words and discussed how the narratives and emotions of the songs were visually represented in picturebooks. In a similar vein, Chen (2022) analysed the intersemiotic translation between verbal texts and images of picturebooks to explore the way in which Chinese nursery rhymes are visualized in contemporary picturebooks through drawing upon Jakobson’s (1959) three typologies of translation.
The second major research strand focuses on the non-verbal modes in facilitating meaning making and interpretation such as visual paratext, gesture, gaze, and body language (see Luo, 2020; Ouyang & Fu, 2020; Ouyang et al., 2020; Wang & Li, 2020; Xie, 2020). For example, Wang and Li (2020) examined the role of non-verbal modes such as dubbing voices, gestures, as well as facial expressions in constructing the heroic image of Monkey King by drawing upon a case study of the Chinese and English versions of the animated film Monkey King: Hero Is Back. Adopting a systemic functional linguistics-informed multimodal approach, Ouyang and Fu (2020) explored how interpreters’ choices of looking or not looking at the speaker influence the interpersonal meaning transfer in a mock conference interpreting of one speaker and five student interpreters. The analysis showed that non-verbal para-linguistic elements such as eye contacts have a positive impact on the output quality of conference interpreting. Focusing on a different genre, Xie (2020) adopted a social semiotic multimodal approach to studying the representational, interactive, and compositional meanings in 51 book covers of Chinese versions of Hamlet, the findings of which echo the fundamental assumption of social semiotics that the use of signs are socially and culturally shaped.
The third main research topic examines the uses of multimedia spaces that support multimodal configuration such as cinemas, opera houses, and museums (Corral & Lladó, 2011; Liao, 2019; Maszerowska, 2012; Pérez-González, 2007). For
example, Pérez-González’s (2007) study of the dialogue and visual resources in the Spanish dubbing of 12 Angry Men (1957) demonstrated the use of camera angles and the focal length of lenses in enhancing the dramatic tension of the plot and evoking emotional responses from the audience. Focusing on the space of cinema, Maszerowska (2012) examined the role of visual modes such as light and contrast patterns on the reading of cinema. Her analysis shows that light is an important meaning making mode in the cinema that complements additional information to the scene of the film, resonates with the plot, directs the audience’s attention, and supports the viewing experience. Corral and Lladó (2011) explored opera multimodal translation, particularly the functions and stages of audio description in opera for the visually impaired by drawing upon a case study of Szymanovski’s Król Roger at the Liceu Theatre in Barcelona. They showed that audio description provided a brief introduction to each act, and reading the surtitles aloud during the opera aimed to provide an overview of the opera setting, space, stage design, costumes, and movements of the performers. Liao (2019) explores the translation of multimodal texts in three-dimensional material space by drawing upon a case study of the St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art in Glasgow. Based on a multimodal analysis informed by geosemiotics (Scollon & Scollon, 2003), the study divides museum space into four layers, including the surroundings of the museum, the museum building, the museum exhibition, and the museum objects, which interact with the translated exhibition texts in a consistent way to minimize the religious and cultural narratives and messages of the museum. In these studies, the semiotic affordances and limits of those spatial objects have offered useful insights into conceptualizing them as multimodal assembles (Pérez-González, 2020b).
Finally, an emerging research area is the innovative use of new and richer modalities and multimodal elements in translation in the digital age that have come with the rise and proliferation of digital technologies. As N. Katherine Hayles observes:
screen design, graphics, multiple layers, color, animation, etc. are signifying components essential to the work’s effects. Focusing only on “the actual order of words and punctuation” would be as inadequate as insisting that painting consists only of shapes and ruling out of bounds color, texture, composition, perspective, etc.
(2003, cited from O’Sullivan, 2013, p. 5)
Such multimodality is conspicuous in various forms of texts on the internet and digital media platforms ranging from computer games to website design and to videos uploaded to social media sites. The advancement of media technologies also gives rise to new forms of translation practices, such as multimodal translation of cyber-literature, crowdsourcing, collaborative translation online, and production and dissemination of amateur or non-professional translation of audiovisual products that have been pushing the boundary and understanding of translation studies (Jiménez-Crespo, 2017; Lee, 2012; Yang, 2021a). For example, Lee (2012) discussed multimodality and translation of literary production in the digital age
through three Chinese poems and their translations in different media forms posted online including written interlingual translation, oral performance of recorded poetry reading, visual display of animation, and art design in material forms. Lee’s study shows that “a technologically-mediated sense of translation” involving different languages and different media forms can foster wider potentialities and possibilities of literary transcreation and communication informed by a “multimodal perspective on translation and a translational perspective on multimodal expression” (p. 254). Such creativity is also reflected in the fast-growing area of fansubbing supported by new media technologies. In a study exploring the intervention of fansubbing’s participatory culture, Lu and Lu (2021) adopted the systemic functional linguistics-informed multimodality to compare the subtitling practices between official/professional subtitlers and fansubbers in China. The study showed that Chinese fansubbers tended to break the conventional norms set by professional subtitlers through mobilizing semiotic resources to produce semiotically coherent, interactive, and creative subtitling. The authors also argued that through such multimodal manipulation, subtitling done by fansubbers strengthened the entertaining effect of the movie and enhanced the audience’s engagement with the movie. Furthering the discussion of the innovative and multimodal practices of amateur/ non-professional translation, scholars such as Pérez-González (2020a) and Yang (2021a, 2021b, 2022) examined danmu subtitling, an emerging modality afforded by the danmu commenting technology that allows its users to post comments in multimodal forms onto the screen while watching a video. According to their studies, danmu subtitling supported a kind of user-generated translation in which users who were also consumers/viewers of the videos mobilized various semiotic resources of the website to produce multimodal translations of the videos uploaded to the website in the form of danmu comments, which then evoked a sense of participatory viewing and active spectator experience in the broader participatory culture (Pérez-González, 2020a; Yang, 2021a, 2021b).
The listed studies have informed and provided useful insights into this volume that approaches multimodality and translation studies from the perspective of China. This collection aims to further contribute to this emerging area by exploring a variety of multimodal phenomena in translation and interpreting practices in current China and providing analytical models and methodological implications for analysing how translators and interpreters combine multiple modes in intercultural communication.
Emerging research on multimodal translation in China
We have seen that the research of multimodal translation is an emerging field that focuses on the integration of various modalities in the translation process. With the rise of new technologies for visual, auditory, and tactile communication, multimodal translation has become increasingly important in various fields such as education, media, business, and government administration. In recent years, it has gained increasing attention due to the explosive growth of multimedia content and the increasing demand for cross-cultural communication. China, as a country with
Wu and Li Pan
a long history of multilingual and multicultural communication, has a unique and rich research landscape in multimodal translation. At the same time, the rapid development of media technologies and the wide use of multimodality has greatly reshaped the field of translation activities and studies in China.
Structured into five main themes, the contributions in this collection investigate audiovisual translation in digital media, multimodal translation of Chinese classics in print media, multimodal design and translation in official websites, multimodal recontextualization and paratexts in news translation, and the use of paralanguage and visual cues in quasi-on-site multimodal translation such as conference interpreting. An overview of the 11 chapters on these themes is presented in the following subsections in relation to the current state of research on multimodal translation in China, including research paradigms, frameworks, and methodologies.
Audiovisual translation for digital media
AVT has become increasingly prominent in today’s digital and streaming media landscape. Prevailing as the dominant AVT form in this age of new media, subtitling enjoys the apparent advantages of efficiency and low cost, and there is an increasing tendency of using subtitling for rendering both non-fiction videos and film or TV fiction in spreading Chinese stories to other parts of the world in the streaming platforms. However, the AVT practitioners have to face the challenges of subtitling Chinese into English that come not only from the inherent constraints of time and space on AVT in general but also particularly from the differences of the language pair in character occupancy and sound duration when conveying the same amount of information in Chinese subtitles into English. That is because English words take up more space and time than Chinese in expressing the same idea in subtitles and in soundtracks, creating a conflict between concision and complete information transmission for Chinese to English AVT translators (Li & Huang, 2022).
To meet such challenges, the first four contributions of this volume, all focusing on AVT in new media, present innovative multimodal analysis after providing comprehensive and insightful overviews of the varied challenges involved in audiovisual translation from Chinese into English. The topics range from showcasing innovative models for the analysis and practice of subtitling non-fiction videos to highlighting the importance of user-generated translation practices in enhancing intercultural audiovisual communication in new media, emphasizing the critical role of multimodal metaphors in cross-cultural communication and stressing the importance of maintaining intersemiotic coherence in dubbing.
In subtitling practice, non-fiction videos, particularly those with high information density and brief durations, pose unique challenges in Chinese to English AVT. In Chapter 1, “Modelling Audiovisual Translation of Non-fiction Videos: A Multimodal Approach to Subtitling”, Li Pan and Sixin Liao propose a theoretical framework for multimodal analysis of information values in subtitling videos such as documentaries, news reports, and online interviews prevailing with the rise streaming media. The proposed framework is deployed to analyse the complex interaction of various semiotic resources in conveying reality-related messages in
non-fiction videos. Through case studies of some short non-fiction videos posted on the official YouTube channel of the China Global Television Network (CGTN), the authors showcase how the framework of multimodal analysis of information values (MAIV) can inform the selection of appropriate subtitling strategies and provide guidance for subtitling non-fiction videos effectively. The new analytical model offers a practical approach to improving the quality of non-fiction video subtitling by providing solutions to the challenges posed by the time and space constraints when dealing with information-rich and multimodal video clips and contributing to effective intercultural audiovisual communication in the evolving landscape of new media.
Chapter 2, “Multimodal and Interactive Subtitling in Chinese Social Media: The Case of Danmu-Mediated Subtitling and Interaction on Bilibili”, discusses the emerging phenomenon of the user-generated danmu subtitling. With a detailed analysis of the danmu subtitling of three raw videos on Bilibili, the contributors Xiaoping Wu and Richard Fitzgerald show how this special form of subtitling involves spontaneous, wild, and interactive practices that enhance users’ engagement with the video content. Specifically, they use digital conversation analysis and social semiotic multimodal analysis to study the interaction among danmu users revolving around translation issues arising in watching untranslated videos. The analysis and discussion highlight the multimodal forms of interactional exchanges and the maintenance of coherence in the visually chaotic interface. The research enriches the growing studies of subtitling and translation in digital space characterized by multimodality and interactivity with methodological implications for examining emerging forms of subtitling and interaction in Chinese social media, as such user-mediated practices are effective ways to adapt to the fast-changing demands of the digital media landscape and create new opportunities for cultural exchange and cross-cultural communication.
Chapter 3, “Xinjiang in Harmony and Prosperity: A Discourse Analysis of Multimodal Metaphor Reframing in a Promotional Video of China’s Xinjiang”, examines the translation of multimodal metaphors in a promotional video. It employs an analytical framework established in their previous work (Liu & Li, 2022a, 2022b) to analyse how monomodal and multimodal metaphors as well as the translation of verbal metaphors can assist in reframing Xinjiang’s images. With corpus-based resources to identify metaphors, framing analysis to determine strategies, and critical discourse analysis to interpret the data, the authors Liu Yufeng and Dechao Li illustrate how verbal, visual, and multimodal metaphors are used to frame Xinjiang as a place of harmony, unity, prosperity, and humanity while emphasizing the importance of cultural and contextual knowledge in multimodal translation. They point out that various modes of verbal and visual metaphors are used in the bilingual promotional video to frame Xinjiang as a place of hope, humanity, and prosperity, and the ways of translating the large portion of multimodal metaphors that reflect a communication style specific to China in such an officially released video suggest how the sociocultural factors affect the selection of metaphors and their combined reframing effect. Given the critical role of multimodal metaphors in cross-cultural communication, the chapter may have implications for audiovisual
Wu and Li Pan
translation studies in general for its examination and discussion of the significance of taking into consideration of multimodal and cultural context when interpreting metaphorical expressions in videos.
In Chapter 4, “Intersemiotic Narrative Coherence in Costume Drama Subtitling: An SF-MDA Approach”, the authors Qian Hong and Zhang Jia use a systemic functional multimodal discourse analytical (SF-MDA) approach to study the intersemiotic narrative coherence of the English translation of the popular Chinese costume drama Zhenhuan Zhuan introduced by Nexflix to English audience. Drawing on theories from SF-MDA and film studies to examine the multimodal coherence in audiovisual translation, they investigate the meaning-making mechanism deployed in the dynamic multimodal resources of audiovisual translation and question whether the intersemiotic narrative coherence can be maintained with translated subtitles. Through transcribing and analysing representative phases, sequences, and scenes, the study reveals that in most cases, the image–text status, the logical–semantic relations, and the glue logic in the English subtitled Zhenhuan Zhuan cannot be kept intact. As a result, the narrative coherence may be impaired. In unveiling the synergy brought about by varied semiotic resources and proposing an analytical framework, the research shows how audiovisual resources pose challenges to translators, as they need to consider how different elements are interconnected in telling coherent stories. It contributes to the understanding of the complex process of audiovisual translation and provides insights into how to maintain intersemiotic coherence in translated texts.
Multimodal adaptation of Chinese classics: Comics and picturebooks
Translation of Chinese classics, which are important artefacts of traditional Chinese culture, provides international audiences with chances to gain a better understanding of Chinese history, philosophy, and literature. Driven by the expanding interest in Chinese classics among non-Chinese speaking populations in recent decades, some well-known and popular Chinese classics originally in written form have not only been rendered with interlingual translation that leads to numerous translations of Chinese texts into different languages but also have been adapted into different art forms, such as comics and picturebooks, films, TV series, dramas, musicals, and operas, all of which are rich with multimodalities. It is important to investigate how various kinds of such multimodal translation facilitate the different adaptations, especially if considered from the perspective of China’s constant efforts to promote cross-cultural exchange while preserving traditional Chinese culture and providing an educational value of the Chinese classics to readers at home and abroad. Setting up their own multimodal analytical framework, the contributors of Chapters 5 and 6 follow this paradigm of multimodal research and examine respectively the English comics of a Chinese classic, Zhuangzi, and the bilingual picturebooks of a Chinese ancient ballad, Mulan
Chapter 5, “Multimodal Translation of Conceptual Metaphor: A Case Study of Zhuangzi and Its Comic Book in English”, drawing on Lakoff and Johnson’s conceptual metaphor theory and multimodal metaphor for an analytical framework,
carries out a comprehensive analysis of the translation of conceptual metaphors from the Chinese Taoist classic Zhuangzi to a digitized version of an English comic book The Way of Nature interlingually and intersemiotically. Tian Luo and Qian Zhu examine the translation methods for six types of conceptual metaphors, i.e., orientational, container, structural, substance, personification, and discourse metaphor, and find a significant difference between interlingual and intersemiotic translation methods. They suggest that the verbal–visual relations of metaphors of different kinds that illustrate Zhuangzi’s philosophy of complying with natural law in the comic contribute together to the faithful and vivid expression of the original conceptual metaphors with the Taoist ideas into the translation. This chapter further reveals that while the use of verbal and visual metaphors in tandem create a more unified, accurate, and clearer interpretation of the esoteric Taoist philosophy presented within the original text, the English comic book effectively exemplifies this philosophy and helps overseas readers understand the abstract and complex philosophy in a more accessible and profound manner.
In Chapter 6, “Towards a Multimodal Analysis for Picturebook Translation: A Case Study of Mulan”, Xi Chen explores the translation of picturebooks, a unique type of children’s literature indispensable to the integration of the verbal and visual elements. Visual grammar developed by Kress and van Leeuwen (1996, 2006) is used as an analytical tool to examine the representation of images in picturebook translation and Kaindl’s (2013) typology to further explore the cultural and multimodal aspects of picturebook translation. With a comparative analysis of the book covers of five bilingual picturebooks of Mulan, the chapter investigates how the intersemiotic translation in picturebooks reconstructs the character of Mulan, the ancient Chinese female warrior, into a hybrid Americanized tomboy for contemporary readers worldwide. It makes evident the significance of visual grammar in facilitating a deeper understanding of how images in picturebooks are translated, and how Kaindl’s typology provides a comprehensive way to examine the cultural and multimodal elements in picturebook translation. The findings from this chapter contribute to the field of translation studies by expanding the understanding of the complex nature of picturebook translation and its role in creating a culturally adapted product for a diverse readership. Practical guidance for professional translators is expected to obtain from further research on how the translated picturebooks rewrite the original to convey new notions and ideas while catering to the diverse needs of young readers globally.
Multimodality in website translation: Coherence and image building
Multimodality in website translation helps people better understand how different modes of communication are utilized and transformed during the translation process, and how the coherence between different modes influences the overall meaning and effectiveness of the complex interaction as well as the impact of translation choices on audience reception and engagement in this dynamic and interdisciplinary field. In this digital age, websites have become crucial platforms for governments, businesses, organizations, and individuals to communicate with their target
audiences globally. As such, the process of translating websites involves multimodality rather than just linguistic conversion; it requires full consideration of various multimodal elements such as text, images, videos, and interactive features in addition to layout and design choices and cultural and contextual factors. As websites become increasingly complex and interactive, it is essential to develop effective research models to examine how various modes, such as text, images, videos, and audio, interact with each other and contribute to the overall meaning and user experience. Pictures, apart from being deployed to convey philosophical notions and reconstruct characters in classics into comic and pictorial versions in foreign languages, are also designed to represent official verbal messages in website translation for better accessibility as well as image building. In Chapter 7, “Framing the Government’s Image with Verbal and Non-verbal Resources in Macao’s Policy Addresses”, Michelle Sut I Lam explores how the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) Government’s image is framed through the use of different verbal and pictorial resources in the verbal announcements and online pictorial versions of the annual Policy Addresses (PAs). Drawing on insights from lexico-grammar from Systemic Functional Grammar (Halliday, 1994; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004) and visual grammar (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996, 2006, 2021), it reveals how the government’s image is discursively constructed through labelling and how it is shaped in the interlingual and intersemiotic translation through a corpus-assisted multimodal analysis of the verbal and visual representation of the government in the PAs of its first four terms as well as their translations into English and pictorial forms. As such, the chapter reveals how multimodality can cultivate government branding, particularly within the context of Macao SAR, and how both interlingual and intersemiotic translations play an important role in shaping the government’s image. Research models for analysing multimodality in website design and website translation play a crucial role in understanding the intricate relationship between different modes of communication within digital environments, offering researchers approaches to investigate the ways in which different modes convey information, evoke emotions, and engage the target audience. Some commonly used research models include semiotics, social semiotics, visual rhetoric, and cognitive linguistics. These models allow researchers to examine both the visual and linguistic aspects within websites and understand how they mutually influence each other. By utilizing these models, researchers can explore the cultural, social, and psychological factors that shape the effectiveness of multimodal communication in website design and translation.
Chapter 8, “Translating Multimodal Cohesion in Chinese Government Websites: A Case Study of Guangzhou International”, discusses the importance of cohesion in constructing textual meaning, not only in systemic functional linguistics but also in multimodal research. Hanting Pan explores the working mechanism of multimodal cohesion and analyses a variety of cohesive ties with reference to the predominant modes, namely hyperlinks, texts, images, and colours used in the website composition and translation. She identifies patterns of multimodal cohesion in the organization and translation of websites and suggests that sociocultural factors may influence the configuration of multimodal cohesion in website
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smooth rails, simply by adhesion. Yet, strange to say, for several years after, it was the firmly-fixed belief of succeeding locomotive constructors that it was impossible to obtain sufficient adhesion between a smooth surface and a smooth rail to successfully work a locomotive. The result was the invention of many curious methods to overcome this apparent difficulty, which, as a fact, never existed, save in the minds of the designers of the early locomotives. These men do not seem to have been fully acquainted with the results of Trevithick’s experiments on the Pen-y-darren tramroad in 1804.
A description of this locomotive prototype is of interest. The boiler was cylindrical, with a flat end. The fire-door and chimney were both at the same end, an extended heating surface being obtained by means of the return tube; above the fire-door was the single horizontal cylinder, the diameter of which was 8¼in.; a considerable portion of the cylinder was immersed in the boiler, the exposed portion being surrounded by a steam jacket. The stroke was 4ft. 6in.! The piston-rod worked on a motion frame extending in front of the engine. At the other end of the boiler was a fly-wheel some 9ft. 6in. in diameter, the motion being conveyed to it by connecting-rods from the cross-head; a cog-wheel on the fly-wheel axle conveyed the motion by means of an intermediate wheel to the four driving wheels, which are stated to have been 4ft. 6in. in diameter. The exhaust steam appears to have been turned into the chimney, not for the purpose of a blast, but only as an easy method of getting rid of the vapour. It will be remembered that Trevithick, in his patent specification, specially mentioned bellows for urging the fire, and was, therefore, not acquainted with the nature of the exhaust steam blast. It is important to bear this in mind, as the reader will find in a later chapter. This engine is stated to have blown up through not being provided with a safety valve, though Trevithick specially ordered one to be fixed to the boiler, but his instructions do not appear to have been carried out.
Trevithick made another locomotive, called “Catch-me-who-can.” This ran on an ellipse-shaped railway specially laid down for it at Euston Square, London, and was visited by many people during the few days it was on view. Another locomotive was constructed from
the drawings of Trevithick’s Coalbrookdale locomotive of 1802, to the orders of Mr. Blackett, the owner of Wylam Collieries. This engine weighing 4½ tons, had a single cylinder 7in. diameter, 3ft. stroke, and, of course, a fly-wheel. For some reason or another this engine does not appear to have been used on the Wylam tramroad, but was used in a Newcastle foundry to blow a cupola. Mr. Armstrong, a former Locomotive Superintendent of the Great Western Railway, was acquainted with this engine of Trevithick’s at the time it was so employed at Newcastle.
Having given an outline of Trevithick’s invention of the tramroad locomotive, and the other locomotive engines designed by him, we will deal with the locomotive built for J. Blenkinsopp (Fig. 2), of the Middleton Colliery, near Leeds, who, on April 10th, 1811, obtained a patent for a self-propelling steam engine, worked by means of a cogwheel, engaging in a rack laid side by side with one of the rails forming the tramway.
The erroneous idea that the locomotive of itself had not sufficient adhesion between the smooth wheel and the surface of the rail to propel itself and draw a load was strongly entertained by Blenkinsopp, hence his patent rack and pinion system. Blenkinsopp having this opinion, which he published by means of his patent specification, caused succeeding inventors to fall into the same error regarding the adhesive properties of the locomotive, and consequently considerably retarded the development of the railway engine.
Although this engine is generally known as Blenkinsopp’s, it was constructed by Matthew Murray, the Leeds engineer. The boiler was cylindrical, with slightly convex ends, a single flue ran through it, which was in front turned upwards, and so formed the chimney; the fire-grate was at the other end of the flue, as in the modern locomotive.
This engine was provided with two cylinders, and was, in this respect, an improvement on Trevithick’s single cylinder engines. The cylinders were 8in. in diameter, and placed vertically, the major portion of them being placed within the boiler. The stroke was 20in.,
and the motion was conveyed by means of cross-heads, working connecting-rods; these came down to two cranks on either side below the boiler. The cranks worked two shafts fixed across the frames, on which were toothed wheels, both working into a centre toothed wheel, which was provided with large teeth, these engaged on the rack rail previously described. The cranks were set at right angles, so that one piston was exerting power when the other was at its dead centre, and vice versâ. The engine was supported on the rails by four wheels 3ft. 6in. in diameter. The two cylinders were connected by a pipe which conveyed the exhaust steam and discharged it into the atmosphere through a vertical tube. The engine weighed 5 tons, burned 75lb. of coal per hour, and evaporated 50 gallons of water in the same time. This locomotive could haul 94 tons on the level at 3½ miles an hour, or 15 tons up an incline of 1 in 15; its maximum speed was 10 miles an hour. The engine cost £400 to construct, and worked from August, 1812, for a period of about 20 years, and in 1816 the Grand Duke Nicholas, afterwards Emperor of Russia, inspected the machine. The tramway on which it worked was about 3¾ miles long.
In September, 1813, Murray supplied two of Blenkinsopp’s engines to the Kenton Colliery.
On December 30th, 1812, a patent was granted to William and Edward Chapman for a method of locomotion. A chain was stretched along the railway and fastened at each end; connected to the locomotive by spur gear was a barrel, around which the chain was passed. When the barrel rotated, the chain was wound over it, and since the chain was secured at either end, the engine was of necessity propelled. An engine on this principle was tried on the Heaton Colliery Tramroad, near Newcastle-on-Tyne. The machine was supported on wheels travelling on the rails. The boiler was of Trevithick’s design, and fanners were used to excite the combustion of the fuel. The weight of Chapman’s engine was 6 tons. After a few trials the scheme was abandoned, as it was found impracticable to successfully work such a system. Every eight or ten yards the chain was secured by means of vertical forks, which hold it when disengaged from the drum of the locomotive.
By this method the pressure of one engine on the chain was limited to the fork on either side of the drum instead of being spread over the whole length of the chain, and it would, therefore, have been possible for several engines to have used the chain at one and the same time.
According to Luke Herbert and Lieut. Lecount, Chapman also built an 8-wheel locomotive for the Lambton Colliery. This engine, it was stated, had vertical cylinders, and the motion was conveyed by means of spur wheels. It weighed 6 tons loaded, and drew 18 loaded wagons, of a gross weight of 54 tons, from the colliery to the shipping place on the Wear; with the above load it attained a speed of four miles an hour up an incline of 1 in 115. The dimensions and capabilities accredited to this engine appear suspiciously similar to those related of the first Wylam locomotive.
On May 22nd, 1813, Mr W Brunton, of the Butterfly Ironworks, obtained a patent for a novel method of steam locomotion. This locomotive inventor was also suffering from the common belief that it was impossible to obtain sufficient adhesion between a smooth rail
and smooth wheels, despite the successes that had already been obtained in this direction by Trevithick. He therefore built an engine supported on four flanged carrying wheels, but propelled from behind by means of two legs. Indeed, another inventor considered the idea of steam legs so natural that he constructed a steam road-coach that was to be propelled by four legs, one pair partaking of the character and motion of the forelegs of a horse, and the other pair being fashioned on the model of the hind legs of the same quadruped.
F . 3. BRUNTON’S “MECHANICAL TRAVELLER” LOCOMOTIVE
In Brunton’s leg-propelled steam locomotive (Fig. 3) we find that the boiler was cylindrical, with a single horizontal tube passing through it, and turned up in front in a vertical position, thus forming the chimney. The motion was obtained from a single horizontal cylinder, fixed near the top of the boiler, the piston-rod projecting behind; the end of the piston-rod was attached to a jointed rod, the bottom portion of which formed one of the legs. The upper portion of this rod was attached to a framework fixed above the boiler of the engine, which formed a fulcrum, and then by an ingenious arrangement of levers, an alternate motion was given to the second leg. Each leg had a foot formed of two prongs at the bottom; these stuck in the ground, and prevented the legs from slipping. Upon
steam being applied, the piston in the ordinary way would have travelled to the end of the cylinder, but the leg, having a firm hold of the ground, presented a greater resistance to the steam than did the weight of the engine, so the steam acting on the surface that presented the lesser resistance, caused the cylinder to recede, and with it the engine, to which it was, of course, firmly attached. By means of the reciprocating levers, a horizontal rod travelled on the top of the boiler and over a cog-wheel; then on the other side of this cog-wheel was another horizontal rod, which, actuated by the cogwheel, travelled in a contrary direction, and being attached to the other leg of the engine, as the machine receded from the first leg, it drew the second leg close up to the back of the engine. The second leg was now ready to propel the engine, which it did upon the steam being applied to the other side of the piston, and the process was alternated with each admission of steam to the front or back of the piston.
Whilst the legs were returning towards the engine the feet were raised by means of straps or ropes fastened to the legs and passing over friction-wheels, movable in one direction only by a ratchet and catch, and worked by the motion of the engine.
Brunton called his locomotive a “mechanical traveller,” and stated that the boiler was of wrought-iron, 5ft. 6in. long and 3ft. diameter, weighing 2¼ tons, stroke of piston, 2ft., and at 2½ miles per hour, with a steam pressure of 451b. per square inch, was equal in power to nearly six horses. This locomotive curiosity blew up at Newbottle in 1816, and about a dozen people were thereby either killed or seriously injured.
CHAPTER II.
Who is entitled to the honour of constructing the Wylam locomotives? The claims of Hackworth, Hedley and Foster “Puffing Billy” Rebuilt as an eight-wheel engine Stewart’s locomotive Sharp practice causes Stewart to abandon locomotive building George Stephenson as a locomotive builder His hazy views as to his first engine “Blucher” The German General proves a failure Stephenson and Dodd’s engine Stephenson’s third engine, with (so-called) steam springs Competent critics condemn Stephenson’s engines The “Royal William” The “Locomotion” Hackworth, General Manager of the Stockton and Darlington Railway Horse haulage cheaper than Stephenson’s locomotives—Hackworth to the rescue—The “Royal George,” the first successful locomotive—The “exhaust” steam blast— Rival claimants and its invention—Locomotive versus stationary engine “Twin Sisters” “Lancashire Witch” “Agenoria” The “Maniac”, a Forth Street production.
We have now arrived at a point in the evolution of the steam locomotive where the claims of several men are in competition. The facts as to the experiments and construction of the engines at Wylam are not disputed. The question at issue is as to whom the honour of the success should be given. Christopher Blackett, of the Wylam Colliery, as previously stated, ordered a locomotive of Trevithick, but never used it. He, however, determined to make a trial of steam haulage on his plate way, and in 1811 some kind of experiments were made, having in view the above-mentioned object. At this time Timothy Hackworth was foreman of the smiths (he would now be called an engineer), and William Hedley was coal-viewer at Wylam. The friends of both Hackworth and Hedley claim for their respective heroes the honour of these early essays in locomotive construction. But it is probable the honours should be shared by both, as well as by Jonathan Foster, who also assisted in the experiments and construction of the Wylam locomotives.
Hedley was colliery-viewer at Wylam, and therefore, most likely, Hackworth was, to an extent, under his orders, and probably had to
defer to, and act under, the instructions of Hedley
But Hackworth’s position as foreman-smith did not preclude him from making suggestions and introducing improvements of his own into the locomotives under construction.
It is stated that Hedley was jealous because Hackworth obtained the praise for building the Wylam locomotives (or “Timothy’s Dillies,” as they were locally called), and to force Hackworth to leave Wylam, Hedley required him to do some repairs to the machinery on Sundays. Now, Timothy was a fervent Wesleyan, and spent his Sundays in local preaching, so he naturally refused to violate his conscience by working on that day. Consequently Hackworth sought employment elsewhere.
F . 4. HACKWORTH’S “WYLAM DILLY,” GENERALLY KNOWN AS HEDLEY’S “PUFFING BILLY”
On the other hand, it was a sore point with Hackworth that George Stephenson spent his Sundays at Wylam taking sketches and particulars of the locomotives at that time at work on the Wylam Railway, the result of which observations was apparent in the locomotive built by Stephenson at Killingworth in 1814.
The Wylam experimentalists in October, 1812, constructed a four-wheel vehicle driven by manual power working cranks connected with spur wheels. The carriage was loaded until sufficient weight had been placed upon it to cause the wheels to turn round without progressing.
The experiment, however, satisfied Mr. Blackett that locomotive engines with smooth wheels could be employed in drawing loads on his tramroad; and the construction of an engine was immediately proceeded with. This was completed and put to work early in 1813. It had a cast-iron boiler, and a single internal flue; the solitary cylinder was 6in. in diameter, and a fly-wheel was employed after the model of Trevithick’s engine. The steam pressure was 50lb. This four-wheel engine drew six coal trucks at five miles an hour, and, therefore, did the work of three horses—not a very powerful example of a steam locomotive, it will be observed. This engine being somewhat of a failure, it was decided to build another, and one with a wrought-iron boiler and a return tube was constructed. In his engine (Fig. 4) it will be noticed the fire-box and chimney were both at the same end of the boiler. Two vertical cylinders were fixed over the trailing wheels of “Puffing Billy” (for it is this historical locomotive, now preserved in the South Kensington Museum, that is now being described). The piston-rods were connected to beams of the “Grasshopper” pattern, being both centred at the funnel end of the engine. The driving-rods were connected with these beams at about their centres, and passed down to spur wheels, which, by means of toothed wheels on either side, communicated the motion to the four carrying wheels. The spent steam was conveyed from the cylinders to the chimney by means of two horizontal pipes laid along the top of the boiler. It was soon discovered that the cast-iron tram-plates, which were only of four square inch section, were unable to bear the weight of “Puffing Billy,” and another change was decided upon.
The engine was therefore placed on two four-wheel trucks (Fig. 5), so that the weight was distributed on eight instead of four wheels, the same method of spur gearing was employed, and the whole of the wheels were actuated by means of intermediate cog-wheels. To prevent, as far as possible, the noise caused by the escaping steam,
a vertical cylinder was fixed on the top of the boiler between the cylinders and the funnel. Into this chamber the spent steam was discharged, and from it the same was allowed to escape gradually into the chimney. In addition to the improvement of a return tube, with its extended heating surface, with which this class of engine was provided, the funnel was only 12in. in diameter, as compared with 22in. diameter as used by Stephenson in his early engines. As already stated, the Wylam locomotives were locally called “Timothy’s Dillies,” after Timothy Hackworth, to whose inventive genius they were popularly ascribed. In 1830, the cast-iron plates on the road from Wylam to Leamington were removed, and the course was relaid with edge rails, so that the necessity for eight-wheel engines was at an end. “Timothy’s Dillies” were then reconverted to four-wheel locomotives, and continued at work on the line till about 1862.
Not many locomotive writers are acquainted with the fact that in 1814 William Stewart, of Newport, Mon., constructed a locomotive for the Park End Colliery Company, which was tried on the Lydney
F 5 HACKWORTH’S OR HEDLEY’S SECOND DESIGN, AS USED ON THE WYLAM RAILWAY IN 1815
Railway, and found to work in a satisfactory manner The Park End Colliery Company were paying about £3,000 a year to contractors for horse haulage of their coal to the Forest of Dean Canal, and Stewart undertook to do the same by locomotive power for half that sum. The Company accepted his terms, and he set about the construction of his engine. Whilst this was progressing the contractors who provided the horses were told at each monthly settlement that the Company were going to use a locomotive to haul the coal, as horse-power was too expensive. By means of these threats the contractors were induced each month to accept a less price than previously for “leading” the coal over the tramroad. Upon the specified date Stewart’s locomotive was duly delivered on the line, and accepted by the Park End Colliery Company for doing the work required; but the engineer was informed that the horse-power contractors were then only receiving £2,000 a year for the work, and that as Stewart had agreed to provide locomotive power at one-half of the sum paid for horses, he would only receive £1,000 a year.
Stewart was so highly indignant at this piece of sharp practice that he refused to have anything further to do with the Park End Colliery Company, and at once removed his locomotive off their tramroad, and took it back to Newport.
The earliest attempts of George Stephenson in connection with the evolution of the steam locomotive now deserve attention. Stephenson himself is not very clear about his first engine, for, speaking at Newcastle at the opening of the Newcastle and Darlington Railway in 1844, he said that thirty-two years ago he constructed his first engine. “We called the engine ‘My Lord,’ after Lord Ravensworth, who provided the money for its construction.” Both these statements are erroneous, for Stephenson did not build his first engine till 1814, and thirty-two years before 1844 would have been 1812. Then the engine could not have been called “My Lord,” after Lord Ravensworth, for the title did not exist in 1814, the gentleman alluded to being only Sir Thomas Liddell till the coronation of King George IV. in 1821, when he was created Lord Ravensworth.
The “Blucher,” as this engine was in fact usually called, was first tried on the Killingworth Railway on July 25th, 1814; she had a
wrought-iron boiler, 8ft. long and 2ft. 10in. diameter, with a single flue 20in. diameter, turned up in front to form a chimney. The power was applied by means of two vertical cylinders located partly within the boiler, and projecting from its top, close together, and near the middle. The cylinders were 8in. diameter, the stroke 2ft. The motion was conveyed to the wheels by means of cross-heads and connecting-rods working on small spur wheels (Fig. 6), which engaged the four carrying wheels by means of cogged wheels fitted on the axles of the flanged rail-wheels; these were only 3ft. in diameter, and were 3ft. apart. The spur wheels engaged another cogged wheel, placed between them, for the purpose of keeping the cranks at right angles. No springs were provided for the engine, which was mounted on a wooden frame, but the water barrel was fixed to one end of a lever, and also weighted; the other end of this lever was fixed to the frame of the engine. This arrangement did duty for springs!
F 6 STEPHENSON’S INITIAL DRIVING GEAR FOR LOCOMOTIVES
The best work done by “Blucher” was the hauling of loaded coalwagons, weighing 30 tons, up an incline of 1 in 450, at about four miles an hour. This first effort of Stephenson had no original points about it; the method of working was copied from the Wylam engines, whilst Trevithick’s practice was followed with regard to the position of the cylinders—i.e., their location, partly within the boiler. The average speed did not exceed three miles an hour, and after twelve months’
working the machine was found to be more expensive than the horses it was designed to replace at a less cost. The absence of springs was specially manifested, for by this time the engine was so much shaken and injured by the vibration that the Killingworth Colliery owners were called upon a second time to find the money to enable Stephenson to construct another locomotive.
The second engine (Fig. 7) constructed by George Stephenson was built under the patent granted to Dodd and Stephenson on 28th February, 1815. In this engine vertical cylinders, partly encased in the boiler, were again employed; but their position was altered, one being placed at each extremity of the boiler over the wheels, the intermediate spur wheels formerly used for keeping the cranks at right angles were abandoned, and the axles were cranked. A connecting-rod was fitted on these cranks, thus coupling the two axles. To give greater adhesion, the wheels of the tender were connected with those of the engine by means of an endless chain passing over cogs on the one pair of engine wheels, and over the adjoining pair of tender wheels; by these methods six pairs of wheels were coupled. The mechanics engaged were not, however, capable of forging proper crank axles, and these had to be abandoned, and an endless chain coupling employed for the engine wheels, similar to the one connecting the tender and engine, as previously described.
F . 7. STEPHENSON AND DODD’S PATENT ENGINE, BUILT
IN 1815
This engine had no springs, and, to avoid excessive friction arising from the bad state of the tramroad, Stephenson employed “ball and socket” joints between the ends of the cross-heads and the connecting-rods. In this way the necessary parallelism between the ends of the cross-heads and the axles was maintained. The spent steam in the engine was turned into the chimney, as in Trevithick’s Pen-y-darren locomotive. This locomotive commenced to work on 6th March, 1815.
George Stephenson constructed a third engine (Fig. 8), under a patent granted to Lock and Stephenson on 30th September, 1816; this patent covered several matters, the most important in connection with the engine being malleable iron wheels, instead of cast-iron, and what has been described as “steam springs.” The patentees called them “floating pistons”; of this description Colburn says emphatically “they are not,” and the same authority continues, “and they (Lock and Stephenson) added, evidently without understanding the true action of the pistons, which were different in principle from the action of springs, that inasmuch as they acted upon an elastic fluid, they produced the desired effect, with much more accuracy than could be obtained by employing the finest springs of steel to suspend the engine. The whole arrangement was, on the contrary, defective in principle and objectionable on the score of leakage, wear, etc.; and, as a matter of course, was ultimately abandoned.”
F 8 STEPHENSON’S IMPROVED ENGINE, AS ALTERED, FITTED WITH STEEL SPRINGS (INVENTED BY NICHOLAS WOOD)
In the drawings attached to the patent specification this engine is shown with six wheels, and the chain coupling is employed. Lecount says: “The six wheels were continued in use as long as the steam springs were applied, and when steel springs were adopted they were again reduced to four.” So much praise has been given to Stephenson for the “great improvements” he is supposed to have introduced into the construction of the locomotive, that it will not be uninteresting if we here reproduce the extremely pertinent remarks of Galloway, the well-known authority on the steam engine, which go far to prove that it was only the great success obtained by George Stephenson from the construction of the Liverpool and Manchester and other railways, that caused historians and biographers to either magnify his locomotive successes, or to gloss over the evident faults in the design and construction of his engines. In his “History of the Steam Engine,” published in 1827, Galloway says: These locomotive engines have been long in use at Killingworth Colliery, near Newcastle, and at Hilton Colliery on the Wear, so that their
advantages and defects have been sufficiently submitted to the test of experiment; and it appears that, notwithstanding the great exertions on the part of the inventor, Mr. Stephenson, to bring them into use on the different railroads, now either constructing or in agitation, it has been the opinion of several able engineers that they do not possess those advantages which the inventor had anticipated; indeed, there cannot be a better proof of the doubt entertained regarding their utility than the fact that it has been determined that no locomotive engine shall be used on the projected railroad between Newcastle and Carlisle, since, had their advantages been very apparent, the persons living immediately on the spot in which they are used, namely, Newcastle, would be acquainted therewith.
“The principal objections seem to be the difficulty of surmounting even the slightest ascent, for it has been found that a rise of only one-eighth of an inch in a yard, or of eighteen feet in a mile, retards the speed of one of these engines in a very great degree; so much so, indeed, that it has been considered necessary, in some parts where used, to aid their ascent with their load, by fixed engines, which drag them forward by means of ropes coiling round a drum. The spring steam cylinders below the boiler were found very defective, for in the ascending stroke of the working piston they were forced inwards by the connecting-rod pulling at the wheel and turning it round, and in the descending stroke the same pistons were forced as much outwards. This motion or play rendered it necessary to increase the length of the working cylinder as much as there was play in the lower ones, to avoid the danger of breaking or seriously injuring the top and bottom of the former by the striking of the piston when it was forced too much up or down.”
Stephenson must have felt himself to be a personage of some importance when he received an order from the Duke of Portland for a steam locomotive. The engine, which had six wheels, was duly built and delivered in 1817, when it was put to work on the tramroad connecting the Duke’s Kilmarnock Collieries with the harbour at Troon; but, after a short trial, its use was abandoned, as the weight of the engine frequently broke the cast-iron tram-plates. It has been
stated that “this engine afterwards worked on the Gloucester and Cheltenham Tramroad until 1839, when the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway bought the line, and took up the cast-iron tramplates.”
There is no doubt that a six-wheel engine with vertical cylinders partly encased in the top of the boiler, and called the “Royal William,” was actually at work on this line—the fact having been commemorated by the striking of a bronze medal; but there is nothing to show that the “Royal William” and the engine built for the Kilmarnock and Troon Tramroad were one and the same locomotive; whilst it is certain that the Gloucester and Cheltenham Tramroad was not purchased by the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway, but jointly by the Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway and the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway, the price paid being £35,000.
It would appear from a letter written by George Stephenson, and dated Killingworth Colliery, 28th June, 1821, that he had but little idea to what a great degree the development of the steam locomotive would be carried. The letter, which was addressed to Robert Stevenson, the celebrated Edinburgh engineer, proceeded as follows: “I have lately started a new locomotive engine with some improvements on the others which you saw. It has far surpassed my expectations. I am confident that a railway on which my engine can work is far superior to a canal. On a long and favourable railway I would start my engine to travel 60 miles a day, with from 40 to 60 tons of goods.” Taking Stephenson’s “day” to mean twelve working hours, his idea of maximum speed did not exceed five miles an hour at that time. Before this—in December, 1824—Charles MacLaren had published in the Scotsman his opinion that by the use of the steam locomotive “we shall be carried at the rate of 400 miles a day,” or an average speed of 33⅓ miles an hour.
Yet such is the irony of fate, that MacLaren, the true prophet, is forgotten, and George Stephenson is everywhere extolled.
The Hetton (Coal) Railway was opened on November 18th, 1822, and five of Stephenson’s “improved Killingworth” locomotives were placed upon the level portions. These engines were capable of
hauling a train of about 64 tons, the maximum speed being four miles an hour.
F . 9. “LOCOMOTION,” THE FIRST ENGINE TO RUN ON A PUBLIC RAILWAY (THE STOCKTON AND DARLINGTON RAILWAY)
The Stockton and Darlington Railway, the first public railway, was opened on September 27th, 1825. The “Locomotion” (Fig. 9) was the first engine on the line. It was constructed at the Forth Street Works of R. Stephenson and Co., at Newcastle-on-Tyne. At this early period these now celebrated Forth Street Works were little better than a collection of smiths’ forges.
Timothy Hackworth had been manager of these works, and he had a good deal to do with the construction of “Locomotion.” His improvement of the coupling-rods in place of the endless chain previously used for the purpose by Stephenson is worthy of passing notice. George Stephenson expressed a very strong desire that Hackworth should remain in charge of the Forth Street Works, and went so far as to offer him one-half of his (Stephenson’s) share in the business if he would remain. Hackworth agreed to do so if his name
were added to that of the firm and he were publicly recognised as a partner; but this proposition was not accepted by Stephenson.
Hackworth then took premises in Newcastle, and intended to commence business as an engine-builder on his own account, he having already received several orders from the collieries, etc., where his skill was well known and appreciated. George Stephenson, having heard of Hackworth’s plans for carrying on a rival engine factory at Newcastle, saw Hackworth, and persuaded him to relinquish the proposition and accept the office of general manager and engineer to the Stockton and Darlington Railway.
Hackworth commenced these duties in June, 1825, and removed to Darlington. The “Locomotion” had four coupled wheels, 4ft. in diameter; two vertical cylinders, 10in. in diameter, placed partly within the boiler; the stroke was 24in.; steam pressure, 25lb. per square inch; weight in working order, 6½ tons. The tender was of wood, with a coal capacity of three-quarter ton, and a sheet-iron tank holding 240 gallons; weight loaded, 2¼ tons. The tender was supported on four wheels, each of 30in. diameter. This engine worked on the Stockton and Darlington Railway till 1850. In September, 1835, “Locomotion” engaged in a race with the mail coach for a distance of four miles, and only beat the horses by one hundred yards! She was used to open the Middlesbrough and Redcar Railway on June 4th, 1846, being under the charge of Messrs. Plews and Hopkins on this occasion, when she hauled one carriage and two trucks, and took thirty-five minutes to cover the eight miles. From 1850 to 1857 she was used as a pumping engine by Pease at his West Collieries, South Durham, after which she was mounted on a pedestal at North Road Station, Darlington. This engine was in steam upon the Darlington line during the celebration of the Stockton and Darlington Railway jubilee in September, 1875. She has been exhibited as follows:—1876, at Philadelphia; 1881, Stephenson Centenary; 1886, Liverpool; and 1889, Paris. In April, 1892, she was removed from North Road to Bank Top, Darlington.
The Forth Street Works in 1826 supplied three more engines to the Stockton and Darlington Railway, named “Hope,” “Black Diamond,” and “Diligence.” These locomotives possessed many
faults; indeed, they were frequently stopped by a strong wind, and the horse-drawn trains behind the locomotive-propelled ones were delayed because the engines could not proceed. “Jemmy” Stephenson (brother to George) was the principal engine-driver, and he was known far and near as most prolific in the use of oaths of a far from Parliamentary style.
“Jemmy” would be cursing his engine and the horsemen cursing “Jemmy” for the delay; and, indeed, the usual result was a general skirmish. We have already stated that Hackworth was a deeply religious man, and these scenes of lawlessness made a deep impression on his mind, so that he sought for some means to improve the locomotives, the radical fault of which was the shortness of steam—Hackworth knowing that if things progressed smoothly “Jemmy” would have fewer occasions to display his oratorical gift. After eighteen months’ working of the Stockton and Darlington Railway it was found that locomotive haulage was much more expensive than horse-power; indeed, for every pound spent on horse power about three pounds were paid for locomotive power for doing an exactly similar amount of work.
The £100 stock of the Stockton and Darlington Railway quickly fell to £50, and the shareholders began to get alarmed.
There were two opposite interests at stake—that of the general body of shareholders and that of the locomotive builders (Messrs. Pease and Richardson), who were also large shareholders in, and directors of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, as well as partners in the firm of R. Stephenson and Co. The question as to retaining the use of locomotive engines was fully discussed at a meeting of the principal proprietors, and Hackworth, as manager and engineer of the railway, was asked to give his opinion on the point. He replied: “Gentlemen, if you will allow me to make you an engine in my own way, I will engage that it shall answer your purpose.” To have refused him permission would have shown clearly to the other proprietors that Pease and Richardson did not care for the principles of steam locomotion, but that it was the locomotives constructed at the Forth Street Works they wished to retain. Therefore, after some
