Seeking Harmony With Differences: A Study On Roger Ames' English Co-Translation Of Confucian Classics

This dissertation researches into Roger Ames'English co-translation of Confucian classics from an ethical and cross-cultural perspective. It accounts for the translators'knowledge of the source culture, their cultural motivation and translation strategies. Specifically, the following questions are raised and addressed:What cultural motivation drives Roger Ames and his co-translators in the project of Confucian classics translation as western sinology has taken "Chinese orientation"? What is the translators'holistic understanding of Chinese philosophy in general and Confucianism in specific? What cultural attitudes do the translators have towards the Confucian classics? How do they realize their translation aims in the entire process of translation in terms of the translators'manipulation in the peritexte of the translated texts, their translation of Chinese philosophical terms, their wording and phrasing and their stylistic sensitiveness? Viewed from a perspective of cross-culture communication, Roger Ames'co-translation testifies a fusion of horizons between early Confucian classics and the translators' concern for modern western society. This dissertation takes both descriptive and prescriptive paradigms, including not only a description of the translated texts, the translation process, but also a proposal for a new mode of translation ethics and norms for Chinese classics translation.There are eight chapters in this dissertation. The first chapter gives a brief introduction of the history and the current situation of English translation of Chinese classics. Its focus is on the major problems existing in the translation of cultural information such as diversity of textual meaning, the limitation of the translator's perspective, translation strategies adopted in cultural translation and the translator's ethical attitudes toward the source culture.The next chapter deals with the influence exerted by the ethical thinking on the paradigms of translation studies. In a brief review of English translation history of the Analects—one of the important Confucian classic work, this chapter makes a detailed analysis of the translations of the representative Confucian work in different periods, probing into the relations among historical context, the translator's ethical attitude toward the source culture and his/her translation strategies. As is revealed in this dissertation, much to our surprise, the variation of the translator's cultural attitudes and the development of ethical thinking in history follow the same track as both of them move from seeking cultural universality to cultural differences and then focus on achieving harmony among cultures while at the same time preserving their differences. As to the relationship between the translator's ethical attitudes and the translation strategies he/she has adopted, there is nothing fixed between these two. A given translation strategy will achieve various effects in different times and places by different translators.Chapter Three goes through Roger Ames'co-translated works of Chinese classics and his books on comparative Chinese and Western philosophy. This chapter also makes a literature review of the previous studies, stating the aim and contents, research methods, the significance and theoretical preliminaries, and prospective contributions of the present study.To continue, Chapter Four investigates Roger Ames'English co-translation of terms of Confucian studies. The co-translators adopt both pinyin and interpretation to the translation of terms. In addition, transliteration, creation and linguistic clusters are also commanded. This chapter focuses on the translators'methods and their ideas for the translation of Confucian terms embedded in these methods.Chapter Five goes on to analyze Roger Ames and his co-authors' translation ideas and cultural motivation embodied in the philosophical statements in the translated texts. According to Roger Ames, the contrast between the Chinese thinking and the western thinking, i.e. the relational versus the essential, is very crucial and should be reflected by the wording and phrasing in the translated texts. As a result, verbs and gerunds are frequently employed in his co-translations to convey the eventful and dynamic features of the Chinese thinking. Meanwhile, connectives indicating cause and effect that often appear in English philosophical writings are avoided. On the other hand, their translation is also characterized by localization. In many places, the domestication method finds its application to the translation of culture-loaded items, which reflects the co-translators'consideration of reception and cross-culture communication of Confucian classics in western culture.Chapter Six deals with the style of the translated works and the role such works play in the target culture. Most Confucian classics are of great aesthetic value. In addition, they often cite poems from the Book of Songs to enhance their augmentative effect. In Roger Ames and his co-authors' translations, the cited poems are all rendered into English poems and most of the rhetorical devices employed in the source texts are retained, revealing the translators'intention of re-canonizing Chinese classics in western culture.Chapter Seven explores the peritexte of Roger Ames'co-translated texts, including the prefaces, introductions, notes, and appendixes. The peritexte serves as a media discourse to guide the reader into the aliened source texts, indicating the translators'intention and the reasons for their choices.The final chapter gives a general evaluation of Roger Ames' co-translation of Confucian classics and proposes several translation norms suitable for English translation of Chinese classics in the context of globalization.