Studies On Three English Versions Of Yi Jing In Perspective Of Comparative Translatology

Under the guide of comparative translatology, this thesis makes a comparative study on three English versions of Yi Jing at both macro and micro levels, and then puts forward advice on English retranslation of Yi Jing.At first, this thesis introduces briefly the real value of Yi Jing, its influence at home and abroad, and the three English versions studied in this thesis—Legge's version, W/B's version and W/R's version. Then it summaries the former studies on these three English versions and states the research of this thesis. Next, this thesis establishes the theoretical frame of this thesis—comparative translatology. Comparative translatology studies the phenomena of revising translation and retranslation, and compares different translations of a common source text, so as to regulate the practices of revising translation and retranslation and to provide advice on a new translation. What discussed in detail are the research scopes of comparative translatology related to translation comparison.The comparative study on three English versions of Yi Jing begins at the macro level. Firstly, it analyzes the translators'motivations conditioned by their particular social backgrounds. Legge's version intends to assist the expansion of Western missionary work into China in the second half of the 19th century. W/B's version aims to spread the Chinese wisdom to Western scholars to save the degrading Western civilization in the first half of the 20th century. W/R's version is the pursuit of Chinese scholars for a version by themselves rather than by foreigners at the end of the 20th century. Secondly, it describes the translation methods. Legge's version and W/B's version mainly translate literally with long prolegomena and lengthy annotations or interpretations. W/R's version mainly takes the paraphrase method to give out directly the original implied meanings, so as to make it more available to common readers. Thirdly, it analyzes the different translation styles. The formal style is better represented in W/B's and W/R's versions than Legge's version. The spirit of the source text is better reflected in W/R's version than the other two versions. Successively, at the micro level,...