A Study Of Translation And Communication Of Zhongxue

Zhongxue is a Chinese translation of William Whewell's An Elementary Treatise on Mechanics, translated by Protestant missionary Joseph Edkins and Chinese Li Shanlan and first published in 1859, which introduces systematically knowledge on classic mechanics for the first time into China. Its content includes the medium level mechanics, college ordinary mechanics and a part of theoretical mechanics. Zhongxue played an very important role in transmiting the western knowledge of mechanics and mathematics in China.The original text of the Zhongxue, An Elementary Treatise on Mechanics, is the textbook of mechanics in Cambridge University. The knowledge of mechanics introduced in this treatise is the most complex and the hardest among all mechanics works appeared in China during the period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Because of the very limited mechanics knowledge in China then, it was very difficult for Chinese scholars to understand the introduced knowledge of mechanics. What would the translation work bring up against? How the knowledge would be disseminated and absorbed in China? Were the translation and transmiting of the treatise of mechanics successful? What kind of influence had it exerted on the course of modernization of mechanics in China?Moreover, a translation is not only a pure language transformation but also one kind of cross-culture intercommunication. Simultaneously, a translation is a course of rewriting and reconstructing knowledge from one culture to another. A translation work is result of conflicts and the adaptive selection between two different cultures. What kind of conflicts and the adaptive selection is there in the Chinese translation of Whewell's works? How did the ZhongXue rewrite and reconstruct the mechanical knowledge and how did it deal with the conflict between the two heterogeneous culture? What kind of influence would these choices have on the understanding of western mechanics? It is of great importance and significance to discuss above questions for us to understand the communication of the west science in China in the late 19th century.Above all, the translation and dissemination of the Zhongxue is a miniature of introduction of western science in China after the Opium War(1840). A profound study of the Zhongxue may help us make clear to the characteristics of transmission of the western science in China during that period. We hope this study could provide a basic case to understand the communication of science in China in late 19th century China as well as the course of science from tradition to modernization in China.The main researches of this dissertation are as follows:1. The content of the Zhongxue are analyzed throughout for the first time, and its level is discussed. The communication situation of various part of the Zhongxue in the late Qing dynasty(1840-1911) is surveyed.2. The compilation backgrounds and their content changes as well as the thoughts of its Compiles are discussed by comparing all the seven editions of Whewell's An Elementary Treatise on Mechanics. Based on a comparison of the Zhongxue with different editions of Whewell's original texts, it is settled by sufficient evidence that the Zhongxue is translated from the fifth edition published in 1836, and therefore some popular inaccurate statements are corrected. At the same time, there are some new discoveries of the edition of Zhongxue in this dissertation.3. Based on a comparison of the Zhongxue with its original works, some problems related the translation are analyzed, including the translators'choices of original contents and new complement, the principle of translation, the determination method of terminology, and the shortage in translation. At the same time, the conflict and the choice in the course of communication of the two cultures are also discussed, including their influence on understanding the new scientific subject.4. Based on studies in the different aspects of dissemination of the text and content of the Zhongxue, the treatise investigates to a series of mechanics and mathematics works comprehensively, and analysed the degree and the characteristic of dissemination of the knowledge on mechanics in China in the period of the late 19th and the early 20th centuries, as well as researched on the influence of Zhongxue on scientific terminology and localization of its characteristic. Based on this, it has analyzed further that Zhongxue exserted important roles on the process of modernizing of mechanics in the period of the late 19th and the early 20th centuries in China.The translation and transmitting of Zhongxue is a representative case in translation and communication of the western science. Through a case study of Zhongxue, this treatise draws the following conclusion:1. In the process of transmitting of western mechanics, before the 1920s, its knowledge of degree of difficulty and complex have not surpassed the scope of Zhongxue. The knowledge introduced by Zhongxue had far beyond of the ability which Chinese intellectual could accept at that time.2. Zhongxue is the first lever translation, even if with present's standard, in aspect of its literal translation and understanding. It combined westen science with the Chinese tradition knowledge and the way of expression to introduce unknown knowledge and mechanical concept, which shortened the distance between the reader and the neterogeny culture. All above this had the positive effect on accepting the western mechanical knowledge by Chinese.3. Zhongxue is a mechanical work well known by the most Chinese intellectuals in that period. However it is very limited for Chinese to understand and transmit of its knowledge, specially hardy contents of knowledge in Zhongxue. It is also limited for Chinese to understand the system and the method of western mechanical knowledge in that period.4. The translators of Zhongxue was confronted with the conflict and the less adapt between the two neterogeny culture, therefore it isinevitable to make the choice in facing with conflicts and less adapt, which kind of choice weakened the system of western mechanical knowledge, and also enshrouded the characteristic of western mechanics as a positive and rigid science partially.Although it will not have science intercommunion between the west and China in the period of the late 19th and the early 20th centuries which it would be in 16th and 17th, the studies of Zhongxue indicate that the way of Chinese tradition's ideological and the thought of composition of Chinese ancient book had profound influence on the translation and dissemination in the choices of westen knowledge.The research of Zhongxue is a case study in science communication in the period of the late 19th and the early 20th centuries. Through this case study, we may see the characteristic of the western science communication, and know that the Chinese society cultural environment has influence on the way of modern scientific knowledge communication.The research of this article may provide a case to history of science and technology and history of the culture as well as the history of Chinese scientific translation and the communication, and through the different case study, we may understand the whole situation of westen science communication and the process of westen science modernizing in China.