Four Stages With Diversified Approaches

The dissertation pursues a series of in-depth case studies of Sinologist-translators’English versions of Lunyu. It takes into account such factors as the translators’personal backgrounds and specific historical cultural contexts by making use of a comprehensive research method combining the micro textual analysis and macro cultural observation, absorbing relative theories from Translation Studies, Contrastive Linguistics, Hermeneutics, Comparative Literature and Communication Studies, and by centering around the four stages and diversified approaches of Sinologists’translation of Lunyu. As a result, a multi-dimensional analysis of overseas Sinologists’translating efforts is presented in a fairly detailed way.The dissertation consists of six chapters. The first chapter mainly tells why the research topic is chosen, with a literature review of studies of English translation of Lunyu at home and abroad, touching on the merits and demerits of such studies, the scope, purpose and significance of the present study, and the research approaches and theoretical methods to be applied. From the second chapter to the fifth chapter, each chapter corresponds to a particular historical stage of Sinologists’translation of Lunyu focusing on a thorough study of one typical Sinologist-translator (but two for the fifth chapter) and his English version of Lunyu.The second chapter refers to the initial stage of Sinologists’English translation of Lunyu and takes Thomas F. Wade’s English version as a case study. As a diplomat, Wade, while treating Chinese society and culture as the "Other", goes through a process of changing attitudes from initial hostility to sympathy and then respect and ultimate love, and forms his own unique cross-cultural identity. As a linguist-translator, he, influenced by his translation collaborator K. and the Confucian exegetical tradition in late Qing Dynasty (1644-1912), adheres to the stringent pursuit in translating, engages himself in a carefully worded translation by using the form of annotation to keep truthful to the original, meets his goal of effectively representing the thought of Confucianism, and produces a certain impact on the later translators. In addition, the chapter reviews three English versions of Lunyu by missionary translators David Collie, James Legge and William Jennings respectively, revealing such translators’cultural utilization and Christian interpretation of Confucianism as their major feature, and also shows far-reaching influence of their translation strategies, translation methods, and translation formats upon translators of later periods.The third chapter, serving for the extension stage, selects Leonard A. Lyall’s English version of Lunyu as the main case study. As a foreign employee in China’s customs, Lyall, living in China for decades, especially through contact with such literati of late Qing Dynasty as King Chien-kiin and Ku Hung-Ming (1857-1928), becomes indulged in Confucianism and with profound awe renders Lunyu and other Confucian classics. As a translator in awe of Chinese culture, he employs a variety of specific translation methods especially characterized by both word-for-word correspondence and word-order consistency to achieve a strategy of following literal translation so that his English version of Lunyu, despite some deficiencies, bespeaks an effective interpretation of his translation ideal of "true translation". At this stage, the Sinologist Arthur Waley believes in the translation thought of "one Confucius at a time", and his English version of Lunyu, featured by a combination of literalness and liberalness, wins a wider readership comprising both general readers and professional readers and succeeds in hopefully bringing comfort to the then war-torn Westerners. Moreover, this chapter also briefly introduces the missionary translator William E. Soothill’s English version of Lunyu in terms of the identity of a translator, translation characteristics and the like.The fourth chapter as the development stage chooses James R. Ware’s English version of Lunyu as the key case study. As the first graduate from Harvard-Yenching Institute studying in China, Ware, knowledgeable and socially insightful, affected by the strong sense of pragmatism within American culture and American Chinese studies, expects to use his translation of Lunyu to comfort the lost soul of Western people. As a cultural-ambassador-like translator, he works out an English version of Lunyu for "the general reader", and, through the pursuit of appropriate interpretation of the original meaning and a flexible use of various means of translation, effectively reproduces the original thought and style from such strategies as semantic equivalence, lexical adequacy, grammatical correctness and stylistic correspondence. At this stage, Ezra Pound’s English version of Lunyu also displays the similar pursuit of interpretation of the original meaning especially by giving full play to the role of a Chinese-character-splitting method to interpret some core concepts of the original work, lays emphasis on the rendering of his interpreted meaning of the original with simple language so as to achieve his desired translational purpose. This chapter also offers a brief introduction to two English versions of Lunyu by Din Cheuk Lau and Shih-chuan Chen respectively.At the boom stage, overseas English translation of Lunyu by Sinologists becomes colorful, diverse and innovative. The fifth chapter picks out two English versions of Lunyu by Sinologists David Hinton and Edward G. Slingerland as two typical cases for study. As a writer and translator, Hinton stresses the core position of "ritual" in Confucianism and his translation is greatly influenced by his personal concepts of poetics and poetry translation. To be more exact, his English version of Lunyu characterizes itself by its representation of both semantic meaning and communicative effect of the original through its full use of both different translation techniques and various paratexts for the purpose of serving general readers as well as professional ones. As an expert-like translator, Slingerland treats his English version of Lunyu as "classroom edition" primarily serving "readers with little or no knowledge of Chinese" but, as a matter of fact, works for professional readers as well. For his version makes full use of a variety of translation methods, colorful characteristics of "commentaries" and also thought-provoking explanations or annotations to display a typical "thick translation" of the original work, which incidentally proves the value of "thick translation" in promoting the external dissemination of Chinese classics.The same stage also witnesses six more English versions of Lunyu by Sinologist-translators. Raymond S. Dawson’s version, simple, clear and easy to understand, shows a close translation of the original for general readers. The version by Simon Leys, smooth, readable and somewhat colloquial, sticks to the principle of making the past of China serve the present of the West and reflects the contemporary and practical value of the Confucian classic. The version co-authored by Roger T. Ames and Henry Rosemont, Jr. creates a philosophical interpretation of the original work by means of a unique "defamiliarization" so as to convey the essence of Confucianism and then benefit the establishment of the proper status of Chinese philosophy in the world. The version co-authored by E. Bruce Brooks and A. Taeko Brooks, denoting a strong color of postmodernism, by putting forward "the accretion theory" on the evolutionary composition of the original passages, makes the best of notes, commentaries and appendices, and aims at revealing the early history of Confucian thought through a deconstructive reading of the original classic. Burton Watson’s version, concise and effective, with its notes fewer but better than other versions’and its colloquial expressions, wise and prescient, helpfully reproduces the original style. David R. Schiller’s version refers a lot to previous versions and also relevant points of view of many scholars, and undertakes both a statistical labeling and a detailed elaboration of key words and concepts of the original work along with informative comments and explanations in order to display a unique way of re-expressing Confucian ideas within the original text.The sixth chapter summarizes the basic features of overseas Sinologists’ translational activities of Lunyu in history as well as their enlightening values for the present study, while explaining the limitations of the study and how it could be further expanded, with a reflection on the contemporary exotropic translation of Chinese classics and its related studies.