Extending The Familiar: The Creation Of Zhongyong In English-speaking Cultures

This dissertation attempts to study the English translation of Zhongyong中庸with a methodologyderived from Zhongyong. Previous studies on the translation of Zhongyong often fail to probe into thenature of translating Zhongyong, and the nature can be discovered by examining different translations andseeking out what they have in common. This requires a brand-new methodology and a shift of standpointfrom the meaning of the source text to the translating subject. The methodology framed in this work is"extending the familiar", which means, simply put, extending the familiar to the unfamiliar. As far as thetranslation of Zhongyong is concerned, extending the familiar means extending to the cultural other, usingfamiliar religious and philosophical theories in Western culture to apprehend and translate unfamiliarChinese cultural concepts. To demonstrate how "extending the familiar" works and to clarify how aChinese classic is translated, or rather, created in the English-speaking world, several translations ofZhongyong are selected, probed and illustrated. The translations include James Legge’s (1815-1897)Doctrine of the Mean, Gu Hongming’s辜鸿铭(1857-1928) The Universal Order or Conduct of Life,Leonard A. Lyall and King Chien-Kun’s The Centre, The Common, E. R. Hughes’s The Mean-in-Action,Wing-tsit Chan’s (1901-1994) Doctrine of the Mean, Roger T. Ames (1947-) and David L. Hall’s(1937-2001) Focusing the Familiar and Andrew Plaks’s (1945-) On the Practice of the Mean. They will bestudied roughly chronologically with reference to each translator’s choice as to the analogy made betweenwhat is most familiar to them and what there is in Zhongyong. The research is expected to bring theoreticaland practical benefits by shedding more light on the translation of Zhongyong and on translation in general.Hopefully, it may contribute, in some small way, to the philosophical study of Zhongyong.This dissertation comprises seven chapters.Chapter One serves as an introduction to the whole research endeavor. It presents brief informationabout what this study is about, why it is undertaken, what are going to be investigated, with whatmethodology they are investigated, how the investigations proceed, and how the whole work is going to bepresented.Chapter Two sets the stage for the exposition of the translations of Zhongyong by framing a theoretical tool. It will derive a methodology from pondering the messages in the Analects and Zhongyong. Insomuchas Zhongyong is believed to bring to fruition the philosophical thought in the Analects, this chapter willfirst examine the Analects to dig up the thoughts. In the Analects, Confucius’s teachings are said to bepulled together with "a single thread". The single thread is construed in this thesis as "extending", whichhinges on the most basic Confucian belief in the similarity and contiguity of people’s hearts. In Zhongyong,"extending" is applied to the issue of man and the universe, and becomes the philosophical "extending thefamiliar". Man and heaven, the familiar and the unfamiliar are different but congruent. Man can extendhimself through self-cultivation to heaven and by the same token, the familiar can be extended to realizethe unfamiliar. This subject-oriented thinking provides a uniquely Chinese approach to the study oftranslation. It shifts attention from the search for translational equivalence to the creation of the translator,to his making the way to the source text or extending the familiar. All the other factors, socio-political,cultural, linguistic etc, are considered in relation to the translator and to study creation involves a perusal ofthe various factors impacting on the choices the translator makes in translating. In this way, it does not stickto one aspect and is an integrated approach.Chapter Three analyzes James Legge’s and Gu Hongming’s translations of Zhongyong. Leggetranslated Zhongyong twice. In the first translation, there is a natural and obvious inclination to ChristianizeZhongyong, as can be seen in the translation of key terms and unfavorable comments on passages whichexpress opinions contrary to Christian doctrines. His extending of Christian monotheism is intolerant andarbitrary, with the unfamiliar comprehended in a reductive manner. In the second translation, Legge, havingacknowledged his earlier narrow vision, is more open and the familiar extended to the text are morerelevant and credible. However, the familiarized Confucian thought is still marred by the imposition ofChristian monotheism which is alien to Chinese culture. Gu Hongming’s translation shares with Legge’s incomprehending Zhongyong in terms of religion, but they differ in aiming at different ends. Legge’s andGu’s translations contribute to the interpretation and reception of Zhongyong as a religious work in theWest.Chapter Four examines three philosophical translations of Zhongyong, especially Wing-tsit Chan’stranslation. Different from their religion-preoccupied predecessors, these "modern" translations share in anearnest quest for the philosophical import of Zhongyong and represent a progression which, with increasing sensitivity to cultural differences, seems to go deeper to seek out the work’s distinct wisdom. Chan’sinterpretation relies heavily on the thoughts of Neo-Confucian thinkers, especially Zhu Xi.Neo-Confucianism and later New Confucianism are moving closer to Western metaphysics than to classicalConfucian thought. That is why in Chan’s work, Legge’s theologically-freighted translation is borrowed,unloaded and reloaded with metaphysical connotations. Chan extends in his translation the two-wheelphilosophy, inclusive of the abstract and the concrete, the universal and the particular, what is withoutphysical form and what is with it, and creates Zhongyong afresh as a metaphysical work. Althoughcontributing to the reception of Confucian thought as philosophy in the West, the trend to westernizeclassical Chinese thought is also debilitating to the value of Chinese classics.Chapter Five presents a detailed exposition of Ames and Hall’s philosophical translation. Differentfrom former translators, Ames and Hall put cultural differences over similarities and seek for the unusualassumptions of Chinese culture, the ignorance of which has seriously impeded the translation of Chineseclassics into English-speaking cultures. Through research on Chinese culture and Anglo-American culture,they reject the notion of transcendence in Chinese culture and uphold the alternative process-relationaltradition in Western philosophy as most relevant to Chinese sensibilities. Accordingly, they translateZhongyong by extending process-relational thought and using process-relational vocabulary. Chinesephilosophy is thus constructed in a way that throws off the shackles of metaphysics and leads Westernphilosophy into a new era. However, their translation, allegedly giving justice to Chinese philosophy, meetscriticism for not to do so. Plaks extends a practice-centered Neo-Confucian interpretation and brings to thefore moral cultivation in his translation. The meaning of Zhongyong is always being renewed and thedemand for a better translation is always there.Chapter Six summarizes what has been suggested in the study and attempts to theorize about thenature of translating Zhongyong. Classical Confucian thought, as the absolute cultural other, is unfamiliarto the West, but it can be familiarized, hence translatable. Translators always extend the familiar intranslating to pin down its meaning and significance. In this way,"extending the familiar" is a strong proofthat translation is creation. It will be argued that "extending the familiar" can be extended to any translation,and creation as the nature of translation comprises two dimensions: phenomenological creation andhistorical creation. To accompany this theory, sincerity (cheng诚) is proposed as the criterion for translation.Chapter Seven recaps the major points of the dissertation and expresses the wish that, in translationstudies, more research should be done to exploit China’s huge intellectual legacy.