A Study Of James Legge's Thoughts On Translation

A translator's thoughts are his concepts and knowledge of the nature and function of translation and are embodied in his translation practice.To be more specific,they are his or her views about the writer,source text,the translator,the translated text,readers,society,religion,and culture and are closely related to his or her translation purpose,method,principle,and strategy,etc..Once it takes form,the translator will develop his unique translation mode.In the history of translation,distinguished translators all have their own translation thoughts,for example,Yan Fu's three-character translation criteria of “faithfulness,expressiveness,and elegance”,Lu Xun's “faithfulness rather than smoothness”,and Eugene A.Nida's “functional equivalence”,etc..James Legge(1815-1897),a British Protestant missionary,is primarily remembered today as the excellent translator of Chinese Classics(1861-1872,1893-1895),whose massive translations are still considered the standard versions of works that are “classically” and “scripturally” defined great Confucian tradition in China.James Legge had a perfect knowledge of the language from which he was translating and also excellent knowledge of the language into which he was translating.The language he acquired and the training he received in translation was under the influence of both Western and Chinese traditions.This explains why his translation is different from those of others and contains features of both Chinese and Western culture.In general,James Legge's translation thoughts can be summarized in four words,i.e.,“loyalty,thickness,retracing,and interpretation”,which,in particular,can be subdivided into such thoughts as “preaching Christianity with Confucianism and merging Confucianism with Christianity”,“probing into profound truth,” “translating plus explanation”,“knowing people based on the understanding of the age in which they lived”,“meeting the intention of the writer with sympathetic understanding”,“collaborative translation” and “interpreting Chinese classics with Western classics”.This dissertation intends to take both macroscopic approach and microscopic approach to interpret James Legge's translation thoughts.Let's begin by focusing on “loyalty”.There exist two layers of connotative meanings in this word.First,it is the loyalty to Christianity.James Legge,a senior missionary,must be self-conscious about the importance of adherence to Christian doctrine.To serve the God effectively,he endeavored to interpret and translate Chinese classics from the perspective of Christianity,i.e.,to preach Christianity by way of Confucianism.Second,it means showing respect for Confucian culture.In translating Chinese classics,he would often weigh up his wording meticulously and visit the Confucian “holy land” and other cultural attractions in northern China,in an attempt to reproduce the meaning of the source language and display its background.And his views on Confucianism,Chinese culture and religion also underwent obvious changes.He gradually realized that Christianity and Confucianism are not in conflict with each other and are in need of dialogue and integration.Then,let's examine “thickness” which represents profoundness and richness,and is achieved in the form of “thick translation”,i.e.translating plus explanation,and “probing into profound truth by figurative usages”.In the first place,“thick translation” refers to translating by adding preface,prolegomena,critical and exegetical notes,and copious indexes,and putting readers under the rich linguistic and cultural context of the source text so that readers can have a thorough understanding of the original works.Next,“probing into profound truth by figurative usages” means that the translator should search for evidence to prove that China and the West share the same supernatural world and the same or similar religious belief.When rendering Chinese classics,James Legge continuously sought and elucidated the information concerning God and adopted a Christian hermeneutics and an approach known as figurative usages to prove that “Heaven” in Chinese is the “God” in Christianity.The third key concept is retracing.It means retrieving the intention and the general scope of the writer,reflected by his two translation principles as “ meeting the intention of the writer with sympathetic understanding”,and “knowing people based on the understanding the age in which they lived”.The former was the principle that Mencius employed in interpreting Confucian classics.It was also applied by James Legge in translating Chinese classics.To show his respect for this principle,he printed this on every title page of Chinese classics.Fourthly,there is “interpretation”.To be faithful to the source text,James Legge employed his translation mode of “collaborative translation” and “interpreting Chinese classics with Western classics”.The Chinese Classics is the crystal of James Legge's year-long sinological research results,and also the significant outcome of his long-continued toil with his collaborators,such as Hong Rengan(1822-1864),Ho Tsun-sheen(1817-1871),and Wang Tao(1828-1897).Apart from the assistance derived from Chinese scholars,James Legge,also based his translation on textual criticism and exegesis,and Chinese commentaries.He tried his best to render the source text as accurately as possible and thus,epistemically,reached the high caliber of scientific interpretation of the then western translators.This dissertation adopts the methods of literature research,interdisciplinary analysis and logical demonstration.The author combines theoretical analysis with translation practice,and employs qualitative research method and quantitative analysis at the same time.The focus is,of course,laid on the former and the two are complementary to each other.As a result,the features of macroscopic theoretical clarification and microscopic translation analysis are embodied and James Legge's translation thoughts are objectively and systematically reflected.Legge's macroscopic translation thoughts,i.e.,“loyalty,thickness,retracing,interpretation” represent respectively the incarnation of his translation purpose,method,principle,and mode.A careful study of his translation thoughts is conducive to a correct interpretation and a rational evaluation of his translated text.Strong adherence to the above-mentioned translation thoughts wins him an unparalleled popularity among the readers of his two translation series,The Chinese Classics and The Sacred Books of the East.James Legge's translation not only sets a good example for rendering Chinese classics,but also,it may be stated,provides a useful reference for scholars of later generation in their study of translation criterion and mode of the same kind.