On The Translation Of Traditional Chinese Philosophy Discourses:A New Rhetorical Perspective

It has become an internal prerequisite for translation studies to place translation itself within different frameworks and to approach it(activities and phonemona included as a whole)from multi-dimentional perspectives.As two major fields of linguistic activities,translation and rhetoric both rely on and are restricted by language and linguistic studies.To different schools of philosophers,one immanent character of translation is its uncertainties,which may be better controlled if rhetoric theories and techniques should be employed.Formerly “the art of speaking and persuasion”,or “the science of speaking well”,Classic rhetoric has grown into the ubiquitous art of using symbols,a cognitive human behavior with mighty power.Meanwhile,New Rhetoric’s commitment to the centrality of audience,together with its interest in symbolic power,etc.,forms a sound theoretical basis to the reevaluation of translation proper and translation practice.This dissertion is a study of the translation of Traditional Chinese Philosophical Discourses from the perspective of New Rhetoric,complemented by/with a summary of rhetoric thoughts and a descriptive case study of an important translation event.New Rhetoric translation strategies,as an enrichment to translation theories and practice guide,are tested and improved.After a summary of western rhetoric theories(new rhetoric included),this dissertion connects rhetorics with translation through the forming of an audience(reader)centered translational rhetoric view.The rhetoric characters and translation challenges of Traditional Chinese Philosophy Discourses(TCPDs)are discussed,and New Rhetoric translation strategies are proved to be useful to meet these challenges.The audience(reader)centered translational rhetoric view gives a better understanding to translation,rhetoric(and other disciplines concerned),etc..The current translator’s audience/reader consciousness should be set up,and the rhetoric power of the translated discourse through symbolic means should be strengthened.Since translation can be thought of as the reconstrion and reexpression of the source materials,and the methods and means of argumentaion familiar to the target readers should be among the first choice(s)of an effective translator.These effective strategies should be employed to better translate TCPDs.There are records of interaction between the rhetor and co-rhetor(the translator and source text author)in the case of Derk Bodde’s translation,and to the new rhetoric view strategies,I would like to add one more item: interaction.The study has six parts.Chapter I is an introduction,briefing the theoretical framework,approaches,contens,and significance of the thesis.There are summaries of rhetoric thoughts in Chapter II,one group dealing with classic rhetoric theories and another group,New Rhetoric.A translational rhetoric view is also proposed in this part.The third chapter probes into the rhetoric characters of Traditional Chinese Philosophy Discourses,which include the unspeakableness,the negative method,and the emphasis on Chinese Wuxing(power of understanding / comprehension / intuition),etc..These characterics,together with their dynamic evolutions and rewritings,comprise great challenges to translation.The next part makes a translational rhetoric study of Traditional Chinese Philosophy Discourses translation in two sub-sections: concepts and categories,and passages and paragraphs.Meanwhile,the above mentioned translation rhetoric and its translation strategies are also examined.Chapter V is a descriptive,rhetoric case study of Derk Bodde’s translation of A History of Chinese Philosophy,the rhetoric artfacts(source books,translated books)and the rhetor and corhetor(the translator,and the original text author),and the argumentation(regular and irregular translations),and the interaction between the author and the translator,etc.are all included.Finally,comes the Conclusion,summarizing the whole thesis,pointing out its major deficiencies,and visualizing the research prospects.