On The Intercultural Communication Competence Of English Versions Of Traditional Chinese Classics

We are now living in times of great changes and transformation. The rapid development of science and technology, transportation and communication makes the world smaller and smaller and people all over the world connect with each other more and more closely. We have more and more chances to encounter foreign culture and have already been influenced by them in various ways. In such social circumstances, we should not only learn and accept foreign culture, but also spread and share our own excellent culture with others.Among Chinese culture, traditional Chinese classics are the most essential and important. They are the essence of our culture. But due to the difference of languages, they cannot be learned universally. It is necessary to translate them into other languages, making our culture known to the world and also contributing to world cultural diversity.Researches, which have been done into this field, are mainly on a micro-level, for example, about the structure of the sentences, the understanding of the original works, the translating strategies, the comparison between two or more versions, the current situation and future prospects of traditional Chinese classics translation. Seldom have investigations been carried out on a macro-level. For compensation, the author discusses from an intercultural perspective.Based on Young Yun Kim's contextual theory of interethnic communication, the author puts forward "A Model of the Intercultural Communication Competence of English Versions of Traditional Chinese Classics", which suggests that English versions of traditional Chinese classics lie in the center of intercultural communication, whose intercultural communication competence is influenced by three factors—translators, cultural commonness/differences embodied in the English versions, and national & international environment—and these three factors also exert influences on each other.Among all the traditional Chinese classics, Lun Yu is one of the most frequently translated and most widely spread in the world. English is one of the most widely used languages on earth. So the author chooses the translation and spread of Lun Yu in the English world as an example to testify the validity of her hypothesis. Through the analysis of four representative English versions of Lun Yu, translated by James Legge, Roger T. Ames & Henry Rosemont, Jr., Ku Hung-ming and Li Tianchen, the author intends to show that her idea about the intercultural communication competence of English versions of traditional Chinese classics is reasonable and acceptable and thus provide a reference for evaluating English versions of traditional Chinese classics from the perspective of intercultural communication.The thesis is composed of five chapters.Chapter One is an introduction to the motivation, scope, methodology of the research and structure of the thesis.Chapter Two is a literature review which introduces the nature and significance of traditional Chinese classics and English translation of traditional Chinese classics, Kong Zi, Lun Yu, including its importance and influence both in China and in the world, the history of its translating and influence abroad, and the classification of its different English versions.Chapter Three provides a theoretical framework which introduces Young Yun Kim's contextual theory of interethnic communication, including information about Young Yun Kim, the background of her theory, some basic concepts concerned, its content and organizing scheme. What's more, the author points out the application of Young Yun Kim's theory to the transmission of English versions of traditional Chinese classics and English versions of Lun Yu. She puts forward a hypothesis in this part: English versions of traditional Chinese classics lie in the center of intercultural communication, whose intercultural communication competence is influenced by three factors—translators, cultural commonness/differences embodied in the English versions, and national & international environment—and these three factors also exert influences on each other.In Chapter Four the author takes English versions of Lun Yu as an example to testify her hypothesis from four aspects. Firstly, the author talks about translators' influence on the intercultural communication competence of English versions of Lun Yu from four aspects: translators' identities, translators' intentions, expected readers and translating strategies. Secondly, she investigates the influence of cultural commonness and differences reflected in the English versions on the intercultural communication competence of English versions of Lun Yu. Thirdly, she discusses the national and international environment's influence on the intercultural communication competence of English versions of Lun Yu. At last the interactive influences of those three factors are investigated.Chapter Five is the conclusion. From what has been discussed in the previous chapters, the author draws the conclusion that the hypothesis she puts forward is reasonable and acceptable, that is to say, the intercultural communication competence of English versions of traditional Chinese classics is influenced by translators (their identities, their intentions, their expected readers and their choosing of translating strategies), cultural commonness or differences embodied in the versions, and environment; translators determine the extent of cultural commonness or differences embodied in the versions to some degree; environment influences translators, and also plays a role in deciding whether more cultural commonness or differences will be showed in the English versions. Furthermore, it is also hoped that this might provide a reference for evaluating English versions of traditional Chinese classics from the perspective of intercultural communication.