| Translation plays a significant role during cultural exchanges. During the period of late 19th century and the beginning of 20th century, lots of educated men and persons of ideals and integrity tried to enlighten people by importing Western thoughts and culture, and save crisis-ridden China. Against this wave of spreading Western learning to the East, there was this wave of spreading the Eastern learning to the West. However, the names that seemed to be inscribed in people's memory are people who committed themselves to translating Western learning, such as Yan Fu and Lin Shu. While those translators who introduced Chinese traditional culture to the West most likely stayed in oblivion, and Ku Hungming was one of those forgotten translators. Although Ku Hungming (1857-1928), as a notable Sinology scholar and translator, is often associated with the word"eccentric"for his bizarre words and behavior, it should never undermine the fact that Ku was the first Chinese in Chinese history who solely and completely undertook the job of translating Confucian classics into English. Ku's version of Lun Yu exhibits features like quotations from European great names, cultural substitutions between east and west, omission of proper names. All those features prove to be of great help for Western readers'understanding of Chinese Confucianism.Since this paper holds that Ku's translation behavior is mainly caused by his own ideology– cultural conservative ideology, naturally attention must be paid to Ku's cultural conservative ideology, which is studied from the following three aspects: the formation and elaboration of Ku's ideology, and the influence of Ku's ideology on his translation behavior. Then in order for this paper to be more convincing, a comparative study between two versions of Lun Yu by Ku and James Legge respectively is carried out. In a short version, the big difference between those two versions is that they exhibits different translation feature: Ku's version is comparatively easy to understand, while Legge's scholarly. And this difference can be attributed to their different ideology. As a true believer of"Chinese saves the west"theory, Ku wanted Chinese culture to be accepted and followed in the west. Therefore, Ku tried every means possible to eliminate any linguistic and cultural barriers so as to make his version easy for western readers to comprehend. Legge treated Christianity as an open and ever-renewable system which would need supplements from Confucianism, therefore Legge's version is SL culture-oriented so as to keep the original taste and flavor.This dissertation reaches the conclusion that Ku's cultural conservative ideology exerts great influence on his translation behavior from text selection to translation strategy. Because he firmly believes Chinese culture is the only salvation for the already crisis-ridden Europe and America, he chooses to translate Chinese Confucian classics, and disseminate Chinese culture in the way that is familiar with his intended readers. Domestication is undoubtedly his choice. Ku's cultural conservative ideology can not escape the fate of being a double coin. For example, the most obvious illusion Ku believes is that Chinese culture and Confucianism can save the world. Nonetheless, under the influence of his ideology, Ku's version of Lun Yu caters to the needs of average Europeans and Americans. |
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