Ku Hungming's Translation Of Confucian Classics: A Postcolonial Perspective

As a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, China was disturbed by both domestic troubles and foreign invasions in the late Qing Dynasty. Chinese culture identity was quite close to be marginalized at that time of national depression. Patriots desperately wanted to bring in the western technologies to help China pull through the difficulty, but still have the negative consequence as have increased the cultural deficit between China and the west. Chinese cultural identity stayed in the trap of "being written" by the west. Ku Hungming, different from the majority of scholars at that time, wanted to introduce the traditional Chinese culture, especially the Confucian culture, to the west. His translation works such as The Discourses and Sayings of Confucius, The Universal Order or Conduct of Life and Higher Education won many praises from western readers, while domestic scholars paid little attention to them. Ku Hungming and his translations were far less talked about with comparison to other native authors like Yan Fu, Lin Shu or Lin Yutang, as a result of which, his contributions and the value of his works are still much hidden.The postcolonial translation theory would take a new angle to study Ku Hungming and his translation. This cutting-edge theory would give reasonable explanations to Ku's translation concerning the special social background of his time. Postcolonial translation theory mainly concerns the translation's external conditions (politics, power, and ideology), based on which, the dissertation would analyzed the cause and effect of Ku's translation as well as the strategy he had used. It is hoped to discover the unique functions that Ku's translation of Confucian Classics have to the construction of Chinese cultural identity, and find its implications to the study of postcolonial translation and the contemporary translation of Chinese Classics.After the literature review of Chapter two, the dissertation first analyzes the objective and subjective reasons for Ku's translation activity:Ku personally saw the distortion of China's identity and the declining of traditional Chinese culture. Besides, the government, his friends and his patriotic enthusiasm all drive him to transmit the Chinese culture to the west by using the strategy of domestication on the lexical, sentence and text levels. He also quoted famous western sayings to explain the Confucian doctrines, which made the proud westerners be patient enough to read the translations by looking at the discourses of their own predecessors. Only in this way, the Chinese identity can be seen and truly further understood. All though Ku's translation is not enough to pull China out of all invasions, it is still a good try to re-construct the Chinese image.Ku Hungming's translation also has brought some implications to the study of postcolonial translation. By using the strategy of domestication, Ku successfully introduced the Confucian text into the target culture. It proves that "resistance" or "foreignalization" are not the only ways to keep the characteristics of "other" culture. Last but not least, Ku gives us a good example of translating Chinese classics to quenching the thirst of a growing number of foreign readers who are keen on getting to know traditional Chinese culture. Accurate understanding and comprehensive comprehending of the source text, expressive languages but less obscure and trivial expressions are suggested in order to avoid misunderstanding and be easier accepted in the target culture. To accomplish this, translators should have long-term accumulation of professional skills for the translation work.