Study Of Literary Mistranslations In Two English Versions Of The Art Of War From A Hermeneutic Perspective

Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is the most valuable Chinese treatise on military affairs in the long history of China, which is written in the late Spring and Autumn Period (770-476B.C.). The book, which emphasizes on precautionary and intelligence strategy, tells us the experiences of warfare in that historic period. By uncovering the nature and essential rules of warfare, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War has had a tremendous influence on military, political and philosophical thought in China. Down the ages it has been called a "military classic", and its author a "military genius". This treatise, now over2,000years old, has been translated into various languages since the17th century. However, it is regretful that there are still more or less mistranslations among these translations for different reasons. This thesis tries to analyze the mistranslations in Giles and Lin Wusun’s English translations of The Art of War through the hermeneutic point of view, in order to understand the phenomenon of mistranslation much better and also provide some experiences for the later researchers.Hermeneutics is a science of interpretation and understanding. Its effect of guiding the translation is undoubted. The main concepts in hermeneutics:"pre-understanding" or "prejudice","fusion of horizons" and "effective history conscious" are all in association with translation research. According to Modern hermeneutics, fore-having, fore-sight and fore-conception make up "fore-understanding" or "prejudice" existed in human brain, which influence the means they translate the events in the target text. Beyond that, the process of translation is the process of the fusion of horizons of author and the interpreter, and at last a new horizon will be created. Furthermore, the different translators in different times may understand the same text differently, because the understanding is always in the process of changing. But at the same time, these conditions also make the existence of mistranslations possible.The present thesis carries on a research on the mistranslations in two widely recognized translations of The Art of War by Giles and Lin Wusun from the direction of hermeneutics. Begins with the introduction of the author Sun Tzu and his lifetime experience, the thesis in Chapter Two conducts a review of English translations of The Art of War at home and abroad and the research on these English translations of this treatise; Chapter Three applies hermeneutics into literary mistranslation and Chapter Four is a thorough and detailed contrastive analysis of the two widely acknowledged translations by Giles and Lin Wusun, and the last Chapter concludes the whole thesis, as well as shows the limitations and suggestions of this thesis.