An Analysis Of Culture-loaded Vocabulary In English Translations Of Tao Te Ching From Philosophical Hermeneutics Perspective

With its rejuvenation and increasingly frequent exchanges and communicationwith the rest of the world, China is constantly introducing foreign advanced ideas andculture to its people; at the same time, the excellent Chinese traditional culture andideas should also go global. In the process of the “going global” of culture, translationplays a significant and irreplaceable role. Chinese traditional culture has a long history,and during the long-lasting development of history and culture, some traditionalclassics that are of great significance and influence are produced. Among them, LaoTzu’s Tao Te Ching has exerted great impact not only on Chinese people’s thoughtsand Chinese culture, but also those of foreign countries. The thesis will selecttranslations by James Legge, Arthur Waley, Lin Yutang and Xu Yuanchong fromvarious English versions to analyze the translation methods of culture-loadedvocabulary in Tao Te Ching from the perspective of philosophical hermeneutics.The thesis will apply Gadamer’s three principles of philosophical hermeneutics,namely “the historicity of understanding”,“fusion of horizons” and “the effectivehistory”, to the analyses of the translations of culture-loaded vocabulary in Tao TeChing. Nida classified the culture of a certain language community into fivecategories, i.e. ecological culture, material culture, social culture, religious culture andlinguistic culture. In Tao Te Ching, there are lots of words belonging to those fivecategories, and most of them all reflect, directly or indirectly, the culture that speciallybelongs to the Chinese nation. The thesis will apply Gadamer’s three principles ofphilosophical hermeneutics to analyze the five categories of culture-loaded words inTao Te Ching, hoping to explain the reasonable existence of diversified translations ofculture-loaded words in Tao Te Ching, thereby summarized some translation strategiesand methods of selected translations and made a preliminary discussion on thetranslation strategies and principles of culture-loaded vocabulary in traditionalclassics.