A Comparative Study Of The Third Space Of The Analects

In the long river of history, Chinese nation created the brilliant Huaxia civilization.Chinese Classics are both the recordings and the embodiment of Chinese civilization, soto translate Chinese Classics into English, the most spoken language in the world, is thebest way to introduce Chinese cultures to the world. The Analects of Confucius is theClassic of the Classics, embodying the soul of the Chinese national culture,epistemology and wisdom styles, which we should present for the other cultural groupsof the world and make them identify with and relate to the charm of Chinese culture.Chinese and Western cultures continue to influence and penetrate into each other duringthe convergence process, so the Chinese people should probe into and retain the finecultural traditions of our own nation, which has far-reaching implications for the spreadof Chinese philosophical and cultural spirit. The Analects, as a primary source ofConfucian thoughts, imposed profound influences on the global cultures. So thetranslation of this Classic is a crucial element of cultural communication between theeast and the west. This paper compares and analyses the two English versions of TheAnalects by James Legge and Ku Hung-Ming, from the perspectives of “Culturaldiasporas”,"inter-subjectivity","third-space","fusion of horizons", attempting to probeinto the deep causes of the translation’s diversity and locate in Ku’s rendering theoperational room of translation in the third space. As a quality study, altogether threeapproaches are adopted in this paper: comparative approach, cultural approach andlinguistic approach. The paper focuses on the translation of The Analects: four Englishversions will be compared from different perspectives. The cultural approach is adoptedto analyze the culture-loaded terms among those versions. Apart from this, the linguisticapproach is used to analyze the cultural or epistemological implications behind differentlinguistic patterns of the two English versions. Through careful comparison andanalysis of the translations of Legge and Ku Hong-Ming, the paper concluded that thetheory of fusion of horizons should be applied in the studies of translation. Third spaceis the outcome of horizons fusion between translation subjects: the translator and the ST,including meanings fusion, times fusion, zones fusion and cultures fusion. Thetranslation is not a simple text generated in the target language, but a new linguistic andcultural text confined by the source language. Every translator is a bi-cultural living in the crevice between different cultures, which is able to read, digest and paraphrase thetext with diasporas view.