A Study Of Ku Hungming’s Thick Translation Of Lunyu

In this thesis, the author investigates the typical example of thick translation inChinese translation history—Ku Hungming’s translation of Lunyu from the perspectiveof thick translation. Based on the predecessor’s achievements, through the analysis ofreasons of thick translation, it is proved to be closely linked with cultural factors such asideology, poetics and readership. And this thesis makes an almost thorough study on thetranslation characteristics in Lunyu so as to investigate significance of “thicktranslation” in translation studies, especially in translation of Chinese classics.The author adopts the methodology of descriptive translation studies to classify andstudy the phenomenon of thick translation in The Discourses and Sayings of Confucius,in aspects of content and form respectively. As far as the respective of content orfunction is concerned, thick translation can help the translator highlight the quintessenceof each page, and serve as explanation of cultural terms or conceptions, furtherelucidation of the author’s viewpoints, and quotations from western great writers, whichput readers into a broad culture of source text. As for the respective of form, thicktranslation can be addition of preface, explanation in the form of subscripts, phrases andsentences added in texts and annotations, and so on. Then, the author makes an analysisof the reasons of such a phenomenon and explores the influence imposed on thetranslator by ideology, poetics and readership, considering that the birth of Lunyu as athick translation has close tie with the contemporary social cultural background. It canbe concluded that it is the ideology of the society, the ideology of the translator, thecultural and literary background of the translator, the readers the translator bore in mind,that mainly contribute to the birth of the thick translation of Lunyu, which is by nomeans a coincidence.Ku Hungming has made great effort to approach and represent the essence ofConfucianism of the source text through thick translation, which makes this version hotin the research field of Lunyu at one stroke. Ku’s version exerts irreplaceable function on the studies of Chinese classics and Confucian philosophy made by Americansinologists and even the whole world. The phenomenon of thick translation can befound in many places in Ku’s version of Lunyu. Through the analysis of this version, thethesis, on the one hand, discusses and “thickens” thick translation strategy; and on theother hand, it explicits the functions of thick translation.