| The "cultural turn" was officially proposed in the book of Translation, History and Culture jointly compiled by Susan Bassnett and Andre Lefevere in1990since translation studies has begun to break through the limitation of relatively independent studies on linguistics and literature, which has provided a novel approach to translation studies.In the field of translation studies, the study of classics translation has received many attentions by translators. In the translation, purposes of translators and cultural backgrounds are the main reasons for various editions, which is also the main focus in our research. Zhuangzi, a classic masterpiece has gained much attention from scholars with unique literature and philosophical traits.In China, many scholars have spent their efforts on the studies of Zhuangzi. However, from the perspective of translator’s subjectivity to study the key concept word "Dao" by comparing two translators are far from being enough. The thesis will explain how the translators with different cultural backgrounds and various social factors will influence the choice of translation by comparing the two translations of the same word "Dao". Feng Yu-lan as a scholar with much philosophical ideas adopted various ways to explain the word "Dao", such as "method", " way","order",etc. That was closely tied with his translation purpose. However, Victor H. Mair who viewed the Zhuangzi as the literature masterpiece of Chinese classics chose the same word "the way" to translate "Dao", which fully extended the literature traits.The thesis will discuss the two translators’purposes, backgrounds and social factors so as to draw a conclusion that the translator’s subjectivity will affect the way of translation. Without doubt that the discussion of the key concept word "Dao" is just a corner of Zhuangzi which boasts large amount of key concept words such as "Tian","Qi", Xin",etc. It also provides abundant materials for future research. |
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