A Descriptive Study On The Translation Of Plant Terms In Shi Jing

Shi Jing, the first poetry collection that marks the first transfer fromoral literatures to written ones, is abundant in images of plants, animalsand so forth. All these images have profound meanings behind them.Through studies on them, researchers and readers may find the gloriousand splendid cultural significance of the ancient Chinese nation.Therefore, this thesis is intended to be a descriptive study on thetranslation of the plant terms, especially plant images, in two Englishversions of Shi Jing: Guo Feng by James Legge and Xu Yuanchongrespectively.As a distinguished missionary coming to China, James Legge devotedhimself to the study on classics of the Chinese nation. He had translatedShi Jing for three times so that he made great contribution to thespreading of the Chinese culture and also the literature. The translatedversion by Xu Yuanchong in1993is the first cover-to-cover translationsince the foundation of People’s Republic of China. His version is anembodiment of the “three principles of beauty” proposed by him.The author attempts to approach this study from the perspective of thetheory of imagery, with other culture-related perspectives, such asThingology and Folklore, as supplements. The translation methods adopted by the two translators are also concluded. In the last part of thisthesis, the author evaluates these two translated versions under theguidance of the theory of fusion of horizons proposed by Gadamer.Finally the author addresses the necessity and inevitability of thevariability of different translated versions of a literary work.