Report On The Translation Of The Chapters Relevant To “Propriety” In School Sayings Of Confucius

With the deeper communication between eastern and western cultures, English translation of Chinese classics is receiving more attention not only from scholars but also from translators at home and abroad. Confucianism was once the main stream of Chinese philosophical thought in ancient times, and has significantly contributed to present day Chinese mainstream culture. The School Sayings of Confucius had been considered as a “false document” and it had been disputed for many years. However recently, archaeologists, historians and scholars through a lot of hard work have verified the book’s authenticity. The book had recorded a great number of Confucius’ words and deeds vividly, which reflected his thoughts on the principles of benevolence, propriety,moral conduct, filial piety and so on. But until now no complete English version has been made of this book. Through a year’s endeavor, the translator translated some chapters of this book that dealt with the subject of “propriety” which showed different rituals and manners of sacrifices and other activities from emperors to common people during the Spring and Autumn period. The report made a detailed description about the whole translation activity, meanwhile analyzed and solved some difficult problems that appeared in the translation process. It will be of benefit to other translators for their translating Chinese classics.The translation of Chinese classics needs translators to have good translation skills and deep knowledge of literature. The key point of this translation activity lies in the translation of culture-loaded words. The difficult point of this translation lies in making full sense of societal background and environment of ancient times. The whole translation is based on Dr. Eugene A.Nida’s functional equivalence theory. The translator mainly adopts amplification, omission,conversion and comprehensive method. Because of the limit of the translator’s knowledge and ability, this report does not claim to be definitive. Despite some deficiencies, the translator still hopes that it may be of interest to English language readers and will contribute to a complete version of School Sayings of Confucius in the future.