Influence Of Translator"s Cultural Identity On Translation:A Hermeneutic Study Of Paul White’’s Tending The Roots Of Wisdom

Cai Gen Tan, one of Chinese classics, has brought out the best of Chinese’s essence. The l ast 20 years has witnessed a “ Cai Gen Tan craze”in China an d Japan.However, its first English version did not appear until at the start of the 20 th century. Paul White’ s Tending the Roots of Wisdom isone of its four English versions(versions translated by native English speakers). White’s peculiar living and working experience gives him distinctive dual cultural identity, which is very rare to be seen in other t hree native English translat ors. Besides, ther e is hardly any relevant study on White’ s cultural identity in the study of Tending the Roots of Wisdom, whichdrives the present author to make a case study of White’s version, trying to fi ll up research gaps in translator ’s cultural identity.Hermeneutics holds that translati on is basically the understanding and interpretation of meaning and text. It hasbroadened translation study ever since it is inco rporated into tran slation. Since the cult ural turn of translation appeared in the 1970 s w ith the development of herm eneutics, translator’s subjectivity and visi bility have b ecame the focus of translation studies. Her meneutic approach, like the her memeutic circle and George Steiner’s fourfold hermeneutic motion highlights the importance of translator ’s role in the translating process. Both hermeneutic circle and Steiner’s four fold hermeneutic motion narrate the process of understanding and interpretation, which are greatly influenced by the translator and his/her cultural identity. Steiner states the translating processfrom a translator ’s perspective in the hermeneutic m otion and each of the four moves, namely“trust”, “aggression”, “incorporation” and “compensation” is inse parable from translator’s cultural identity. Thus, this thesis makes a hermeneutic study of White’ s Tending the Roots of Wisdom toanalyze translator’s cultural identity in the translating process, and how it influences the choice of the original among different versions, translation purposes, translation stra tegies and methods, translator ’s understanding and interpreta tion of the original i n White’s translation. This study makes a preliminaryhermeneutic exploration into the influence of White’scultural identity on his tran slation, hoping to initiate further profound study of translator ’s cultural identity in the translation studies on Chinese classics.