| The Analects of Confucius is one of the most important Confucian classics,and its translations are also of great importance for the cultural exchanges between China and the West.From a postcolonial perspective,this study makes a comparison between two representative English versions translated by Ku Hungming in 1898 and Din Cheuk Lau in 1979.The comparison focuses on the translation of culture-loaded words,including ecological,material,social,religious and linguistic culture-loaded words.This study aims to exemplify the perspective that adoption of domestication does not mean obliterating source-language cultural elements and that both domestication and foreignization can contribute to the spread of source-language culture.This study analyzes those factors that may influence translation,including cultural identity,translation motivation and power differentials.Analysis shows that Ku Hungming and D.C.Lau share similar cultural identity and motivation,but that power differentials in their times created differences.In the times of Ku Hungming,the power differentials between China and western countries were great,yet by the time of D.C.Lau,power differentials were greatly reduced.This study compares the translation of culture-loaded words in The Analects of Confucius from a postcolonial perspective.The comparison shows that Ku Hungming adopts domestication and D.C.Lau adopts foreignization in their translation strategies.It is recognized that when translating a text from a weak culture into a strong culture,adoption of domestication shows the surrender to strong culture and adoption of foreignization shows the resistance to strong culture.Is the domestication that Ku adopts a kind of surrender? The author gives the answer “No”.Firstly,Ku is a cultural conservative,and his attitude toward Chinese culture may not allow him to submit to western culture.Secondly,the Chinese cultural information in Ku’s translation is not less than the information in Lau’s translation,and in some places it is even richer.Power differentials are the main distinctive factors that influence their translations,and the main reasons for their different choices.Confronted with great power differentials,Ku has to make some concessions,but his translation only concedes in its superficial form,which helps his translation enter into western culture.When Lau translated The Analects of Confucius,China had gained its voice in the world,and the attitude of Lau is apparently strong when confronted with western culture.Therefore,the domestication of Ku and the foreignization of Lau both show their resistance to the stronger culture.Furthermore,postcolonial translation theory argues that both domestication and foreignization belong to hybridity,and thus they can serve for a common goal,which provides a theoretical foundation for this conclusion.In brief,adoption of domestication does not mean yielding to western culture,both domestication and foreignization can serve for building positive Chinese culture identity. |
