Etymological Tracking And Translation Analysis Of Military Terms In Shi Ji And Han Shu Within The Framework Of Knowledge Transfer

The translation of Chinese classics is an important way to transmit Chinese culture.As representative works of Chinese classics,Shi Ji and Han Shu recorded a large number of ancient military terms,which reveals the important military culture of ancient China.The cultural knowledge contained in these terms are supposed to be transferred to the target culture during the process of translating these two classics.The data used in this study are collected from the following texts: original texts of Shi Ji and Han Shu as well as their English versions,such as Burton Watson’s Records of the Grand Historian of China,William Nienhauser’ s The Grand Scribe’s Records,The Yang’ s Selections from Records of the Historian,Burton Watson’ s Courtier and Commoner in Ancient China Selections from the History of the Former Han by Pan Ku and Homer H.Dubs’ The History of the Former Han Dynasty: A Critical Translation with Annotation.According to the classifications in Ancient China’ s Military Culture Dictionary,all translations of antique terms in five renditions are extracted and divided into seven categories.This thesis attempts to analyze three constraints on the production of good translations: ambiguity,interference and lack of equivalence within the framework of knowledge transfer proposed by Nigel J.Holden and Harald F.O.Von Kortzfleisch and discuss their influences on the translation of military terms in Shi Ji and Han Shu.The research summarizes several translation strategies used by translators to cope with the constraints mentioned above.However,it has also been found that there are some mistranslations caused by these barriers,a hindrance to the smooth transfer of knowledge carried by Chinese military terms.This study adopts the approach of etymological tracking and proposes some translation strategies for Chinese military terms in Shi Ji and Han Shu and presents some suggested versions of these mistranslations with a view to ensuring the translation accuracy of military terms and facilitating knowledge transfer during the translation process.