A Contrastive Study On The Translation Strategies Of Diplomatic Rhetoric In Zhan Guo Ce

Diplomatic rhetoric,rich in contents and diversified in forms,has been widely used in literary works and international communication.It reflects a different diplomatic characteristic of different nations and also bears rich cultural connotations of different nations,and its flexible expressions and profound but implicit connotations in the diplomatic rhetoric in Zhan Guo Ce have always posed as a great difficulty in translation.With the growing importance of the cultural soft power and increasingly intensified international disputes in the world competition,the translation of Chinese diplomatic rhetoric will greatly help to spread Chinese historical classics overseas and to promote its diplomatic culture,thus the appropriate translation will play a positive role in improving China's cultural soft power and promoting world peace.The translation studies of diplomatic rhetoric started rather lately and haven't gathered the attention from scholars until recent years.For a long time,the studies of diplomatic rhetoric have fall into two categories: one is to study their pragmatic features and rhetoric means;the other is to inquire the translation strategies based on those features.In addition,the translation studies on Zhan Guo Ce have always stayed in a rough overall level,rather than been systematically divided into several parts,like analyzing from a microscopic perspective to study its literary characteristics.This thesis has analyzed the characteristics of the diplomatic rhetoric in Zhan Guo Ce and discussed the translation strategies through comparing the English versions of Zhan Guo Ce by Bramwell Steaton Bonsall,James I.Crump and Zhai Jiangyue,it has also explored how translators' purpose can affect their choice in translation strategies.The thesis first reviewed the domestic and foreign researches on the translation strategy,diplomatic rhetoric and its English translations,and then summarized the practical strategies in cultural translation.Next,it defined diplomatic rhetoric based on the particular historical backgrounds,states' relations and people's relationship in Warring States Period,and then compared and analyzed 85 pieces of diplomatic rhetoric identified from 310 paragraphs of dialogues and correspondence in the whole book.And further,it studied the various translation strategies on diplomatic rhetoric so as to compare strategies chose by the three translators and explained the restrictions of theirstrategies.On the basis of a data statistics and an example analysis,the thesis had several findings below.First,the diplomatic rhetoric in Zhan Guo Ce was good at exhorting others through abundant historical allusions,educational ethics and moralities,which conformed to the expressive type of text in text type theory and the politeness principle and cooperation principle in modern pragmatics.Therefore,appropriate strategies should be adopted in accordance with the correspondent pragmatic principle in translation.Second,the purpose of translation had a great influence on translator's choice of strategies in translating diplomatic rhetoric.Third,the translation of historical classics called for bridging the cultural gaps through several strategies like domestication,alteration,annotation and interpretation,so as to facilitate reader's understandings.