A Study Of Frame Operations In Three Translated Versions Of Tao Teh Ching From The Perspective Of Frame Theory

Tao Teh Ching is the first-complete Chinese philosophical classic,reflecting the great oriental wisdom.It has drawn endless interpretations over the past 2000 years next to the Bible and the Bhagavada Gita.Tao Teh Ching is the most translated book in the world,with well over 100 different renditions in the English world alone,not to mention the dozens in other European languages(Xin 2008).The translated Tao Teh Ching is used to guide social life and has got a profound influence on philosophy,literature,science and politics and other fields in the western countries.In the study of the translation of Tao Teh Ching,researchers tended to analyze it from the perspectives of translation theories,translation skills and cultural communication etc.,and have achieved fruitful achievements.The reorientation of the translation phenomenon since the “cultural turn” in the 1980 s means that the cultural,social,political and psychological factors behind the language have also been included in the research scope of translation.Frame semantic perspective is a research method that conforms to this requirement.In particular,frame theory embodies a better theoretical advantage and great potential in translation studies.The remarkable findings on the application of frame theory have focused more on literature,especially on the English translation of Chinese classical poetry,but there are few studies on the cognitive translation of ancient Chinese philosophical works,especially on the cognitive operation.Thus,based on the frame theory,the study aims to test the validity of frame operation model introduced by Xiao(2012)to the three translated versions of Arthur Waley,Lin Yutang and Gu Zhengkun;and to further explore the causes and influence on the translators' choice of translation strategies under the frame operation.On the basis of these aims,the thesis aims at finding answers to the following questions:(1)What kinds of frame operations do three translators manipulate while translating Lao Tzu's Tao Teh Ching,which is rich in Chinese culture?(2)What are the possible causes behind these different frame operations done by the three translators?(3)How has frame operation influenced the translators' choice of translation strategies of Tao Teh Ching? To find the answers to these questions,this study employs a qualitative method involving a textual analysis and a comparison of the three English versions in order to provide a more comprehensive account for the translators' cognitive processing in the translation of Tao Teh Ching.After a detailed and synthesized analysis,it concludes as follows.In the translation of Tao Teh Ching,the three translators could choose both ideal and unideal frames to correspond the two frames,and unideal frame operation is much more manipulated than ideal frame operation in such a cultural context.All of them could match the source frame and target frame to realize the code switching,and also finish the unideal frame operation by element replacement,addition,and deletion,frame level adjustment,change of perspective and frame transplanting.As a result,their translation has met the demands of the target readers cultural convention.What's more,the translation process involves the translator's cognitive operation,in which frame functions as the background reference for comprehension.Because of the different cultures,contexts and perspectives or intentions which are established by the translators aiming at the translation purposes,different frame operations have been conducted and externalized as different translation strategies(foreignization and domestication),that is,to convert Chinese to English translation through the frame operation on the conceptual level.From the above analysis,it is probably inferred that in the translation of classical Chinese philosophical work as Tao Teh Ching,frame operation is present in the transmission of culture-loaded information.Frame operation provides a new perspective for the interpretation of Tao Teh Ching.Out of the findings,some implications are drawn on the translation of culture-specific works,and a summary of the thesis' limitations and the author's suggestions for future research in this area of study are also presented.