A Comparative Study On The English Translation Of Yi Jing From The Perspective Of Gideon Toury’s Translation Norm Theory

Yi Jing is known as the beginning of the hundred classics and the source of Chinese culture.This classic work has been translated into various languages and widely disseminated in the West.So far,there are over 100 English versions of Yi Jing.Among them,the English version of Richard Wilhelm / Cary F.Baynes is acclaimed as the “New Testament” in the history of Yi-ology.Minford’s translation is the latest authoritative English version of Yi Jing.In the 1970 s,translation studies experienced a “cultural turn”: from the linguistic perspective to the cultural perspective.Based on previous researches,Gideon Toury puts forward translation norm theory.He regards translation as a social behavior constrained by norms,which could be divided into initial norms,preliminary norms and operational norms.Under the guidance of Gideon Toury’s translation norm theory,this thesis makes a comparative study on Richard Wilhelm’s and John Minford’s English versions of Yi Jing,which have an interval of 90 years,from the aspects of initial norms,preliminary norms and operational norms.This paper aims to inspect the social and cultural factors behind the differences through the textual foreword and annotation and the extra-textual news and comments about translators.The research finds that against the background of the First World War,Wilhelm adopted domestication to translate Yi Jing acceptably by citing points in Goethe’s work and the Bible from the perspective of philosophy and psychology.Wilhelm regarded Yi Jing as the source of the oriental wisdom that could fill the gaps of western culture and provide guidance for Germans.Against the background of the increasing popularity of sinology in western academe,Minford adopted foreignization to translate Yi Jing adequately based on the research findings of archaeology and Yi-ology from the perspective of historicism.He regarded Yi Jing as a manual for readers to learn Chinese divination and to cultivate themselves.The author believes that both social and cultural factors and linguistic factors should be considered in translation activities.This study provides a new perspective for the English translation research of Yi Jing and a reference for the retranslation of the classic.