A Study On John Minford’s English Translation Of Daoist Thought In Dao De Jing

Using George Steiner’s hermeneutic motion theory as the analytical framework and the qualitative research method of text analysis,this paper conducts an in-depth analysis of John Minford’s English version of Dao De Jing,Tao Te Ching: The Tao and the Power.The translation is analyzed in four moves of the hermeneutic motion theory,including “the initiative trust”,“aggression”,“incorporation”,and “compensation”.By comparing the original with the translation,this research seeks to understand how Minford translated Daoist thought in Dao De Jing,why he did so,and what features his English version possessed.According to the findings,in the premise of translation,“the initiative trust”,Minford indicated that he translated Dao De Jing to express its value as a guide for people’s daily lives.He chose the River Master and Liu Yiming’s commentary because they are the most appropriate for interpreting Dao De Jing.In the second move of “aggression”,he can almost completely express the entire connotation of those concepts with similar connotative meanings in Chinese and western cultures.However,due to the impact of his cultural and rhetorical consciousness,and personal understanding on his translation of Dao De Jing,Minford was unable to articulate the complete connotation of some Daoist notions.In the third move of“incorporation”,the translator attached great importance to importing the meaning and form of the original text.Nevertheless,the translator sometimes preserved the original form at the expense of the original connotation,as evidenced by the English line layout in his translation of Dao De Jing.Each chapter was written in a poetic style that was concise enough but likely resulted in the incomplete interpretation of Daoist thought’s original meanings.In the last move of “compensation”,Minford compensated for the loss of connotation in translation by adding annotations and appendices that helped restore the balance between the source and target texts.Even still,translation losses remain in the translated text.In terms of Minford’s translation,he primarily adopted literal translation in interpreting Daoist thought in order to maintain the alienation to western readers.Meanwhile,the translator employed various methods to preserve original poetic features during the translation process.To name only a few,he put in his translation of the verse in each chapter in separated lines,much like a poem.Besides,the format of his English version is unique,with each chapter consisting of the English title,seal characters,the commentaries of the River Master,the commentaries given by Liu Yiming,the understanding of western scholars(if any),and some other relevant comments as well as a Chinese poem translated into English.To sum up,regarding Minford’s English translation of Dao De Jing,by exploring his interpretation of Daoist philosophy and rhetoric,the paper comes to the following conclusions: first of all,Minford’s translation manifested the influence of his cultural and rhetorical consciousness as well as his personal understanding in “aggressing” into the original text;secondly,each chapter of Minford’s English version of Dao De Jing was organized in a concise poetic form and mostly presented with the adoption of literal translation,demonstrating his particular concern for following the original structure of Dao De Jing;finally,the appendices and annotations attached to the English version of Dao De Jing can reflect the translator’s efforts to compensate for translation losses.Nevertheless,some original connotations remain absent in his English version of Dao De Jing.