Study On The Multi-dimensional Re-contextualization Of James Legge’s Translation Of Shangshu

Shangshu is the first complete collection of official documents in Chinese history,known as the ancestor of political books and the source of historical books.Among many translations,James Legge’s translation of Shangshu is known as the standard translation for a hundred years because of its rich content.Re-contextualization theory explores the translation process in which the translator maximizes the faithfulness of the target text under the influence of dynamic contextualization.This thesis is helpful to explore the contemporary value of the source text and spread the cultural value of the target text.Based on the theory of re-contextualization,this thesis takes James Legge’s translation of Shangshu as the research object.It applies the research methods of theoretical analysis,text reading and case analysis to conduct specific research from three paths:the recontextualization of culture,situation and text.The research findings are as follows.At the level of the re-contextualization of culture,Legge effectively reconstructed the social culture,spiritual culture,material culture and language culture in Shangshu from both synchronic and diachronic dimensions.At the level of the re-contextualization of situation,in order to maintain the consistency between the source text and the target text in the three variables of language,namely,field of discourse,tenor of discourse and mode of discourse,Legge reconstructed the temporal and spatial context of the source text,the identity and relationship between communicative participants of the source text,and the colloquial style and written features of the source text.However,due to the translator’s pursuit of literal translation,there are some cultural misunderstandings in the translation.At the level of the re-contextualization of text,Legge applied para-texts and syntactic linearity.Para-texts are mainly reflected in three parts:introduction,illustration and annotation.Syntactic linearity is mainly reflected in three aspects:making the cohesive methods explicit,emphasizing the thematic advantages of the target language and restoring the characteristics of the rhetoric of the source language.The findings of this thesis show that James Legge’s English translation of Shangshu effectively reflects the reconstruction of the historical context of the source text in most cases.The translator creates a comprehensive and objective reading environment for readers,which greatly reduces the difficulty of reading.It plays a vital role in the dissemination of Chinese culture.