A Corpus-based Study On Two English Versions Of The Classic Of Tea From The Perspective Of Hermeneutics

China is the hometown of tea.Since the 21^st century,especially under the promotion of the Belt and Road initiative,tea culture has played an important role in promoting international cultural exchanges between China and other nations,as well as the enrichment of Chinese cultural life and spirituality.Today,there are more than 200 ancient tea books in China.Among these works about tea,the Classic of Tea written by Lu Yu in the Tang Dynasty is of paramount importance.Based on the self-built bilingual parallel corpus and under the guidance of Steiner’s hermeneutic translation theory,this thesis begins with the fourfold motion（trust,digestion,absorption,and compensation）and make the comparative study on the lexical,syntactic and culture levels to explore the significance of Steiner’s hermeneutic translation theory to the English translation of the Classic of Tea.The study found that due to the different backgrounds of the times,the translators of the two translations adopt different translation strategies in the translation process.At the lexical level,through the analysis of the Tongjiazi（通假字）,numerals,and reduplications of the two translations,it is found that Carpenter’s ability to digest the translation is slightly weaker than Jiang Xin and Jiang Yi’s,but both express the meaning of the original text to a certain extent.At the syntactic level,through the analysis of different kinds of sentences,it is found that due to insufficient understanding of Chinese,Carpenter uses literal translation when translating sentences,which is easy to lead to the ambiguity of the meaning of the translation.At the cultural level,Carpenter mostly uses annotation method to supplement the translation,while Jiang Xin and Jiang Yi are more inclined to directly express the connotation of the original text.The study finds that despite their different backgrounds,the translators of the two translations have adopted different strategies to“compensate”the translations in order to complete the interpretation of the Classic of Tea.It is hoped that this study would not only increase the scope of research into the translation of the Classic of Tea,but also provide an effective reference for relevant studies.