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A Study of the English Translation of the Analects

Author: JinTingXian
Tutor: LiGuanXue
School: Henan University
Course: Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
Keywords: The Analects cultural transmission English translation of traditional Chinese classics memetics English translation of The Analects
CLC: H315.9
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2011
Downloads: 308
Quote: 2
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Abstract

Confucius, the founder of Confucianism, is a great thinker and educator and plays a significant role in the history of Chinese ideology. As the master of ancient Chinese culture, his thought—Confucianism is the quintessence of Chinese culture. The Analects is a collection of records of sayings, conversations and observations given by Confucius and his disciples. Through history, different people have different interpretations of that book. Matteo Ricci translated The Analects into Latin in 1593. Since then, the study of the translations of The Analects has never ceased. By now, there are more than fifty English versions, which outnumber the versions of other foreign languages. Therefore, it can be inferred that the Westerners pay much attention to Confucianism and The Analects has a great influence in the English world.At the same time, Chinese culture, long in history, varied in form and rich in content, is one of the most original, ingenious and vital traditions of all civilizations. With the improvement of China’s status in the world, traditional Chinese classics arouse the attention of the world. Especially, more and more Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classes have been established all over the world, providing a platform to display the uniqueness of Chinese culture. So it is very necessary to translate traditional Chinese classics into foreign languages in order to make Chinese culture known to the world and attributes to the world cultural diversity. Thus it is very important to learn from the translation of The Analects to study the English translations of other Chinese classics. That’s why the author chooses the English translation of The Analects as his research subject.The previous researches in this field are mainly on the micro-level, for instance, about the core words, the structure of the sentences, the translating strategies and the comparison between two or more versions. Few of them touch upon the intercultural features.For compensation, the paper adopts a memetic theory. Memetics is a new cultural transmission theory, based on the theory of evolution to explain the law of cultural evolution. The core of memetics is the meme. When a meme comes into a new cultural environment, it has to vary itself to fit the new environment—to combine itself with other already existing memes in the meme pool or to compensate for them; thus it can survive and spread. Based on memetics, this thesis redefines translation. It hypothesizes that the process of English translation of Chinese classics is the process of Chinese culture’s transmitting to the English world. By studying the macro diachronic process of the English translation of The Analects from the memetic point of view, this paper finds out that the English translation of The Analects also obeys the law of cultural evolution. And the reason why the English translation of The Analects is so successful is that Confucianism memes can make variations to fit the dynamic cultural environment. Thus more and more versions come out. Among all the English translations of The Analects, some of them are very close to the original. But no one is the same as the original. Fortunately, the English translation of The Analects will continue unless all Confucianism memes in The Analects and other Confucian works get transmitted.This thesis is composed of five chapters.Chapter one is an introduction to the objective and significance of the thesis, data collection and methodology as well as the structure of the thesis.Chapter two is a literature review. This chapter introduces the significance of traditional Chinese classics and English translation of traditional Chinese classics as well as Confucius and The Analects, including their importance and influence both at home and abroad, the English translation of The Analects in history and the classification of different English translations. The chapter also analyzes the previous studies of the English translations of The Analects and points out the problems in these researches.Chapter three provides a theoretical framework. It introduces memetics, the definition of the meme and the mechanism of memetics and some basic concepts concerned. And it also analyzes the relationship between memes and culture transmission. Moreover, it points out the natural relationship between memetics and translation.Chapter four is a memetic analysis of the English translations of The Analects. Firstly, this chapter points out the relationship between memetics and the English translation of The Analects. Secondly, it depicts a schema of the translating process of The Analects from the memetic point of view. Thirdly, based on that schema, it analyzes the English translations of The Analects by Western missionaries, sinologists, overseas Chinese and native Chinese. The translators whose versions are cited in this thesis are David Collie, James Legge, William Soothill, Arthur Waley, Roger Ames & Rosemont Jr., Ku Hung-ming, D. C. Lau, Li Tianchen and Ding Wangdao. The reason for choosing their versions is that they are the representatives of the above four kinds of translators and their versions are very popular. By analyzing the characteristics of these different translators and their strategies in translating The Analects, this thesis tries to find out the reasons why these English translations of The Analects are so successful.Chapter five draws a conclusion that the process of English translation of The Analects is also the process of transmitting Confucianism memes to the English world. The reason why Confucianism memes can spread to the English world successfully is that they can make variations to fit the dynamic cultural environment—to combine themselves with other already existing memes in the meme pool or to compensate for them, and thus they can replicate themselves successfully and survive. The tendency of the English translations of The Analects is that all Confucianism memes in The Analects will be transmitted into the English world. It is hoped that this research will shed some light on the study of English translation of other traditional Chinese classics.

A Study of the English Translation of the Analects

Abstract

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