| Daoist scriptures,which inherit and transmit traditional Chinese culture in all-round way,are generally referred to classics of“Taoism as a philosophy”and“Taoism as a religion”.The translations of Daoist scriptures and texts in the English world can be traced back to the first translation of the Tao Te Ching by Robert Morrison in 1868.The missionaries and sinologists in the 19th century,particularly John Chalmers,James Legge,Herbert Allen Giles,who served as the key figures in translating Daoist scriptures,brought the wisdom of Daoism into the English world.The robust growth of Sinology as well as the deepening of cross-cultural contacts in the context of globalization has witnessed a growing number of Western scholars engaging in studying and translating Daoist scriptures and texts.Dr.Thomas F.Cleary,the prime translator of Buddhist and Daoist texts in the United States,was one of them.Thomas Cleary,graduated from the East Asian Languages and civilizations of Harvard University,has since 1980s translated more than twenty-one books of Daoists which approximated 2.6 million words.He has made a valuable contribution to the translations of Daoist scriptures and texts into the English World.Under the context of the rapid growth of Sinology and the promotion of Chinese cultures and canons going out,this paper chooses as the object of study the translations of Daoist scriptures by Thomas Cleary.It aims to conduct a detailed study of his translations and then to use it as an example to examine the journey of Daoist scriptures and texts in the English world,offering tips for Chinese cultures going out.This paper consists of the introduction,the main body and the conclusion.First of all,it starts with the searching and sorting all of the translations of Daoist scriptures by Thomas Cleary.The possible source texts of each of the translations have to be ascertained by using methods such as close reading,back translation and comparisons,in which his translations of Daoist scriptures serve as clues.A literature review of the study of Cleary's translations of Daoist scriptures is presented as well.A corpus-based method for translation studies is employed in this paper and a quantitative analysis is combined with a qualitative analysis.A translation corpus,a comparable corpus,and a Chinese-English parallel corpus are designed and compiled to conduct research on translation universals,translator's style,and the translations of Daoist terms.With a holistic understanding of the translations of Daoist scriptures by Thomas Cleary,detailed examination of his translations of the Inner Chapters of Zhuangzi and the Secret of Golden Flower is made in an effort to explore the features of the two translations,and to enrich the existing knowledge of the translations of Daoist scriptures by Cleary.Finally,the factors affecting the reception of Cleary's translations of Daoist scriptures in the English world are analyzed from the perspectives of the translation culture school,translation studies,and aesthetics of reception.Further thoughts on the case study of Cleary's translations of Daoist scriptures are provided to explore its implications for Chinese cultures going out,particularly the translations of Daoist texts.This paper makes full use of the findings of contemporary Translation Studies,highlighting the comprehensive use of theories of inter-disciplines such as corpus linguistics,corpus-based translation studies,descriptive translation studies,translation studies,and culture studies.In terms of research methods,this paper employs a corpus-based method,close reading,comparative analysis,and textual research.It also takes into consideration the textual and extra-textual factors in an endeavor to make a comprehensive,objective and scientific analysis of Cleary's translations of Daoist scriptures.This paper finds that Thomas Cleary intends to choose Daoist scriptures,particularly Daoist texts concerning the inner alchemy,which indicates that Cleary has profound knowledge of the growth of Daoism in the modern society and in the United States,and that in terms of traditional Chinese culture Cleary identifies himself with the Daoist scriptures.In exploring translation universals,this paper makes an analysis of Cleary's translations of Daoist scriptures in terms of the hypotheses of explicitation and simplification.The explicitation shown in the translations can be observed from two aspects.One is that there are compulsory explicitation and optional explicitation in his translations.Compulsory explicitation is governed by the systematic differences between Chinese and English,under which the translator translating Chinese into English is expected to add the subjects or objects omitted in the source texts,or to explicate the cohesive devices implicit in the source texts.Although optional explicitation has something to do with the systematic differences between languages,it lays emphasis on the optional choices made be the translator,who still has to comply with compulsory explicitation.In the cases that the omitted subjects in the source texts are not easy to ascertain,Cleary differs from other translators in that he has the tendency to use the second personal pronoun‘you'in his translations to explicate the omitted subjects.Such optional choices made Cleary bring the reader closer to the translated texts.The other is the pragmatic explicitation in the target texts,enabling the Western readers to have some knowledge of the transmitted cultures of the other.Cleary occasionally explicates in his translations the cultural-specific items of the source text.The simplification of Cleary's translations can not merely be shown by the fact that in terms of the standardized type and token ratio and the average sentence length,his translated texts are significantly simpler than the non-translated texts chosen and examined in the target language.It can also be revealed by the way Cleary deals with the allusions and proper nouns in the source texts,who tends to translate them in a concise but sometimes ambiguous manner.In exploring the translator's style,this paper combines the linguistic features of the translated texts with meta-textual materials.Namely,variables such as standardized type and token ratio,average word length,average sentence length,and indices for readability are chosen to analyze the linguistic features,while meta-textual materials cover the choices of source texts,the paratexts of the translations and translation strategies.This paper finds that the overall average standardized type and token ratio of the translated texts is 38.4271,which partially indicates that the range of the vocabulary used in Cleary's translated texts is not varied enough.The overall average sentence length is 18.48(words per sentence),showing that the overall sentences in the translated texts are not lengthy or complicated.With the analysis of readability of the translated texts,the results of the indices for readability show that the translated texts by Cleary are easily readable,intelligible to the average English readers.Apart from a holistic view of Cleary's translated texts,this paper shifts to a micro level to analyze the translations of Daoist terms,particularly the alchemical terminology,and two case studies are subsequently made to reinforce the analysis of the translations by Cleary.Cleary prefers to use literal translation and occasionally free translation when translating terms of Daoism.However,he seldom annotates such terms,and there sometimes exists inconsistency among the terms rendered,which is likely to make readers confused.He not only follows the traditional renderings of some Daoist terms,but he also opts to deviate from the established translations and create his own new translations.Although there are misreading and misinterpretations of certain Daoist terms in his translations,Cleary in most cases can convey the sense and connotations of such terms.Followed the analysis of the translations of Daoist terms are two case studies of the translations of the Inner Chapters of Zhuangzi and the Secret of Golden Flower by Cleary,which show that the two translations have striking features although they are well received by critics.For example,the notes of the translations of the Inner Chapters of Zhuangzi does not focus on checking the meanings of the source text,but on its spiritual interpretation.Similarly,Cleary stresses in his translation the religious connotations of the Secret of Golden Flower.In the final chapter,this paper explores the possible insights that can be gained from the case study of the translations of Daoist scriptures by Cleary,showing that this study focuses more on translated texts and offers practical implications for the reality.Constraints such as translator's subjectivity,the mechanism of patrons,and communicative means are probed by analyses of the reception of Cleary's translations of Daoist scriptures.Such constraints can serve as a mirror to review and facilitate translations of Daoist scriptures overseas.This paper has implications in helping assess the translations of Cleary in a more comprehensive,objective,and scientific way.It also offers a perspective to rationally review the translations of Daoist texts overseas,and to explore effective ways of translating texts of this kind.The originality of this paper can be embodied from three aspects.Firstly,there is originality in the object of study,which deals with all the translations of Daoist scriptures by Cleary and a few relevant translation reviews.The access to these translations and reviews helps scholars to have a better understanding of Cleary's translations of Daoist scriptures.Choosing all the translations of Daoist scriptures by Cleary as the object of study changes the way scholars often research on a given translated text of Cleary,and expands the scope of Cleary's translations of Daoist scriptures.Secondly,there is originality in the research methods in this paper.It uses methods such as text back translation,text-critical analysis,to identify the source texts chosen by the translator,and a corpus-based method is employed in translation studies of Daoist texts.Because of the abstruse Daoist scriptures and texts,and of the time-consuming task and technique requirements to create corpora of Daoist texts,there is no existing studies of employing a corpus-based method to study the translations of such texts.This paper makes full use of the contemporary translation theories from corpus-based translation studies,Translation Studies,medio-translatology,and aesthetics of reception.It mainly uses a corpus-based method of translation studies and textual analysis,combining quantitative analysis with qualitative analysis.The textual factors and meta-textual materials are separately analyzed from a micro perspective as well as a macro one.All these methods used in this paper enrich the ways to explore the translations of Daoist texts.There is originality in the author's point of views presented in this paper.Unlike the existing conclusions which are mainly based on a given translated text of Cleary,the findings of this paper centered on translations of Daoist terms,translation universals,translator's style,and the reception of translations are to some degree original,and much more objective,scientific,and comprehensive.In the context of the robust growth of American Sinology,Cleary tends to choose Daoist scriptures,particularly texts concerning the inner alchemy of Daoism.Although Cleary uses paratexts to introduce background information,he seldom offers notes to his translated texts,which are transparent and fluent.This shows that Cleary adopts a target-oriented approach to translating,using domestication and popularism to mainly cater to English non-professional readers.This paper is a tentative study on Daoist texts by using a corpus-based method and focusing on the case study of the translations of Daoist scriptures by Thomas Cleary.It can offer tips for future studies in this field,promoting more scholars at home and abroad to pay attention to the study of the translations of Daoist texts,and even facilitating the seeking of appropriate ways for Chinese Daoist scriptures and texts going out. |
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