On A. C. Graham’s English Translation Of LIE-ZI From The Perspective Of Translators’Subjectivity

Liezi is an abstruse classic work with enduring and fascinating glamour, and it has long been praised as the crystallization of Chinese Taoism, and it is also a collection of Chinese fables, legends and myths grouped in eight chapters, each loosely organized in a single theme. It has come into the sight of western sinologists since the early20th century, and now several translation versions have been published. The first complete and independent translation of Liezi is The Book of Lieh-tzu: A Classic of the Tao which is now acknowledged to be of the most academic value in the west done by A. C. Graham (1919-1991), a British sinologist, in1960in London, and then republished several times by Columbia University Press.In the field of translation research, translator’s status has experienced from invisibility to visibility, so translator’s subjectivity in the translation process is gradually getting more and more attention by the translation circle. Translator’s subjectivity is the initiative that the translator manifested in translation, under the constraints of the original text and the ideology in the target culture, patronage and intended readership to achieve his own translation purpose. So it can be influenced by many elements, such as life experience, culture orientation, aesthetic sense, translation purpose and individual competence, etc. In return, all of these may be manifested in translator’s translation. The author of this thesis intends to conduct a qualitative study of Graham’s English edition of Liezi from the perspective of translator’s subjectivity.Taking translator’s subjectivity as the theoretical background, the author of this thesis explains how Graham played his subjectivity in his translation from aspects in selection of original text, his interpretation of the myths and parables in Liezi, and his selection of translation strategies in translating chapter titles, indigenous Chinese concepts, images and deeds of immortals and also illustrates some of his mistranslations and provides the possible reasons. The whole thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One is introduction; chapter Two generalizes Liezi itself and its author, its translation versions and Graham and his version; chapter Three is about the theoretical background translator’s subjectivity; chapter Four mainly interpret Graham’s subjectivity manifested in his English version; chapter Five is the conclusion.Through this research, the author of this thesis hopes it will be of some help for the trans-lingual translation of Liezi and the transmission of Chinese classics to the world.