A Study On James Legge’s Thick Translation Of “Xi Shou Huo Lin”

The Chunqiu,or The Spring and Autumn Annals,is an important foundation of traditional Chinese historiography.Its discourse paradigm of“subtle phrasing with profound meanings(微言大义)”is a unique part of Chinese discourse tradition and the“family,country and the world”value in the book is of significance for the building of the community with a shared future for mankind.The last chapter of the book contains only four words of“Xi Shou Huo Lin”(西狩获麟),which is a typical example of“subtle phrasing with profound meanings”style,has received numerous commentaries and hence won the The Chunqiu another title of The Classic of Lin(《麟经》).The Chunqiu with the Zuo Zhuan(《春秋左传》),as a major commentary of The Chunqiu,has been included in the milestone translation project The Chinese Classics by James Legge,which provide long prolegomena and copious annotations and are held as standard academic translation of Confucian classics to help the world better understand Chinese Confucian classics.From the perspective of thick translation,with the relevant Chinese classics exegeses as the local knowledge to compare with in terms of content and discourse paradigm,this paper has employed research methods from the study of Chinese classics,translation studies,and critical discourse analysis to analyze Legge’s peritexts in his translation of “Xi Shou Huo Lin” to answer two research questions:(1)What thick translation strategies were employed by Legge?(2)What effect has been achieved by these thick translation strategies in terms of cross-cultural interpretation?Through text analysis,the following findings are reached.In terms of thick translation strategy,post-text annotation is the major “thick” text with different font sizes and layouts to distinguish the source text,the target text and the post-text annotation.(1)In the post-text annotation,Legge explained the important words and sentences by imitating the paradigm of Chinese classics commentaries such as exegeses on important words and citation of various commentaries by Chinese scholars.(2)Legge adopted the explicit thick translation approach(post-text annotations and translator’s annotation in parentheses)and the implicit thick translation approach(translator’s annotation in square brackets)to clarify the canon meanings for target readers.(3)Legge gave his own comments to explain cultural differences and make judgment of traditional classical commentaries.By the above thick translation strategies,the content of the canon meaning in traditional Chinese cultural contexts is well presented.The discourse feature of multi-voiced fugue in traditional Chinese classics studies has also been retained,which reveals the feature of situated and dialogic meaning interpretation of Chinese classics.Nevertheless,Legge’s annotation involves the analytical discourse paradigm of modern historical discourse for a “true/false” conclusion with some history data analysis.It has also used the modern scientific discourse to identify the species of “Lin” while ignoring its symbolic meaning in the original text.These have swayed from full expression of the “moral lesson databank” value with the strategy of “subtle phrasing with profound meanings” in the classical historical writing of The Chunqiu.Based on the above findings,it is proposed that academic translation of Chinese classics should rest on the local knowledge of traditional Chinese classics and it is necessary to avoid the translator’s excessive intervention so as to retain the canon meanings and the discourse construction paradigm of Chinese classics.