The Travel Of Culture And Language: A Study Of The Translation Of Zhuang Zi

This dissertation adopts Edward Said’s traveling theory as the theoretical basisand uses other modern linguistic and translation theories as well. It assumes that theprocess of translation is a traveling process of translators and texts from one culture toanother. The translators, as the subject of travel, use different strategies and methodsto make the texts cross the borders of time, geography, language and culture.The chief aim of this dissertation is to analyze the obstacles, or the translationdifficulties the translators confront in rendering the cultural meanings, languagecharacteristics, and literary styles into another culture, when Zhuang Zi travels to theEnglish world. The analytical method adopted is to compare the multiple translatedversions of the same original text by different translators from different periods. Firstthe objects for comparing will be picked up. Then the different translation strategiesand methods will be compared and criticized.Among the various classical Chinese texts, this dissertation chooses Zhuang Zi asthe object of study for the following reasons:1. In the course of130years from1881to the present, Zhuang Zi has received its28translated English versions, including9complete versions,8selective versions, and11excerpt translations, adaptations,rewritings and other forms of translation. The translators include scholars, sinologists,poets, philosophers and missionaries. They mostly come from America, Britain andChina. These translators understand Zhuang Zi from their own perspectives and havedifferent emphases, so they use different translating methods and strategies. These allextend the space for study.2. Zhuang Zi is one of the most justly celebrated texts ofChinese tradition. Impressive for both its profound philosophical thoughts and itsstriking literary style, Zhang Zi has occupied a very important place in the history ofliterature, and that of philosophy as well in China.The dissertation consists of six chapters. Chapter1briefly introduces Zhuang Zithe man, Zhuang Zi the book, and the previous research on the translation of ZhuangZi in China and aboard. It also introduces the motivation, aims, methods and contentsof this study. The second chapter is a review of “traveling theory” and its application intranslation studies. Edward Said states that a theory gains or loses in strength, orbecomes totally different when it travels to another historical period and anotherculture. He proposes four stages of the travel: point of origin; a distance or passagethrough the pressure of various contexts; a set of conditions of acceptance orresistances confronting the transplanted theory; new position in a new time and place(1983:226-227). When “traveling theory” is adopted in translation studies, translatorsbecome the subject of travel and play an essential role in leading the text to cross theobstacles caused by the temporal, geographical, cultural and lingual distances. In theprocess of travel, texts are inescapably constrained by the translation norms in thetarget culture, and get some gains and losses.The third chapter is an investigation of the cross-border travel of Zhuang Zi tothe English world. Traveling theory is connected with the theory of context. Thishistory is divided into four periods: the19thcentury, the early and middle periods ofthe20thcentury, the late20thcentury and the first decade of the21stcentury. Thedivision is based on the quantity and characteristics of the translations, and the socialand historical backgrounds.The fourth chapter expounds how the key concepts, allusions, and thesupernatural meanings transform in travel, and compares the different translationmethods of the translators. The fifth chapter elaborates in detail whether the languageand literary characteristics in Zhuang Zi can travel fluently to another language in theprocess of translation. The translation process on the illocutionary level is investigated.The different translation methods of the pun of names, repetition, antithesis,parallelism, verses and images are compared and the gains and losses in translationwill be measured.The last chapter is the conclusion of the whole dissertation, including thecontributions, limitations, and suggestions for further study.