Missionary Translation And Modernity In The Culture And Society Of The Late Qing Dynasty

It was before and after the two Opium wars between China and Great Britain in thelate Qing Dynasty that foreign missionaries began to spread the Gospel on large scale inChina. At the time when they spread the Gospel, they also did a large amount of translationof Western Learning (WL for short), which exerted tremendous impact on the culture andsociety of the late Qing Dynasty, not only giving strong impetus to the process of China’smodernization, but also leaving a rich treasure of the WL translation in the history ofChinese translation. Consequently, the one hundred years spaning from the early period ofthe19thcentury to the beginning the20thcentury, is commonly regareded as the thirdtranslation wave in the history of China, in which, compared with missionaries from othercountries, American missionaries in China played a more significant role. Of all Americanmissionaries engaged in translation during this period, Young John Allen, WilliamAlexander Parson Martin and John Glasgow Kerr enjoyed the greatest reputation, both forthe sheer size of their translation works and for the extensive and far-reaching influencetheir translation works produced. It should be pointed out, however, that although Chinesescholars in the field of history have done a lot of research work on the activities of foreignmissionaries in China starting from the early period of the20thcentury, their reearch focushas been largely on missionaries’ activities in religion, education, media, medicine, and law.Since the21stcentury, although impressive progress has been made in the study of foreignmissionaries both in depth and width in China, scholarship has been accomplished mostlyin such fields as religion, education, cultural exchange, and science rather than translation.Those studies that are done from the perspective of translation are often times moremicro-based than macro-based, failing to capture the profound and far-reachingsignificance of the WL translations by American missionaries to the development ofmodernity in China during the late Qing Dynasty.This research mainly has two aims: one is to demonstrate the three great translators’enormous accomplishments in translation in different styles, and to explore its effects onthe shaping of modernity in China in such fields as politics, economics, military, education,cultures, medicines, laws, and modern science and technology, all of which are designed to probe into the profound impact of their translation on the development of modernity in thelate Qing Dynasty; the other is to make a more in-depth study of their translating goals,purposes, methods, strategy, and effects by applying such commonly-accepted moderntranslating theories as Skopos Theory and Manipulation Theory, so as to move beyond theexisting scholarchip in the study of foreign missionaries’ achievements in translation.For the above two aims, three research methods are employed in this study, whosemethods are as follows: the first method is to use history as a thread, that is to say, to usethe modern history of Chinese translation as a main clue, with the history of developmentof the late Qing Dynasty and that of Sino-American cultural exchange as its background,putting different kinds of the American missionaries’ WL translation in historical periodsof development of different societies, politics, ideologies, religions and educations inhistorical materialist viewpoint to examine them in detail; the second method is to use theexperience of a selected spot to promote the work in the entire area, that is to say, to usethe WL translations of the three famous American missionary translators in differentperiods with their own characteristics as a main frame, and to use other Americanmissionaries’ translations, in order to fully state the American missionaries’ greatachievement in the third Chinese translating climax in the late Qing Dynasty and theirclose relationships with the climax; the third method is to use theories as a base, that is tosay, on the basis of the cases of the three translators and other American missionaries’ threegreat contributions to the translation of the late Qing Dynasty in the Sino-British culturalexchange, to use Vermeer’s Skopos Theory and Lefevere’s Manipulation Theory to make afurther theoretical exploration of translating purposes, strategies, methods, productions,and effects of all the American missionaries in China.The modernity of the culture and society in the late Qing Dynasty is a point ofpenetration in this research on the WL translation of foreign missionaries in China, and theproblem it solves is how the WL translation of the three famous American missionarytranslators and other American missionaries in China in different periods in a near centurycan really overall reveal, reflect and promote the modernity of the culture and society inthe period. If their WL translations at Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou respectivelyconstitute three pillars of the translating field in the late Qing Dynasty, those of the otherAmerican missionaries living at different parts of China, under the influence of the three great translators, lay a solid foundation in the translating field of the late Qing Dynasty.Such a representative individual translation and a missionary group’s extensive translationunfold a panorama of the WL translation with the American characteristics, leave a richtranslating legacy in the Chinese modern times, and provide enough translating historicaland translatological proofs for explanation and exploration of the theme——the modernityof the culture and society in the late Qing Dynasty——in this research.This research deals with the three famous American missionary translators and otherAmerican missionaries engaged in the WL translation in the late Qing Dynasty. Thetranslating materials the research enumerates and analyses are collected from abundanthistorical data of the WL translations left by translators of the modern times at home andabroad, historians in translation, and forerunning historians. In connection with theproblem of the modernity in different fields of the culture and society in the late QingDynasty, different WL translating materials left by the American missionary translators aresorted and explored. Furthermore, the dissertation, with Vermeer’s Skopos Theory as atheoretical basis, mainly probes into the three great translators’ translating purposes, andsuch strategies as translating purposes, methods and means, which are determined bySkopos Theory; with Lefevere’s Manipulation Theory as a theoretical basis, puts their WLtranslations in a broad cultural background for a further study, and mainly probes into theproduction of their translations against the background of the culture and society in the lateQing Dynasty and effects of their translations on the modern aspects in the cultural andsocial fields in the period.From the analysis and exploration based on the abundant historical materials oftranslation, the dissertation arrives at the following conclusions: firstly, the Americanprotestant missionaries coming late to China come from behind, and they surpassmissionaries from other countries in China, true to speak, when it comes to the generalachievement of the WL translation, they make more contribution to the WL translation inthe Chinese modern times, which has more extensive effects on the culture and society inthe late Qing Dynasty; secondly, the WL translations of the three great translators areclearly representative in the translating field of the late Qing Dynasty, which can neither besurpassed by missionaries from other countries nor be compared by missionaries from theirown country, and therefore, it seems to arrive in such a conclusion that the three pillars based on the translations of the three great translators are stable triangular fulcrums of thethird translating climax in the history of China; thirdly, if the translating achievements ofthe three famous translators are not enough to comprehensively reflect the whole Americanmissionaries’ achievement in translation of the Chinese modern times, the total of the WLtranslations of the American missionaries living in different parts of China might occupy aplace in the translating treasure of the Chinese modern times, which is enough to supportthe viewpoint of the “comprehensiveliness”; finally, in the nearly one century of foreignmissionaries’ translating activities in China in the late Qing Dynasty, no matter in whichspecific period their translation takes place, no matter in which special social revolutionthey lie, no matter which special American missionary translator does the WL translation,no matter what their translating purposes are, no matter what strategies such as translatingmethods or means they apply in the practice, no matter what WL books they translate, nomatter what effects on all aspects of the modernity of the culture and society in the lateQing Dynasty their versions have, all this can be solved by using Vermeer’s Skopos Theoryand Lefevere’s Manipulation Theory, which, generally accepted in the contemporarytranslating field, will make the seemingly disorderly and unsystematic WL translationsorderly and deep theoretically, and meanwhile are of significance to the present Chinesetranslating theory and practice.This dissertation consists of seven chapters.The first chapter is about generality of dissertation, which chiefly in four aspects givesan exploration of significance of the topic chosen, summary of previous researches,theoretic basis and structure of the dissertation respectively. The meaning of its topicchosen lies in, after sorting out the WL translating activities and fruits of the three greatAmerican missionary translators and other American missionaries in the translating field ofthe late Qing Dynasty, deeply exploring them from the perspective of translation, in orderto state that the WL translation of the American missionaries in China is an indispensableimportant component of the first translating climax in the history of China, to fully clarifya critical role of their translations in the modernity of the cultural society in the late QingDynasty, and to further emphasize that the research of the dissertation more or less fillsome blank in the research of translation in the Chinese modern times. The summary ofprevious researches first from a macro angle commentates researches at home and abroad on foreign missionaries, then from a micro angle makes further summaries of Young JohnAllen, William Alexander Parson Martin and John Glasgow Kerr, and in the end points outadvantages and disadvantages of the previous researches, in order to indicate the directionof the research of the dissertation. The theoretic basis of the dissertation contains twopoints: one is that Hans Vermeer’s Theory of Translating Skopos is used as a theoreticbasis to mainly illuminate the three great translators’ translating purposes and theirtranslating strategies such as their translating intentions, translating methods andtranslating means determined by their translating purposes; the other is that AndreLefevere’s Theory of Translating Manipulation is used as another theoretic basis to puttheir translations in a broad background for a further study, chiefly probing into theproduction of their WL translations against the background of the cultural society in thelate Qing Dynasty, and into the effect of their versions on the modernity of the culturalsociety in the late Qing Dynasty. The structure of the dissertation deals with main contentsof its seven chapters in a line-typed way.The second chapter is about Y.J. Allen’s WL translation—integration of modernityin the culture and society of the late Qing Dynasty. This chapter firstly deals with Allen andhis versions, probes into his intentions and strategies in his WL translation and its culturalidentification in the late Qing Dynasty; secondly, it reveals a prospect of the translatingtide of the American missionaries living at Shanghai headed by Young John Allen in theChinese modern times, and this panoramic historical prospect shows the translations inscience and technology of the American missionaries and their achievements, mainelements of their translations in science and technology, such as opportune, politics andsomething like that, and contributions of the American missionaries living at Shanghai totranslation in science and technology in the Chinese modern times; thirdly, it takes AReview of the Times edited by Young John Allen and his versions of the WL for example,recalls the evolution from Chinese Church News to A Review of the Times, sorts outtranslations of the WL of the American missionaries in A Review of the Times, and findsstrategies and means of translation of the WL in A Review of the Times, in order to reach agoal to elucidate meanings of the WL translations in A Review of the Times; finally, itfurther takes The Whole Course of the First Sino-Japanese War—Young John Allen’sclassical military version in China—for example, introduces relationship between Young John Allen and The Whole Course of the First Sino-Japanese War, expounds hismotivation and his strategy of editing and translating the book, and compares the versionwith foreign missionaries’ military translations at the same age, in order to reach the goalto reveal its meaning in the history of Chinese military translation.The third chapter is about W.A.P. Martin’s WL translation—a monument ofmodernity in international laws of the Chinese modern times. Chiefly on the basis ofsorting out Martin’s translating experiences and achievements, the chapter exposes inessence his external and internal motivations of translating international laws, and furtherlooks into his translating strategies applied such as translating methods and translatingmeans in connection with his motivations of translating international laws versions, inorder to bring out effects of his series of international laws versions in the Chinese lawfield of the modern times and even in the cultural society in the late Qing Dynasty—onexpanding a new field of Chinese translation in the modern times; on training a group ofnative translators in international laws for the cultural society of the late Qing Dynasty; onsetting a good example combining the WL translation with politics to make a lot of personsof insight in the political and academic fields have the modern sense of international laws;on leaving in the history of Chinese modern times’ translation a number of newvocabularies of laws which people have been so far popular taking delight to talk about.The fourth chapter is about J.G. Kerr’s WL translation—a mile stone of modernintyin the Western medicine of China. This chapter firstly briefly sorts out the Americanmissionaries’ translating activities and their translation of the WL at Macao andGuangzhou, and describes characteristics of their translation and meanings of theirtranslations of the WL and Eastern Learning; secondly, it recalls Chinese medicaltranslation between the late Ming Dynasty and the early Qing Dynasty, and medicaltranslations of other foreign missionaries at the same period so as to put Kerr in the largerhistorical background of Chinese medical translation to show the unique achievement ofKerr’s medical translations before or since those; thirdly, it deals with the subject of John’smedical translation in China and expounds it in three aspects of a doctor’s becoming atranslator, making achievement of translation in China, and motivations of his medicaltranslations; finally, it generally treatises the position and values of his medical versions inthe history of Chinese translation. The fifth chapter is about three great contributions of the American missionaries tomodernity of culture and society of the late Qing Dynasty. This chapter mainly recounts thethree great contributions in the WL translation, made by a group of the Americanmissionaries living in China for several decades, to the modernity of the cultural society inthe late Qing Dynasty. The first one is that the American missionaries make a greatcontribution to the translation in science and technology of the late Qing Dynasty. Basedon recalling their translating activities and processes in that period, it further expounds theChinese modernity of their translation in science and technology. The second one is thatthey make a great contribution to the constitution of translating organizations in the lateQing Dynasty. This chapter lists nine translating organizations, springing up in the field ofChinese modern times’ translation, most of which have something to do with the Americanmissionaries in China, and the nine translating organizations are three trailbreakers whichthe Chinese open their eyes to see the outside world, two translating main forces which risewith the Westernization Movement, and four great propellers which promote the deepdevelopment of the movement. The third one is that they make a great contribution to themodern times’ textbooks. The chapter, with editing and translating organizations as amainline, sorts out their fruits in editing and translating textbooks, probes intoname-defining principles and translating-and-editing means in the translating and editingof textbooks, and elucidates effects of their translated and edited textbooks on the moderneducation.The sixth chapter is of purposes, production and effects of the three great translatorsfrom theoretical perspectives. Firstly, this chapter applies the modern Skopos Theory, onthe basis of finding similarities and differences of their translating purposes and strategiesin the field of translation in the late Qing Dynasty, to expound their translating purposesand strategies; secondly, it uses the modern Manipulation Theory to recount the culturalbackground of the production of the three great translators’ WL translations from threeaspects: promoting the political turbulences, toggling the transitional social revolution, andcalling out the modern education in the late Qing Dynasty; finally, it also employsManipulation Theory to probe into objective effects of the three famous translators’ WLtranslations on the cultural society and the development of the sense of modernity in thecultural society of the late Qing Dynasty. The seventh chapter is conclusion. This chapter reaches the following importantconclusions. First, the third translating climax in the history of China starts with the WLtranslations done by foreign missionaries in China in the late Qing Dynasty. Second, as awhole, the American missionaries, who become promising young persons in China andsurpass their forerunners from other countries, head the list of successful candidates in thefield of translation in the late Qing Dynasty and become an important force in the thirdtranslating climax. Third, the three great American missionary translators Young JohnAllen, William Alexander Parson Martin and John Glasgow Kerr who come to China earlyor late are representative in all the American missionaries in China. Fourth, a translatinggroup composed of other American missionaries is an indispensable basic force in the fieldof translation of the late Qing Dynasty, and their contributions are shown in many aspects.Fifth, the greatest role of the WL translation played by the American missionaries in Chinamanifests clear-cut modernity in the culture and society of the late Qing Dynasty, that is tosay, their WL translation objectively plays an increasing role in changing Chinese people’sideologies about politics, thoughts, military affairs, religion, education, newspapering, lawsand so on, and at the same time it plays a promoting role in the process of the Chinesemodern times’ scientific and technological field marching towards modernization. Sixth,the WL translation of the American missionaries in China always goes through obvious“purposes” and “manipulation”. It can be better appreciated and interpreted whenexamined and anylyzed in the framework of Skopos Theory and Manipulation Theory,through which more profound significance and greater implications will be discerned andrevealed.