From The English Translation Of Lunyu To The Chinese Translation Of The Bible

The Chinese versions of the Western canon Bible and the translations of the Chinese Confucian Classics in European languages have made tremendous impacts and far-reaching implications in the cross-cultural exchanges between the West and China, as the former triggered the extension of Western knowledge to China, and the latter opened the way of spreading Chinese literature and wisdom to the West. Both of them worked together to build the initial platform for the bilateral dialogue between Western and Chinese cultures, promoting by the missionaries who came from the West to the East in the early time and practiced dual interpretations in intercultural communications as pioneers.Joshua Marshman (1768-1837), a British Baptist missionary worked in Serampore of India around the early19th Century, is such one of the excellent cross-cultural interpreters should be kept in mind. He translated the first direct English version of Lunyu, entitled The Works of Confucius (half translation), and published it by the Serampore Mission Press in1809. Moreover, he and his colleagues also translated the first Chinese translation of the Bible, and successively published it since1810and completed in1822(one year earlier than the publication of Robert Morrison’s version). Nevertheless, since Marshman never came to China but spent almost his whole life on preaching in Serampore, he and his works relevant to Chinese have been seldom followed with interest by today’s scholars at home or abroad. Except being referred in some historical summaries about the Chinese translations of the Bible or the English versions of Lunyu, it seems that no one really gave an in-depth study on the texts of the two important translations by Marshman, with a focus on the analysis of concepts’translations. Therefore, this dissertation is expected to fill the blank and make up the deficiencies in previous studies by reviewing Joshua Marshman and his two translations heretofore underestimated, and attempts to restore and present the historical context of the early intercultural exchanges and bilateral dialogue between Western and Chinese cultures through the texts’analysis, as a reference for today’s cross-cultural communication between the West and China.This dissertation aims to research on Joshua Marshman and his works relevant to Chinese as a case study in the history of overseas sinology, undertaking the view of cross-cultural research. It will explore the intentional translation strategies, unique innovations, historical significance and publication of Marshman’s works relevant to Chinese by taking account of the historical context at that time with the help of original archives and manuscripts. Furthermore, it is going to make comparative analysis on the English translations of the Confucian concepts in The Works of Confucius and the Chinese translations of the Christian theological concepts in Marshman’s version of the Bible, figuring out the dialogue and communion between Western and Chinese cultures or thoughts. This dissertation will analyze the files and texts with the historical and philological methods from two aspects:1) Fixing the historical context (Chapter1&2):In light of the awareness of "cultural equality" in intercultural communication, it will make a critical thinking of the Edward Said’s "Orientalism" in the analysis of the personal letters and manuscripts, mission reports and any other historical texts both in Chinese and foreign languages for depicting the life experience of Joshua Marshman and the missionary work (including those relevant to China) in Serampore around the early19th Century. Then, it could fix the historical context for Marshman’s translations and works, keeping attention to the relations between "power and discourse".2) Analyzing the concepts in texts (Chapter3&4):Having made textual research on the editions of the two translations, it verifies the original texts and notes adopted by Marshman. Then, it could summarize the translation strategies and unique innovations in the two texts and study on their historical influence or relevance to other versions. After that, with the methodology literally named "Concept-Interpreted-in Context", the author would like to research on how the important concepts be translated in the two texts and the cultural reasons behind. In The Works of Confucius, there are15Confucian concepts will be studied, including the analysis on "Tian","Xing" and "Ren" in detail as examples; it will compare the meanings of them in Confucian context and Marshman’s English translation, figuring out the meanings kept, lost and created in translating. As for the Marshman’s Chinese version of the Bible, there are14Christian theological concepts will be discussed, with "God","Sin" and "Love" as detailed examples; it will compare the original meanings of them in Christian culture with the meanings of their correspondent Chinese words in Chinese context, presenting the construction of Chinese theological context based on the Chinese translation of theological concepts.Accordingly, this dissertation does not only show a panorama of Joshua Marshman and his works relevant to Chinese, but also link the two translations by him and make an in-depth discussion on them for the first time. And having studied on the "decontextualization" and "recontextualization" of the concepts in the translations of classics, it traces the "synchronic" flow and "diachronic" flow of the concepts in both Chinese and English contexts, which involves with the cultural intersections and communions. For the analysis of the translations, the author prefers to assess the value of the versions by exploring "the elements of openness" and "creativeness" in them but not focus on "correctness" or "equivalence", while paying great attention to the cultural reasons behind translation and the values of versions to promote the cultural dialogue between the West and China. In a word, this dissertation is going to rethink Confucian and Christian exchanges through the translations of Confucian Classics for missionaries’ Chinese learning and the versions of the Bible done by them in the early time, and asks for a better understanding of the early cultural dialogue between the West and China on the basis of the cross-cultural translations, which could provide some valuable experiences for our intercultural communication and cross-cultural research nowadays indeed.