A Study On The Cultural Transmission Of British Missionary W.A.Cornaby

In the historical current of modern Sino-Western cultural exchange,western missionaries play an important role.On the one hand,they are the important power in transmitting western ideas to the East;on the other hand,they shoulder great responsibility for introducing and presenting Chinese culture to the West while spreading Christianity to China.They transmitted and presented cultural messages and achievement of both the East and the West consciously or unconsciously,thus shorten the cognitive distance between both cultures and bridge the gap between Sino-Western cultural exchanges.W.A.Cornaby is one of the protestant missionaries coming to China in late nineteenth century.He may not be a brilliant star like Robert Morrison,James Legge or John Fryer in the history of Sino-Western cultural exchange,but in it at least he left his unique footprint with his written works,and his voice which may not be clear and loud enough,but like many other Western missionaries in China,his trace and contributions cannot be ignored,instead they are worthy to be explored and studied,because those missionaries are the important force among the communicators in the early Sino-Western cultural exchange.Based on Cornaby's written works both in English and Chinese,this dissertation focuses on the achievement of Cornaby in cultural transmission in China.In his English novel A String of Chinese Peach-stones,he presents to the Western readers Chinese folk stories,typical symbols and phenomena of Chinese culture,making the distant and unfamiliar image of China vivid and genuine in his lively language.By analyzing the special novel through the aspects of communicative manners,contents and strategy,this dissertation emphasizes the effort and contributions Cornaby makes to the spreading of the Chinese folk culture to the West.In his English works and articles,he presents an image of China,including the impression of central China,important aspects of Chinese culture,such as ancestral worship,solidarity,moral and ethic ideas and Chinese superstition.Through studying a Chinese newspaper Ta Tung Pao(1904-1917)edited by him,the dissertation tends to explore the effort and contributions Cornaby made to China's social evolution through spreading ideas of advanced Western science,education,politics and society to the Chinese public.Through studying on his translated works,such as General History of the Civilization in Europe,Modern Intellectual Development,and The Romance of Medicine,the dissertation mainly observes the contribution of Cornaby to the intellectual communication through his introduction of ideas in the field of modern sciences in terms of nature,society and medicine.As a missionary sinologist,Cornaby's contribution to the Sino-West cultural exchanges has not been fully recognized.This dissertation could be regarded as a starting point of more explorations and studies on those protestant missionaries like Cornaby whose works are left in the heaps of musty old books and papers ignored and untouched,and whose voice about the interpretations and dialogues of the two cultures is still unheard.