A Study Of The Influences Of Cultural Context On Translation Through The Comparison Of Two English Versions Of The Book Of Songs

From the 1970s, with the study of culture in translation, more and more scholars put the translation activity under the cultural context. They regard translation as an intercultural communication, a political activity and also as a cultural activity influenced by the certain cultural context, such as ideology and cultural background. Cultural context plays an important role in all kinds of translations and can override rules, theories and also the basic meaning of a certain word. Translators would have different ways of choosing the meaning of a word as well as the judgment and comprehension of a certain culture under the different cultural contexts.As the first collection of poetry, The Book of Songs plays an important role in Chinese literature. Scholars both at home and abroad have made great efforts to translate The Book of Songs, and there are more than ten complete versions over hundreds of years. The differences exist among them mostly because of the different cultural contexts. This thesis aims at a comparative study of the two well-known complete versions:James Legge's unrhymed version and Wang Rongpei's rhymed version. These two versions were done in two different ages. Between them, the nationality, identity, and cultural background of the authors vary considerably. All these differences provide the feasibility for a comparative study under the cultural context.Foreignization and Domestication are two main strategies of the culture translation. But as for the Chinese Classic, the author of the thesis prefers foreignization.