A Study On The English Translation Of The Art Of War From The Approach Of Eco-translatology

With the rapid development of society and economy, the word"ecology"has made archives into the vision of the public, and gained attention around the world. Harmonious coexistence with nature is emphasized. Ecology is gradually combined with other subjects, such as ecological aesthetics, ecological politics, ecophilosophy, ecological economics, etc. Besides, ecology is also integrated to linguistics. There plenty scholars study translation activities from the angle of ecology. But the first one to put forward the theoretical discussion of Eco-translatology is Professor Hu Gengshen of Tsinghua University.Professor Hu Gengshen introduced the theory of"adaptation and selection"of Darwin's evolutionism into translation studies. He proposed the theory of"translation as Adaptation and Selection", which is the fundamental theoretic research of Eco-translatology. Translation as Adaptation and selection takes translator as the center. Guided by"adaptation and selection", the theory gives new interpretation to the nature, process and standards of translation. Keep to his point, Hu Gengshen published a series of research papers afterwards. Eco-translatology, an interdisciplinary theory, is gradually taking shape. It is an ecological approach study or a translation study from the angle of ecology. It sees from the angle of the wholeness of"translational ecology". It interprets the process of translation, depicts the relationship between the translator and translation eco-environment and focuses on the survival circumstances and the capability development of the translator from the perspective of translational eco-environment. (Hu, 2008: 11)Professor Hu's theory broadens the horizon of translation studies. The theory also attracts the attention of some scholars. Li Yashu and Huang Zhonglian consider Hu's theory to be a ground-breaking theoretical construction, bringing new vitality to translation studies. Song Zhiping refers to this theory as concise and innovative. He admires Professor Hu's thoughts of keeping up with the times. Gao Hongxia of Shandong University made an analysis on the translation process of Pride and Prejudice in her thesis of the discussion and case study of translation as adaptation and selection, proving that adaptation and selection led to a successful translation. Jiao Yang from the foreign department of Sichuan University also applied Professor Hu's theory to explain Yanfu's translation of Evolution and Ethics. He pointed out that the translation was a result of the translational eco-environment at that time. However, most of the application researches are based on translation as adaptation and selection and confined to the illustration of adaptation and selection. Discussions of Eco-translatology on the macro level are seldom mentioned. There is scope for the study of translational eco-environment. Translational eco-environment is also the research direction of this thesis. The author will analyze how the two translators adapt to translational eco-environment and make adaptive selections by comparing the two English versions of the Art of War.The whole thesis consists 5 chapters. The first chapter introduces the background, questions, methodology, significance and layout of the research. The second chapter is literature review. Firstly, a brief introduction of Sunzi, the important influence and English translations of the Art of War and the theories applied is made. Then I presented the reasons for choosing the versions of John Minford and Lin Wusun. The third chapter is the theoretical framework of the research. I introduced the background, basic viewpoints and related applied researches of eco-translatology. Chapter 4 is the most important part of this thesis. This chapter is the analysis of the English versions of John Minford and Lin Wusun. Firstly, I made an analysis of their translational eco-environments from the source texts, the aims translators and the publishers. Then an evaluation is presented from three factors—multidimensional transformation, readers feedback and the translator quality. Chapter 5 is the conclusion part. Based on the analysis above, three points are concluded.1. Eco-translatology provides an effective theoretical tool for the study of English translations of the Art of War.2. Each translator would make different adaptations and selections due to the restrictions of his or her translational eco-environment. Hence, there will be different versions translation.3. There is no superiority or inferiority among translation works in different translational eco-environments. The measurement criterion is whether the translation adapts to its own translational eco-environment. Adapted, survive; otherwise, eliminated. Both John Minford and Lin Wusun have offered successful translations by making adaptive selections and selective adaptations.This thesis makes a comparative analysis on the English versions of the Art of War translated by John Minford and Lin Wusun. The importance of this thesis can be summed up as follows: 1. Ecotranslatology provides new angle for research on the study of English translation of the Art of War. 2. Through the analysis of the impacts on translation from translational eco-environmental factors, we can trust in the explanatory power and feasibility of ecotranslatology. Besides, a better understanding of the two translators is gained.