Comparative Studies On The Two English Translations Of Zuo Zhuan

The thesis is a multi-level and multi-perspective comparative study of the English translation of Zuo Zhuan by the Scottish missionary, sinologist James Legge (1815-1897) and that by the contemporary Chinese translator Hu Zhihui (1931- ?). This thesis consists of four chapters.Chapter One is a brief introduction to Zuo Zhuan and its translations together with the research approach of the thesis including the theoretical basis and the purpose of the research.Chapter Two is a comparative study within a textual analytic framework in the light of 'functional equivalence'. The analysis of the examples on the lexical, syntactical, rhetorical and contextual levels shows the obvious differences of the two translators: Legge tended to be faithful to the original text, while Hu Zhihui paid more efforts to the feelings of the target language readers. It could be impossible to point out which one of them is better, but the functional equivalence could be represented through different aspects of the two translations. Thus it demonstrates the applicability of the theory of functional equivalence for translating classical Chinese works, and offers related translation strategies based on it.Chapter Three transcends the text proper and probe further from four perspectives. The first one is the perspective of functionalism -- the Skopostheorie, which enables the readers to find out in what way the arrangement of the translated text serves the translator's purpose of translation. The second perspective is that of culture --macroscopically and microscopically. From a perspective of trans-cultural communication macroscopically, James Legge's translation belonged to the 'thick translation', a translation strategy proposed by Kwame Anthony Appiah, while Hu Zhihui transferred what he understood directly to the readers. Microscopically speaking, when translating culture-specific words, Legge always had different renditions, whereas Hu Zhihui can keep them constant. The third one is the perspective of linguistics based on Newmark's text-type and the corresponding translation strategies. Legge's translation could belong to semantic translation, while Hu Zhihui's to communicative translation. The fourth...