Lin Yutang's Translation Of Confucian Classics In The Wisdom Of Confucius

Traditional translation studies maintains that translation is to bridge two cultures that are absolutely equal, and the translators are neutral in translating, seeking for the ultimate accuracy and equivalence. However Foucault's Power Discourse Theory showed that where there is discourse, there is power. Therefore translation, as the communication of discourse, is never carried out on the basis of absolute equality. With postcolonialism applied to translation studies, there appeared postcolonial turn in translation studies. On behalf of the minority and weak culture, postcolonial translation theorists have their own political inclination and consider translation as a channel of colonization and on the other hand as a channel of decolonization. Power differentials, which are reflected through the number of translation works, the contents of translation and the translation strategies, lead to the inequality between the hegemonic culture and dominated culture and finally the dominated culture was marginalized and silenced. Homi Bhaba put forward"Cultural Hybridity"and Michaela Wolf and Maria Tymoczko regard it as the core sign of postcolonial practice, with the expectation of cultural mediating, rearrangement and penetration.Lin Yutang grew up in the semi-colonial and semi-feudal China. At that critical age of China, most Chinese patriots realized that the backwardness of China was due to the backward science and technology, feudal political system and that the most fundamental reason for backwardness was the old fashioned traditional culture. Therefore, the New Culture Movement held high the banner"against all the traditional culture"and called to learn from the West. Yan Fu, Liang Qichao, Linshu, etc translated a great number of Western scientific, sociological and literary works from the West, which brought China the Western thoughts and spirits such as freedom, equality, democracy, etc and paved the way for the development of modern languages. On the other hand, in the postcolonial context, the dominated traditional Chinese culture was silenced and marginalized, especially Confucianism. As the root of feudal domination for thousands of years, Confucianism was in great danger. LinYutang, with the bicultural identity, who firmly believed in the centrality or universality of Confucianism, realized that Confucianism met a greater rival. Therefore he took the responsibility to transmit Confucianism to the West through translating Confucian Classics. In The Wisdom of Confucius, different from other translators, Lin Yutang chose the source material and translation methods on the basis of the combination of the feature of Confucian Classics and thought pattern of the Westerners. He rearranged the original material and provided headings, which is typically shown in translation of the Analects. He adopted the method of paraphrase and resorted to parentheses and footnotes, successfully transmitting the essence of Confucianism"ren""li""yue""he""the cultivation of personal life", etc to the West. In the postcolonial context, his translation challenged the inequalities between the hegemonic culture and dominated culture. On the other hand, at that time, China was constructed to be backward and evil by Westerners. Lin Yutang's translation of the conception of"benevolence""courtesy""peace", etc challenged the stereotyped China constructed by Westerners, while falls into the scope of Orientalism of Edward Said, who was the creator of postcolonialism. Finally, in his translation, there are lots of phenomena of hybridity and he constantly compared Confucianism and Christianity, considering that the two have something in common. Due to the bicultural identity, he had a higher vision toward communication of different cultures. This also falls into the scope of postcolonialism, that is, cultural hybridity. The thesis is an analysis of Lin Yutang's translation of Confucian classics in The Wisdom of Confucius from the angles of power differentials, Orientalism and cultural hybridity in the context of postcolonialism.