A Study On Translation Methods Of Culture-Loaded Words In The Analects

With the continuing globalization of information and communication, language and culture are being increasingly linked than ever before, which means language expresses, embodies and symbolizes cultural reality. Translation, therefore, also has a close relationship with culture, involving inevitably the process of dealing with cultural factors. However, cultural concepts and different language features make it especially difficult for translators to find corresponding expressions in the target language to transfer cultural elements contained in the source text, and it is even more difficult to find an appropriate method or technique to achieve equivalent effects in the translation. This is often considered as the greatest problem in translating.Among the various classical theories Confucianism has been regarded as the major source of the Chinese and even the oriental intellectual thinking. And the Analects is the earliest and most reliable source on the life and teachings of Confucius and is regarded as the basic 'scripture' of Confucianism. Huang Zhizhong has ever said: "In the long river of human history, if one single person can represent the civilization of a whole nation, it is perhaps Confucius; if one single book can be upheld as the common code of a whole people, it is perhaps The Analects, or The Analects of Confucius."This dissertation aims to make a study of translation principles and translation methods and techniques for culture-loaded words by way of a comparison and contrast between two translated versions of The Analects by James Legge and Gu Hongming, both of whom lived in largely the same period but of sharply different cultural backgrounds. The methods and techniques applicable to the translation of culture-loaded words in this great book, in one way or another can be applied to the translation of culture-loaded words.Theoretical support comes from principles for cultural translation. The paper will adopt Peter Newmark's semantic and communicative translation as the theoretical basis. In the beginning, the author makes a literature review of definitions, principles and techniques relating to cultural translation, and makes a comment on them, but the emphasis is placed on the propositions and points of view of Peter Newmark. Then the author makes a general comparison between James Legge and Gu Hongming, focusing on their perspective translation styles, translation purposes and target reader of the Analects. Based on the analysis of those factors and a brief comparison between the two versions with the aid of the original book, the author finds that the most striking difference between the two translators is their focus of translation, that is which side, the source culture or the target one, is the translator's emphasis. The paper then comes up with the conclusion that the version by James Legge is, for the most part, a semantic translation, while the version by Gu Hongming is basically a communicative translation.In the rest of the paper, the author compares the translation of culture-loaded words in the two versions from the angles of five different aspects. Based on the research, the author makes a comment on the two versions from the perspective of cultural translation and makes a list of their merits and defects. In the end, the author expounds on several practical and effective methods and techniques summarized from the two versions. It is hoped that this research will make, to some extent, contribution to the translation of culture-loaded words in classical works.