On Translators' Intercultural Communication Competence Of English Translation Of Chinese Classics

Technology development, economic globalization, widespread population migrations and multiculturalism make the assumption of"global village"come true and make people in the world interact with each other more and more closely. In this sense, the study of intercultural communication becomes more and more important in modern times.With the advance of China's international status, it is of great importance to spread the excellent Chinese culture which owns a five-thousand-year history. Chinese Classics are regarded as the backbone of traditional Chinese culture. Translation, an intercultural communicative activity in essence, serves as one of the basic means to transmit culture. Therefore, English translation of Chinese Classics can be considered as a significant channel not only to maintain Chinese cultural individuality and identity, but also to construct a harmonious multicultural world. And it is of indispensability to discuss translators'intercultural communication competence of English translation of Chinese Classics.Based on the nature and purpose of English translation of Chinese Classics, and three representative models of communicators'intercultural communication competence, the author puts forward a model of translators'intercultural communication competence of English translation of Chinese Classics, including at least the following five aspects: translators'comprehensive competence of Chinese Classics, translators'comprehensive competence of intercultural transmission theories, translators'competence of multi-cultural perspective, translators'comprehensive competence of translation theories and translators'translation competence. And then she describes and analyzes some representative English versions of Tao Te Ching to testify its rationality. At the end, the author holds the belief that such a study can exert some influences on the further study of English translation of Chinese Classics, the training of qualified translators, the transmission of Chinese culture and the achievement of cultural diversity. The thesis is made up of six chapters.Chapter One is a brief introduction of the motivation and significance, objectives, methodology and structure of the thesis.Chapter Two is the literature review. The author focuses on the studies of communicators'intercultural communication competence, translators'intercultural communication competence and translators of Chinese Classics, and then makes a brief introduction to the English translation of Tao Te Ching. From the literature review, it can be found that few researches have been made on translators'intercultural communication competence of English translation of Chinese Classics.Chapter Three is the theoretical foundation. The author introduces the nature and significance of Chinese Classics, and the nature and purpose of English translation of Chinese Classics. Then, she introduces and comments on three models of intercultural communication competence: Brian H. Spitzberg's, Xu Bo & Huang Shenyu's, and Chen Guoming's.Chapter Four focuses on the construction of a proposed model. Based on these three models, the author puts forward a model of translators'intercultural communication competence of English translation of Chinese Classics from both the macro and micro perspectives, including five components: translators'comprehensive competence of Chinese Classics, translators'comprehensive competence of intercultural transmission theories, translators'competence of multi-cultural perspective, translators'comprehensive competence of translation theories and translators'translation competence. Furthermore, she believes that all the former four kinds of macro competence are reflected by the micro translation competence.In Chapter Five, the author takes English versions of Tao Te Ching to testify the proposed model by mainly analyzing their translators, translated versions and translation of cultural terms. Firstly, she talks about the influence of translators'comprehensive competence of Chinese Classics on translators'intercultural communication competence from their mastery of developing trends and basic spirits, and their version consciousness of Tao Te Ching. Secondly, she discusses the influence of translators'comprehensive competence of intercultural transmission theories on intercultural communication competence from the perspective of memetics, communication accommodation theory and convergence theory. Thirdly, she investigates the influence of translators'competence of multi-cultural perspective on translators'intercultural communication competence from their intercultural awareness and cultural self-consciousness. Lastly, the author makes a research on the influence of translators'concrete translation competence on translators'intercultural communication competence from their bilingual competence, cultural translation competence and textual competence.Chapter Six is the conclusion. Based on the study in the previous chapters, the author summarizes that the proposed model of translators'intercultural communication competence is reasonable, which includes translators'comprehensive competence of Chinese Classics, translators'comprehensive competence of intercultural transmission theories, translators'competence of multi-cultural perspective, translators'comprehensive competence of translation theories and translators'translation competence. And meanwhile she points out that shortcomings do exist. At the end, the author hopes that such a preliminary research will make a contribution to Chinese cultural transmission and worldwide cultural exchange.