A Contrastive Study Of Ku Hungming's And Lin Yutang's English Translations Of Lunyu

In recent years, with the revival of Confucian research and the rise of English Translation of Confucian Classics, researches on the English translation of Confucian works has become a hot point.As the pioneers of translating and introducing Confucian classics to the West, both Ku Hungming and Lin Yutang devoted themselves to translating Lunyu into English, respectively in the year of 1898 and 1938. By contrasting and analyzing Ku's and Lin's English translations of Lunyu, the author finds that the two translators differ from each other in translation purpose, strategy and effect.Firstly, Ku and Lin have different translation purposes. Ku thinks that there are some mistakes and failures in Legge's translation of Lunyu, and the Western readers get from the former translation of Lunyu a misunderstanding of the Chinese culture. China is oppressed by the Western countries in Ku's age, so Ku decides to take translation as a weapon to win China respect. Different from Ku, Lin recognizes Lunyu as an unclassified and unedited collection of Confucius'remarks and it is difficult for the Western readers to read. Meanwhile, the misunderstanding between the East and the West makes the Western readers curious about the Chinese culture, so Lin decides to translate Lunyu to display for the Western readers the real Chinese culture.Secondly, their translation strategies are different. They differ from each other mainly in four aspects. (1) They differ in the selection of source text. Ku almost translates the whole original text while Lin translates only part of it. (2) They differ in the rearrangement of chapters. Ku keeps the original 20 chapters with the original titles omitted, while Lin regroups the passages into 10 chapters and designs a new title for each of them. (3) They differ in the translation of culture items. In translating persons'names, Ku adopts explanation while Lin uses transliteration. (4) They differ in the addition of notes and quotations. Ku adds 89 notes altogether while Lin adds 17 notes in his translation. Ku always compares the Chinese culture to the Western culture and makes some explanations of some cultural items while Lin's notes include his introduction of the Chinese culture, his explanations of his translating some culture items and his understanding or comments on some Confucian viewpoints.Thirdly, the effects on the target readers are different. Ku and Lin describe for the Western readers different images of Confucius and make different interpretations of"zhongyong". Confucius, a venerable sage and strict teacher in Ku's version, becomes in Lin's version an average man who loves and hates, laughs and cries like any of us. Both Ku and Lin make interpretations of"ren","li"and"junzi", three chief concepts related to"zhongyong"in Confucian thoughts, but differently. Ku recognizes"zhongyong"as a universal moral rule while Lin recognizes it as a common sense.This research finds out that the translation purpose a translator has determines the translation strategy he adopts, which in turn determines the effect his translation produces. Ku's and Lin's different experiences in travel and study as well as their different social backgrounds result in their different attitudes towards and cognitions of both the Chinese and the Western cultures. Therefore, the two English versions of Lunyu reflect two different concerns of the two translators: what Ku's version reflects is his extreme conservatism while Lin's version reflects his moderate idleness.