A Statistical Comparison And Analysis Of The Tendency To Domestication And Foreignization In Two English Versions Of Lun Yu

The translation of Lun Yu has been the important part of cultural exchange between China and foreign countries since the Ming and the Qing Dynasty. Lu Yu is translated into almost all main languages around the world. With the process of globalization, the communication of culture between China and the outside world is strengthened, the transmission of Chinese culture around the whole world is wider and broader. The two English Versions to be studied and compared in this thesis are from Ku Hungming, who is a respected master of Chinese culture in the latter part of the19th century and the earlier part of20th century, and Legge, who is the first well-known sinologist in modern English history. It’s commonly recognized that Ku Hungming’s version tends to employ the strategy of foreignization while Legge’s version the strategy of domestication. Domestication means bringing the foreign culture closer to the reader in the target culture, and making the text recognizable and familiar. Foreignization means making the target-language reader travel abroad and see the cultural differences. But the definition about the tendency of these two versions is only general conclusion without scientific or data proof. This thesis thus aims to compare the two classic English versions of Lun Yu and try to get a scientific data results-domestication or foreignization, by using methods of sample survey. Sample survey, a kind of non-overall investigation, is to select a part of units from all the objects of study, by which one tries to estimate and deduce the condition of all the objects of study. Translation is closely related with culture and the choice of translation strategy mainly occurs when we encounter the culture-loaded words. So the samples are drawn from culture-loaded words. In this way, the thesis finally gets the scientific and data-based result that Ku Hungming’s version is foreignization while Legge’s domestication, even so, both of them are excellent and widely recognized classical versions of Lun Yu, they adopted different translation strategies because they have different translating purposes and intensions, which verifies the viewpoints of Skopos Theory.