A Study Of The Manipulation Of The Translator’s Ideology On Translation Of The Analects

The Confucian Classics translated by Legge and Ku Hungming are bothmasterpieces in the history of literature and translation. Due to distinctive culturalidentity, they represented outstandingly different features in their translation. Therefore,it is of great enlightenment for contemporary translation study to have a systematicalanalysis of the features in translation and particularly its causes.Influenced by recent "cultural turn" in translation studies, it has been viewed thattranslation study can never be restricted in the circle of pure text without taking itswider situational and socio-cultural context into account. One of the forerunners of"cultural turn"-the Manipulation School-insists on the study of translation underthe social system of politics, economy and literature, and it believes that themanipulative forces on the translator come from the social context which consists ofideology, patronage and poetics. Under the guidance of rewriting theory which wasproposed by Lefevere, This thesis is carried out in two aspects. The first one is to studythe translator’s ideology behind his choice to translate The Analects, and the latter one,by making an exhaustive analysis to the distinctive features in two versions, attemptsto shed some light on translators’ ideological manipulation on the whole translationprocess through a comparative case study of the English versions of The Analects ofConfucius by James Legge and Ku Hungming.This thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter gives an introduction tothe history of studying The Analects and the background of academic research behindthis thesis. Then the author proposed the purpose and significance of this thesis. Thesecond chapter is a literature review. It brings about general information about TheAnalects of Confucius with aspects of its history, features, status and the impact;followed by a brief introduction to two translators, Legge and Ku Hungming, as wellas their two versions. Finally, it did a domestic survey to the current studying of thetranslation of The Analects concerned with these two, and refers to the research trendson The Analects in foreign countries. In the third chapter comes the theoretical base inwhich rewriting theory is clarified and the concept of ideology defined. The fourth chapter constitutes the main analysis part of the thesis. Firstly, the author studies thetranslators’ ideology behind his choice of translating The Analects. Then the authorcited numerous examples to analyze the unique features in two versions, and exploredthe underlying reasons which cause the big difference from a perspective of translators’social-cultural and translation concept. Conclusion summarized from the previouscomparison and analyses is given in the fifth chapter, in which a further interpretationon the constraint and manipulation of translators’ ideology on translating process isrevealed. In a word, Legge and Ku approached The Analects of Confucius withdifferent purposes and concept about culture and translation, and thus they took quitedifferent strategies and techniques in translation. Both of them had ultimatelysucceeded in realizing their goals. At this point, this thesis illustrates the constraintsand manipulation of the role of translator’s ideology in the creation of translation. Theauthor wishes that such research can make a meaningful supplement to the study oftranslating Chinese Classics, and enrich the current translation studies in China.