A Study Of Culture-loaded Words In English Versions Of Tao Te Ching

Tao Te Ching, as one of the most important classic masterpieces, is the first completed and systematic philosophy book in Chinese history. It is second to the Bible as the most widely translated classic in the world. The culture-loaded words contained in TTC greatly reflect the traditional culture of China in the ancient time. This thesis tries to make a classification of the culture-loaded words in TTC, and to make a comparative study of three English versions, translated by James Legge, Arthur Waley, and Lin Yutang respectively. Through the comparative study with the theories of domestication and foreignization, this thesis tries to analyze the effects that different translation strategies have on the target readers in understanding the target-language text. What’s more, this thesis gives a brief analysis of the factors in cultural loss during the process of translation, and makes efforts to put forward effective solutions to the cultural loss during translation.According to Nida, there are five categories of cultural elements:ecological, material, social, religious and linguistic. Based on this classification, the culture-loaded words contained in Tao Te Ching can also be analyzed from these five aspects. However, as mentioned above, Tao Te Ching is also the first completed and systematic philosophy book in Chinese history. There are also some words relating to philosophy as well as essential in understanding the meaning of Tao Te Ching. So during the comparative analysis of the translation of culture-loaded words, the author puts forward one more category:philosophical culture-loaded words.With two translation strategies, domestication and foreignization, as the theoretical framework, the thesis analyzes the culture-loaded words in those six categories. The factors are discussed from the perspectives of linguistic difference, life experience and modes of thinking. According to the case studies in the translation of the culture-loaded words and the factors listed above, the author proposes two methods to compensate for the cultural loss:foreignization with annotations (or with amplification), transliteration with annotation for the terms with deep cultural origins.According to a comprehensive analysis of the cultural-loaded words from the three English versions, the features of each translators could be generalized:Legge mainly adopted foreignization, faithful to the source-language text; as for Waley, he alternated the translation strategies from domestication to foreignization according to different implication he abstracted from the terms, with the translation style in a more flexible way and brief notes where necessary; Lin tended to domesticate the culture-loaded words in the original text and used the expression familiar to target readers in most cases. The translators should make efforts to compensate for the cultural loss during translation when they focus on the fluency of the translated text.The conclusion is drawn that some culture-loaded words used in different language communities, each with specific cultural background, share some overlapping parts. And this overlap promises translatability. However, some considerable differences also exist. Together with the translation, the cultural loss happens, which is unavoidable, but it is the translator’s responsibility to try to reduce the cultural loss by making compensation. To make compensation for the cultural loss during the translation, it is important for a translator to keep a good balance between the source-language text and the target-language text.