A Comparative Study Of Translations Of A Short History Of Chinese Philosophy From The Perspective Of Translator’s Subjectivity

Since the cultural turn in translation studies had occurred, the study on translator’s subjectivity in the West has made much progress. In China the study is also in the ascendant. A Short History of Chinese Philosophy is the primer for westerners to learn and to comprehend Chinese philosophy. It is edited on the basis of the English lecture notes of Dr. Fung Yu-lan, one of the most distinguished philosophical scholars in modern China, when he taught the history of Chinese philosophy in Pennsylvania University as a visiting professor in1947. In1985, the first Chinese version of A Short History of Chinese Philosophy, translated by Dr. Fung’s pupil Tu You-guang, was published. Tu’s translation was checked and verified by the author, and thus was considered as the sole authorized Chinese version. Nineteen years later, a Christian scholar Zhao Fu-san retranslated this book, publishing it at the New World Press in2004.With Tu’s translation and Zhao’s translation as the research object, the thesis probes into the translator’s subjectivity manifested in the process of translating through a comparative approach.Begun with a historical review and the current research condition of the translator’s subjectivity, the thesis makes a brief analysis of traditional views on translator in China and in the West and an exploration of contemporary studies on translator’s subjectivity. On the basis of the above review, the thesis then elaborates concepts and factors involved in the theory of the translator’s subjectivity. After that, the thesis illustrates the writing background and the characteristics of A Short History of Chinese Philosophy, the two Chinese translators, the translating backgrounds of the two Chinese versions, and makes the conclusion that Tu’s version is concise and succinct while Zhao’s version is concrete and articulate through comparison and examples. Afterwards, applying the theory of the translator’s subjectivity, the thesis makes an analysis of the differences of the two Chinese versions from the perspective of the translating purpose and the selection of translating strategies, and probes into the factors involved in the translator as the subject of the translating activity.Finally, the thesis intends to prove that the two Chinese versions of A Short History of Chinese Philosophy have the imprints of the subjectivity of the translator in various ways, which, as a sign of individual creativity of the translator, is natural and inevitable. Moreover, translation is more than a scientific transformation of languages, but a creative working process where the intellectual sparkles and individual creativities are actively performed.