On The Transfer Of Cultural Images Of Four Translations Of Tao Te Ching From The Perspective Of Hermeneutics

Cultural images, in fact, a kind of cultural symbols, are the crystallization of the wisdom, history andculture of various ethnics. Due to different living conditions, traditional cultures and some other factors,different ethnics always form their unique cultural images. However, previous studies on the translation ofTao Te Ching pay more attention to the transfer between the source language and the target language butlittle was done from hermeneutics, a powerful philosophical perspective. The thesis takes four Englishversions respectively translated by Arthur Waley, Lin Yutang, Xu Yuanchong and Gu Zhengkun as studyingobjects, which cover the different periods of the history, and both western and Chinese translators, so thatsynchronic and diachronic features in the transfer of cultural images in Tao Te Ching can be reflect. Basedon Gadamer’s hermeneutic theory, it explores the transfer of cultural images in Tao Te Ching, by studyingthe four translators’ translating practice combined with their theories and furthermore detects thesignificance of translating cultural images in classic worksFirst, hermeneutics, a methodology of comprehension, interpretation and application, shares the samepursuit with translation. Any version of translation is, in essence, an interpretation of the original text, and ahermeneutical perspective is an attempt at the insight into the very nature of translation. Therefore, thethesis takes Gadamer’s three major conceptions: the historicity of understanding, the fusion of horizons andthe effective history, as its theoretical foundation to give a detailed explanation to the variety of translationsand the justifiable existence of each version. The interpreters’ consistent comprehension and interpretationmay map those of the translators; however, different subjective understandings are likely to lead to variousversions.Second,125cultural images of Tao Te Ching are grouped into5categorizes based on Nida’sclassification, i.e., ecological cultural images, material cultural images, social cultural images, linguisticcultural images and religious cultural images, each accounting for4.8﹪,8﹪,8.8﹪,12﹪and66.4﹪respectively. Herein,“Tao”, the core component in religious cultural images of Tao Te Ching, conveys asmany as74images and contains three kinds of meanings: the origin of the world (26%), the law thatgoverns the operation of the universe (50%) and the norms and regularities of human society (24%). Theanalysis of cultural images’ aims the transfer to find out the similarities and disparities of the four versionsof the ST. Then, in the light of three hermeneutic criteria, the thesis analyzes the impacts of social context,cultural level, historic stage of the four translators and their styles on the classics translation from macro perspectives. There is distinct significance for translators with various “prejudices” and “horizons” fromdifferent background. Even the same cultural image has disparate interpretation in different imagery.The conclusions are:1) the historicity of understanding causes uncertainties of the original andtherefore there are differences in the transfer of the cultural images among the four translators.2) ininterpretation, a translation comes into being through the fusion of horizons—the ST’s horizon, translators’horizon and target readers’ horizon—and through the joint work of language and culture. The translators’pre-understanding and cultural taste result in little, partial and complete fusion of the horizons in theprocess of transferring cultural images in Tao Te Ching.3) Influenced by effective history, Tao Te Ching, isthe unity of itself and the translator instead of an independent object, and it is a relationship, in which, thereis the authenticity of both the history and its understanding. Therefore, effective history aims to analyze theopenness of the classics such as Tao Te Ching and the rationality of translators’ interpretation.The continuous exploration and study of Tao Te Ching not only facilitate a further understanding of itsphilosophical thoughts and cultural connotations, but also provide a meaningful reference for the Chineseculture to be spread around the world.