On Ku Hung-ming’s Retranslation Of Lunyu From The Perspective Of Bourdieu’s Cultural Production Theory

Translated works, retranslated ones included, take shape in a specific society and culture.The production of translated works, especially retranslated ones, is closely related tosocio-cultural factors. This thesis, taking translated works as cultural works in the targetculture, is to explain the production of the retranslated work of The Analects of Confucius(hereafter referred to as Lunyu) in the late years of19thcentury by Ku Hung-ming through thelens of Bourdieu’s theory of cultural production.Bourdieu sees cultural production as a field. And the field of cultural production owes itsstructure to the opposition between the sub-field of small-scale production or restrictedproduction, oriented to a market of other producers, and the field of large-scale or massproduction, catering for general public. The two sub-fields of cultural production are featuredwith different kinds of struggles. The sub-field of small-scale production struggles forcultural consecration, while the struggles in the sub-field of large-scale production are for theconquest of market, that is, as many readers as possible.At the same time, the field of cultural production proposes to cultural producers a spaceof possibles, which constitute the possibilities for the production of a cultural work. Whereasthe impetus for the emergence of different cultural works comes from struggles in theircorrespondent sub-fields. In short, the constant stream of new and different cultural works arefounded on a space of possibles, mediated by the dispositions of cultural producers andtriggered by the struggles in the correspondent sub-field of cultural production. The factorsoutside the field of cultural production just exert indirect influence on the production ofcultural works.With the above analytical framework, the thesis first explains the subfield of culturalproduction in the western culture in the19thcentury in which the translated works of Lunyuare situated. Then efforts are made to discuss the possibles for the production of a retranslatedwork of Lunyu. Finally, how Ku Hung-ming took various strategies to struggle with previous translators of Lunyu, especially James Legge in his retranslated work of Lunyu will beelaborated.This study will provide deeper insight for people into the production of a retranslatedwork. It will also help people to analyze the production of a translated work.