A Study Of Culture-loaded Words In Tao Te Ching From The Perspective Of Translation Ecology

Literary classics are the precious cultural heritage. Chinese literary classics are as vast as sea and are asbright as pearls. Broad and profound philosophical writings, unique and incisive literary theories as well asexquisite and fine poems and songs are all the focal points of scholars all over the world. Thus, exploring thestatus and situation of the translation, spreading and accepting Chinese ancient philosophy thoughts and literaryculture in English world is of great importance.As the representative of Taoism, Tao Te Ching has a fairly high literary accomplishment. Tao Te Ching isnot simply the representative of Taoism; it is also a representative work of Chinese culture. It occupies animportant position in both of Chinese traditional culture and the spiritual life of the people. However, due tohaving a long history, abounding in connotations and being compiled in the classical literary style, Tao Te Chingcauses countless controversies; what is more, there are misunderstandings and divergences in its translationversions. It is still a long way to go to get perfect translation.The author believes that the translation ecology can be properly used to analyze some problems in theEnglish versions of Tao Te Ching. According to Professor Xu Jianzhong, the energy flow does exist in thetranslation ecosystem and it plays a vital role in this system. But Professor Xu Jianzhong doesn’t show how theenergy flow works. The author takes this job over and tries to establish the energy flow of the translationecosystem according to the energy flow in the natural ecosystem. Just like in the natural ecosystem, the energyflow in the translation ecosystem plays a vital part in ecological balance. It is proved that perfect energy flowwill assure a perfect translation. In this thesis, the author analyzes the culture-loaded words in Tao Te Ching, byapplying the theory discussed above. As for the translated versions the author uses in this thesis, Arthur Waley’sand Xu Yuanchong’s versions are employed.The research shows that if the translator wants the energy of thesource language can be fully understood by the target readers, the energy contained in it should be passed to thenext trophic level as much as possible. The perfect energy flow is not only the key point of producing translation,but also it is the key point to make the system keep healthy. The analysis on culture-loaded words in Tao TeChing from the perspective of translation ecology will give people some instructions in translatingculture-loaded words.