Ames And Rosemont’s Translation Of The Analects Of Confucius: A Study From Philosophical Perspective

As a book that is representative of ancient Chinese classics, some scholars, such as ZhangYanzhen (2009) and Wang Dongbo (2008) have proposed that, The Analects of Confucius areequal to the Holy Bible, Confucius and Jesus Christ play a vital role in Chinese and the Westerncultures respectively. The Analects of Confucius manifests the essence and charm of the Chineseculture and, as such, the translation of The Analects of Confucius becomes a bridge ofcommunication and integration between the Chinese culture and Western culture.Research on the translation of The Analects of Confucius has received much academicattention. The majority of the research focuses on comparing of the different translated versionsof The Analects of Confucius; the translator’s subjectivity in translation or the study ofculture-loaded words from The Analects of Confucius. In addition, research articles interpret thecharacteristics of The Analects of Confucius from many different translation theory perspectives,such as ‘dialogue theory’ and hermeneutic perspective. Actually, The Analects of Confuciuscontains influential Confucian philosophical thinking and embraces a number of culturalperspectives that make it rewarding to study the philosophical values in depth.This thesis takes the translation version of Roger T. Ames and Henry Rosemont (1998) asthe principal object of study, and relates to the philosophical perspective of Roger T. Ames as thestarting point, whose ideas have proposed in his book Thinking Through Confucius. This is thencompared with the translated versions of The Analects of Confucius by James Legge (1861) andArthur Waley (1938). The intention of this work is to highlight the importance of translating TheAnalects of Confucius from a philosophical perspective.Ame’s philosophical process is rooted in comparative philosophy. This paper compares thethree translation versions (Ames&Rosemont, Legge and Waley) from the perspective of fourkey core concepts, namely,“Tian (tian)”, Tao (the way)”,“Te (excellence)” and “Xin(heart-and-mind)”.This study concludes that Ames and Rosemont’s translation, based deeply on a backgroundof educational philosophy, together with their ability to blend effective linguistic expression withconceptual clarity, makes it the most capable and exquisite translation and thus best suited for ameaningful exposition of the philosophical thinking in The Analects of Confucius.This thesis has made a constructive study on three translation versions from thephilosophical perspective by highlighting Ames and Rosemont’s philosophical thought having apositive effect on translation of The Analects of Confucius. It also expands the research field of the translation study of The Analects of Confucius, as well as promotes cross-culturecommunication and the spread of Chinese Classics.