Cultural Mediating Strategies In Transferring Taoism In Shi Ji Into English

Taoism, as an essential part of Chinese culture, boasts a time-honored history. It exerts extensive and profound effects on Chinese culture, especially on Chinese philosophy. In essence, Taoism occupies an unshakable position in the history of Chinese philosophy. Shi Ji, as the first biographical history book in China, enjoys great reputation in the literary history of the world as well. Taoist philosophical thoughts contained in Shi Ji is worth investigating.The cultural turn in translation studies at the end of the 20th century has infused new vitality into translation studies. The relationship between language, culture and translation has become a very important research subject in translation studies, especially the intertwined relationship between culture and translation. At the same time, the role of the translator has gradually drawn more and more attention from translation researchers.Since the very beginning of translation activities, the role of the translator has undergone lots of changes from the role of bilingual mediator who must comply with the intention of the original author or the meaning of the source text to the role of cultural mediator who enjoys some degree of subjectivity and then to the role of rewriter who is constrained by the target culture and serves the purpose of the target audience. This undoubtedly exhibits greater concern about the translator’s role in the circle of translation studies. These changes also help to make people become conscious of the importance of cultural elements in translation. The translator can facilitate effective cross-cultural communication by making some appropriate cultural mediation in the process of translation.The present thesis aims to investigate the role of the translator as cultural mediator by taking examples that embody Taoist philosophical thoughts from Shi Ji and the corresponding translations in Records of the Grand Historian translated by Burton Watson and The Grand Scribe’s Records translated by William H. Nienhauser, Jr. Its major focus is on translation strategies for mediating cultural differences between the source text and the target text in terms of transferring thoughts of Taoist political philosophy, Taoist natural philosophy, Taoist epistemological philosophy, Taoist philosophy of life, Taoist moral philosophy and Taoist regimen philosophy. It seems that the two translators have employed various and different strategies for properly mediating cultural differences between the source text and the target text. The reason why the two translators adopt different translation strategies to-mediate cultural differences between the source text and the target text is that their translation purpose and target readership are different.