A Report On The Translation Of Lunyu(Excerpts) In The Perspective Of Semantic Translation And Communicative Translation

With the international exchanges getting increasingly frequent, China’s influence in the international arena is becoming more and more important. The extensive, profound and vibrant Chinese ideology and culture shows greater attraction to the world. As one of the traditional classics, Lunyu directly reflect the Confucius’ thoughts and wisdom through narrating the speeches between the Confucius and his disciples with concise sentences. A great number of western scholars conceive strong interests in Lunyu; therefore, Lunyu is being widely translated. Among English versions, the Ku‘s version(a Chinese scholar)’s translation and that of James Legge(an English missionary)’s have been recognized as the standard versions.Both Ku Hung-Ming(a famous scholar from the end of Qing Dynasty and the beginning of Republic of China) and James Legge(a Scottish protestant missionary and sinologist) were well-known in the field of Chinese classics translation, especially Lunyu. The two English versions of Lunyu have been controversial since their republication. Ku Hung-Ming explicitly pointed out that the purpose of translating Lunyu was to "let ordinary English readers can understand this Chinese brochure, which gives Chinese wisdom and virtues."(Ku Hung-Ming,2011)communicative translation was more widely used in his version than that of James Legge. In Newmark’s view, semantic translation and communicative translation is not the opposite, and reasonably using the two methods in translation is the key. Research on this aspect can be meaningful. This paper selects the two English versions of Lunyu as the research objects, and analyzes their characteristics in the perspective of semantic translation and communicative translation, as well as the application of two methods of translation. The author may put forwardsome opinions and complete her own translation practice.