On The English Translation Of Cultural Factors In Yu Dan Lun Yu Xin De From The Perspective Of Cultural Schema Theory

Chinese nation is endowed with rich and distinctive culture during its long history, and the wisdom revealed in its classic works has wide appeal all over the world. Confucian thought reflected in The Analects of Confucius, which lasts for over two thousand years, brings spiritual comfort and inspiration for people living in modern society where the material life has been greatly enriched. What’s more, the widespread of Confucian culture has exercised a profound influence on cultural communication in the world. Language is the platform for the cultural exchange, which further makes cultural translation a bridge for the Chinese culture to go across the linguistic and cultural barrier to the world. It also provides with translation study a great opportunity to transfer from those traditional studies based on linguistic level analysis to the study of cultural factors transformation, which also proves to be a breakthrough in translation studies. This thesis deals with Yu Dan Lun Yu Xin De and its English version from the perspective of Cultural Schema Theory. It is intended to probe the profound influence of cultural background information on the strategies adopted in cultural exchange and to present those translation strategies employed to introduce the distinctive Chinese culture to the world.Yu Dan Lun Yu Xin De is a new interpretation of The Analects of Confucius, which reveals the universally acknowledged wisdom in Confucian with a clarification of the way of the heaven and earth, the heart and soul, the world, junzi, friendship, ambition, and being in colloquial language. Its English version enjoys tremendous popularity among western readers for it unveils the life philosophy from Confucius with colloquial English and a full consideration of background information knowledge of these target readers. Cultural schema is the cultural knowledge structure stored in one’s mind, which is based on previous experience as a way of organization of past knowledge and experience. In light of Cultural Schema Theory, those cultural background knowledge existed in one’s mind plays critical role in the comprehension of new information, which paves the way for a shift of focus in translation studies in which has started to explore the translator’s comprehension of the source text and those factors involved in the target readers’understanding of the translation. Those translation studies done from this approach will significantly promote the cultural transmission and exchange with more advisable strategies.This study first concludes the development and progress in the translation studies from Cultural Schema Theory. It is found that the early studies are done to make use of schema theory to explain the translation process and point out the influence from cultural background information. With the further development of schema theory in China, the concept of cultural schema and its translatability was raised. Scholars then attempt to divide those cultural factors in cultural translation into three cases as cultural schema correspondence, cultural schema conflict and cultural schema default, and put forward relevant translation strategies. Those studies present the contents of Cultural Schema Theory and prove its feasibility in translation studies from the aspect of Cultural Schema Theory. The second part gives a detailed description of those three cases of cultural schema in translation and Roger T. Bell’s information process, provided as the theoretical framework for the later case study. The case study starts with a brief introduction of the source text and its English version and then probe into those three cases of cultural factors in the light of Cultural Schema Theory. It can be drawn from the case study that apart from the translator’s proficiency in the source language and target language, a successful transformation of cultural factors still requires a full consideration of contextual features so as to make those culture characteristics well accepted by its target readers.In general, this study is mainly concerned about the cultural factors transformation from Chinese to English in Yu Dan Lun Yu Xin De in the light of Cultural Schema Theory, which broadens the application of this theory in the translation studies and sets a successful example for the promotion of Chinese cultural advancement in the world. It is suggested that those translation strategies for Chinese classic works translation should be closely related to the contextual feature and the acceptance of its target readers so that these cultural factors from the source language can be reproduced in a natural way in the target language.