A Study Of Two English Versions Of Tao Te Ching From The Perspective Of Fusion Of Horizons

Tao Te Ching is a classical Taoism work which has a profound influence on many fields, such as culture, philosophy, religion and so on. From ancient times to modern times, different translators create their own translations of Tao Te Ching. Up till now, there are more than 400 kinds of translated versions of Tao Te Ching. Furthermore, many experts and scholars from different countries and historical periods make lots of researches about the translated versions of Tao Te Ching from different perspectives.Hermeneutics is a kind of theory or philosophy used for explaining and interpreting texts, so it no doubt has a strong guidance towards text analysis. This paper introduces some related concepts of fusion of horizons and discusses different horizons in the translation process to find the reason why horizon gaps exist among horizons of different translation subjects. At the same time, this paper describe the process of two fusions of horizons and summarizes how different horizons fuse in translation process in order to create a translated version which meet the expectation of target readers. Finally, the influential elements of degree of fusion of horizons are analyzed.This paper make a comparative study between Gu Zhengkun’s and Arthur Waley’s English versions of Tao Te Ching from the perspective of fusion of horizons. Differences between these two versions are analyzed at linguistic level and cultural level. Through a text analysis of two English versions, the author tries to summarize the influence of different horizons on translation and to find the reason why two translators adopt different translation strategies. This paper gives a brief description about how fusion of different horizons is achieved in these two versions. Through the comparative study of two English versions of Tao Te Ching, this paper shows the influence and guidance of Hermeneutics, especially the theory of fusion of horizons on translation.