A Study Of Three English Versions Of Taijiquan Terms From The Perspective Of Translator’s Subjectivity

Taijiquan is a quintessence of Chinese Wushu and the production of Chinese culture and philosophy. Taijiquan terms concentrate the essence of Taijiquan and have strong capacity of loading culture, which influence the spread of Taijiquan in word, meaning and culture. In the internationalization of Taijiquan, translation is the first step of spreading Taijiquan overseas while Taijiquan terms translation is the first step of Taijiquan translation.For decades, various English versions of Taijiquan have been increasing, leading to different translations of Taijiquan terms. The diversity of English versions is closely linked with the translator’s subjectivity which plays a key role in the translation process and impacts the style and interpretation of the target language. The thesis attempts to make a study on three English versions of Taijiquan, i.e. versions of Yang Zhenduo, Yang Jwing-Nfing and Louis Swaim from the perspective of the translator’s subjectivity and based on skopos theory and theories of hermeneutic. In these three versions of Taijiquan terms, the translator’s subjectivity is fully displayed, which will be discussed and compared from four aspects, such as in the selection of the source language text and strategy, the comprehension of the source text and the reproduction of the target language text. It hopes to compare different translation of Taijiquan terms and discuss the reason behind the phenomenon.In comparative study, the thesis comes to the conclusion:the manipulation of translator’s subjectivity is an important factor leading to the existence of multiple translated versions of the same Taijiquan terms; when comparing different translated versions of the terms, translators should be considered in order to better promote the practice of Taijiquan terms translation and even Wushu translation. At the same time, it is hoped that the study could attach importance to the translation of Taijiquan and Chinese Wushu and help deepen people’s understanding of the translator’s subjectivity.