A Report On The Back-Translation Of James Legge's Shu King Under The Guidance Of Tytler's Three Principles

This thesis is a translation report mainly based on a back-translation practice carried out by the author.The back-translation material is the English version of"The Book of Shan",the fourth part of Shang Shu,produced by James Legge in the Sacred Books of the East,Vol.V.As the earliest existent book in China and one of the most important Confucian classics,Shang Shu,or Shu King,as Legge calls it,is rich in content and profound in thought,and at the same time,opaque and clumsy in language,which make the reading of the Book very difficulty.Despite the difficulty,however,there were some daring and insightful people who would take the trouble to translate it into western languages.James Legge was the most excellent one of them.His rendering of Shu King,which was first published more than a century and a half ago,has been regarded as the "standard translation of Confucian classics" in the world sinology circle.Compared with Legge's other translations of the Chinese classics,his Shu King has received little attention both at home and abroad,most probably because of its difficulty.To help people who cannot,or have not the opportunity,to read Legge's English version of Shu King,the author of this report attempted the back-translation of it,that is,translating Legge's English version back to vernacular Chinese.But since Legge's English version consists not only of the translation of the Shu King text,but of introductory notes and footnotes written by Legge himself to help the reader in their comprehension of the Classic.In order to present the whole and original appeance of Legge's version of Shu King,the author of this report,besides back-translating the the text proper,translates all the notes as well.Legge's version of Shu King contains five books:The Book of Thang,The Book of Yu,The Book of Hsia,The Book of Shang,and The Book of Kau.The fourth book,"The Book of Shang",was selected by the present author for back-translation,with the guidance of Tytler's translation theory,especially the "three principles".In the translation process,the translator tried her very best to achieve faithfulness and expressiveness.The report is made up of five chapters.Chapter One is Task Description,wherein the source text and its author,together with the purpose of the translation,are introduced.Chapter Two is Translation Process,which includes pre-translating preparation,while-translating process,and after-translating proofreading.Chapter Three is the Theoretcial Framework of the Translation,in which Tytler's three principles and the reasons for choosing them as the theoretical guidance are discussed.Chapter Four is Case Study of the Translation.Specific examples are presented to illustrate the application of Tytler's three principles in the author's translation with regard to the content,the style,and the language.Chapter Five is the Conclusion of the translation practice.