A Study Of Wu Guozhen's English Version Of The Analects Of Confucius From The Perspective Of Resistant Translation Theory

The Analects of Confucius,a work of quotation about the words and deeds of Confucius and his disciples,is an important representative of classical Chinese cultural works and an important work for the advancement of Confucian traditional thoughts.Confucius is a great thinker and educator,whose ideological concepts and educational concepts have had a profound impact on the thinking and culture of both home and abroad.The Analects of Confucius is featured with ancient Chinese language and is highly representative in terms of words,rhetoric,and sentence patterns,representing the uniqueness of ancient Chinese.It is also one of the Chinese works that have been translated most frequently."A New Annotated English Version of The Analects of Confucius translated by Wu Guozhen(hereafter referred to as Wu Guozhen's English version of The Analects of Confucius)is a book recommended by the Confucius Institute Headquarters(Hanban).Its authoritativeness plays a vital role in spreading and promoting classical Chinese culture.By reading Wu Guozhen's English version of The Analects of Confucius,the author has found it different from the previous translated versions in many aspects,not only inheriting the advantages of previous translated versions,but also possessing its own outstanding highlights.The author thinks that Wu Guozhen's translated version manifests itself well in expressing Chinese Confucian culture in English and conforms to the era context of Chinese culture “going abroad”,which can play a decisive role in the promotion of Chinese Confucian culture.After reviewing the English translation of the Analects of Confucius,the author has found that the relevant researches have not involved the issue of how to highlight the linguistic and cultural heterogeneity of the source text in the English version of The Analects of Confucius.In view of this,this thesis selects Wu Guozhen's English version of The Analects of Confucius as the research object,and focuses on how Wu Guozhen highlights the heterogeneity of Chinese language and culture involved in The Analects of Confucius in order to achieve the goal of “going abroad” of Chinese culture,especially Confucianism.The alien Chinese culture has been more fully preserved and conveyed in his English translation,so that it can better “going abroad” and be accepted by the English-speaking world.To do so,the translator needs to highlight the linguistic and cultural differences contained in the source text in the translated text.However,most of the traditional translation theories are based on domestication,emphasizing that the translation should be consistent with the target culture,so as to achieve the goal of easy understanding and emphasizing the invisibility of the translator.It will,to a certain degree,cause the loss of cultural differences and heterogeneity of the source text,finally hindering the spreading of the source culture.The resistant translation theory,put forward by Lawrence Venuti,promotes the foreignization of translation and upholds the difference of the original text.Venuti believes that the purpose of highlighting the differences and heterogeneity of the original text can be achieved only by breaking the mainstream cultural norms of the target language.Venuti advocates foreignization translation and opposes the tradition of domestication in the west.The core of Venuti' theory is to create a translation theory and practice that resists the mainstream cultural values of the target language,thus highlighting the differences in the language and culture of foreign language texts.The author believes that Wu Guozhen' s translated version is able to achieve this goal via embodying the differences between the Chinese culture and the English culture and displaying the heterogeneous Chinese culture to English-speaking readers.By reading his translated version,target readers can appreciate the culture connotation of the source text.Under the guidance of this theory and through the study on Wu Guozhen' s English version of The Analects of Confucius,the author finds that the translator tends to use the translation strategy of foreignization to translate culturally-loaded words and Confucian cultural factors in his book.In the process of translation Wu Guozhen,the translator has conveyed the Confucian culture “faithfully” in his translated version,and presented the foreignness of the Chinese language and culture to the target readers.It can help the target readers who are learning Chinese culture understand and learn more deeply about Chinese culture,especially Confucian culture.The thesis holds that in order to realize the purpose of spreading the source culture,the translator should highlight the heterogeneity of the source text both linguistically and culturally,and make the translator visible in his/ her translated version.The thesis holds that in the current situation of a strong invasion of the British and American cultures,the translators are obliged to adopt appropriate translation methods during the English translation of Chinese classics and to preserve the differences in Chinese language and culture in their translated versions and to retain the foreignness of Chinese language and culture,which can help to achieve the purpose of making the target readers better understand Chinese language and culture,thereby promoting Chinese culture to “go abroad” and promoting Chinese traditional culture.