A Report On Translating Yijing

Yijing,or The Book of Changes,has long been among the greatest classics in China.It has been developed through two thousand years of Chinese history.As is known to all,its influence has penetrated into every aspect of Chinese civilization,and the book is essential for foreigners to understand Chinese people's way of thinking and their culture.Therefore,the English translation of Yijing plays a vital role in transmitting Chinese culture globally Yijing has been widely disseminated overseas as early as the 17th century.However,most of the English versions do not differentiate the Classic(original text,700 years earlier than the Commentaries)with the Ten Wings(commentaries or interpretations by Confucius),which is no any longer feasible nowadays.Translation of Yijing by separating its Classic from its Commentaries is rarely adopted by now,leaving space for translators of Chinese classics.The source text of this translation report is from Yijing,including its Classic and related Commentaries.This translation practice is based on the separation of the Classic from its Commentaries.It comprises five chapters.Chapter One outlines the translation background and objectives,and the cause of the translation task.Besides,it reviews the latest archaeological researches and previous translations of Yijing and points out the necessity and significance of a re-translation on the basis of the separation.Chapter Two deals with pre-translation preparations.This part gives a description of the translation task,i.e.an introduction to the source text(including the type,language characteristics,and style of the text)and general qualifications for the translator,objective of and standard for the translation of Chinese classics,as well as objective of and principle for translating Yijing.Chapter Three presents how the translator comprehends the Classic by separating its Commentaries from three levels,including lexical level,syntactic level,and textual level.It also points out why the Classic and its Commentaries should be comprehended separately,and how it instructs the author'sfurther translation.At the lexical level,homonymy and judgement words are neglected in the Classic;at the syntactic level,the Classic is re-punctuated to analyze grammatical functions and identify the sentence constituents;at the textual level,the theme and style of the hexagram text are defined to stress the divinatory nature.Chapter Four exemplifies translation of Yijing after separating its Classic from its Commentaries from the three levels,comments on the mistranslations in the Commentaries and gives better translations.Chapter Five draws conclusions from the previous discussions and analyses.Conclusions are as follows.First,The Classic and the Commentaries differ in the lexical level.The text meaning of the Classic should be reinterpreted on the basis of their differences,no matter what category the words belong to.Second,the syntactic relation of the sentence in the Classic has long been fixed under the impacts of the Commentaries,which causes difficulties in exploring the original meaning and do the translation.But they can still be overcome with the help of syntactic analysis after re-punctuation of the sentence,namely,differentiation of the function words and notion ones;analysis of subjects,objects and verbs.Third,when it comes to reproducing the theme and the style of the text of the Classic,the style of hexagram,as being consulted,can be rendered into a lifelike one via present tense and more verbs,which helps to present vivid images and scenes to the readers.And by the investigation of what makes the text of a hexagram coherent,the theme will become evident.