The Translation Of Philosophical Terms

The thesis is a report on the translation of Meaning in Life: The Harmony of Nature and Spirit,a book written by the American writer and philosopher Irving Singer.This report focuses on the issue of English-Chinese translation of philosophical terms.At present,the study of this issue,i.e.the translation of philosophical terms,has not attracted extensive attention.Many basic and widely used philosophical terms have not uniform and generally accepted translations yet.So it is necessary to explore this issue.In addition,three problems concerning philosophical terms call for solution when translating Irving Singer's book.They are:(1)terms of which the Chinese translations are likely to lead to misunderstanding;(2)terms of which the Chinese equivalents seem not to fully match their original definitions;and(3)terms that do not have generally accepted Chinese translations.In view of these problems,the principle of contextual correspondence and the principle of received usage are observed so as to convey the philosophical ideas in the target language.The report sets out to examine the translation methods of philosophical terms by analyzing the instances taken from the translation of The Harmony of Nature and Spirit.In the report,the author uses literal translation,free translation and zero translation.The report consists of four chapters.The first chapter is the task description,including the content and significance of the translation project.The second chapter gives a description of the process of how the translation project has been conducted.The third part is devoted to case studies,focusing on the problems,the principles and methods of translating philosophical terms.The fourth chapter summarizes the arguments of the whole report and the lessons the author has learned from the translation project.