Culture And Translation:A Case Study Of The Translation And Spread Of Popular Tibetan Buddhist Ideas Through Khenpo Tsultrim Lodoe Rinpoche's Are You Ready For Happiness

This thesis analyzes the influences of culture on the practice of translation,and on the interpretation of translated texts.To this end,it employs a case-study of the original Chinese and translated English versions of Are You Ready for Happiness?written by Tibetan Buddhist scholar Khenpo Tsultrim Lodoe Rinpoche.By employing three methods--comparative reading,elicitation-based survey,and interview--the researcher found that one's cultural group,native language,and religion affected one's interpretation of the book.In specific,the survey results demonstrated a highly statistically significant effect of cultural group on change in attitude.Tibetans were much less likely to report a change in attitude than people of other nationalities.This analysis therefore shows that cultural group has a greater influence than religion on one's tendency to experience a sense of transformation upon reading the Tibetan Buddhist text.Native language significantly was correlated with respondents' comparisons of the Chinese and English versions of the text.Native Chinese speakers were significantly more likely than native Tibetan and native English speakers to describe the Chinese version as more explicit.Religion affected the responses about definitions of happiness and suffering in two ways : Religion affected the likelihood of providing a personal example of happiness related to achievement(those with no religion were most likely to do so).And,religion affected the likelihood of defining suffering as related to desire(Buddhists were most likely to do so).Also,these methods found that a translator's education and cultural background enormously aided in the effectiveness of the translation of Buddhist ideas.The case study found that translated texts,themselves,can influence the culture from which the source text originated.Therefore,it is through translation that cultural exchange occurs;this exchange is not unidirectional,but mutual,with both the languages and cultures of the source and target texts influencing one another.Thetranslation and spread of ideas from Tibetan Buddhism to people of other cultural backgrounds was indeed beneficial for their views of happiness and suffering.In this thesis,the researcher considers these results in conversation with contemporary translation theory from both China and the West.The thesis' main contribution is its holistic analysis of the effects of culture on translation.It also suggests the imperative of multilingual exchange,through both the learning of new languages and the work of translation.More specifically,it provides a novel contribution by bringing theories of globalisation and localisation to bear on the cultural translation not between nations,but within the Chinese nation itself.