A Study Of The Translation Of Military Terms In James Legge's Tso Chuen From The Perspective Of Norm Theory

Zuozhuan is the first chronological history book with detailed narrative contents in Chinese history,and one of the Confucian classics,with great historical and literature value.The book records the political,historical,diplomatic events among various kingdoms during the Spring and Autumn Period,among which the description of wars and contradictions among different kingdoms is particularly important.Thus,the translation of large number of military terms in Zuozhuan needs deep research.Legge's translation version of Tso Chuen(1872)is the first English version and is still regarded as one of the authoritative versions until now.Thus,the translation of military terms in Legge's version is of great research value.Up to now,scholars abroad and home have investigated the advantages and disadvantages,and translation styles of Legge's translation texts,but exploring Legge's Tso Chuen from the perspective of translation norms is still rare.As a social-cultural behavior,translation is restricted by the original culture and target culture and influence the translators' decisions.Translation norm theory put translation text into the social-cultural background and explores the choice of the translator.Toury is the representative of translation norm theory and he classify translation norms into three categories of initial norm,preliminary norm and operational norm.Thus,this paper will examine the translation strategies and translation methods of military terms in ancient China from the angle of translation norm theory.Under the theoretical framework of Toury's initial norm,this paper intends to explore the military terms in Legge's English version of Tso Chuen and investigate the basic choice between acceptable translation and adequate translation by using literature research,case study and comparative analysis.This paper endeavors to answering the following questions: when does the translator adopt acceptable translation and when does the translator adopt adequate translation? What is the translator's tendency towards acceptable translation and adequate translation? What translation methods and strategies are mainly used in dealing with military terms? It is found that,in the translation process of military terms,transliteration,literal translation and annotation translation are often used.When there's same or similar equivalent in the target culture,Legge often adopts acceptable translation;when there isn't equivalent in the target culture or the term in the source culture has spectacular cultural characteristics,Legge often adopt adequate translation.And in general,the translator's tendency is acceptable translation.This paper conducts deep research in the English translation of military terms in Tso Chuen from the angle of translation norms.The findings of this paper have certain practical value and reference for translating military words and applying translation norms into practical research in the future and provide certain lessons for spreading Chinese culture and telling Chinese stories well.