A Comparative Study Of Two English Translations Of Chuan Xi Lu From The Perspective Of Polysystem Theory

Chuan Xi Lu,containing all the major philosophic ideas of Wang Yangming,a famous scholar in the Ming Dynasty,is one of the most significant Chinese philosophic works and the prerequisite for the study of the School of Mind.Since Chuan Xi Lu was recorded in The Complete Works of Master Wang Wencheng in 1572,it had been rendered into various languages and introduced overseas,having influenced the East Asia and the West to some extent.So far there have been only two full English translations of Chuan Xi Lu,respectively rendered by Frederick Goodrich Henke(1876-1963)in 1916 and by Wing-tsit Chan(1901-1994)in 1963.The periods when these two translations came out,the historical and sociocultural contexts of both China and America were diverse,and there were many differences in the language features of two translations and in translation strategies adopted by two translators.Polysystem Theory was proposed by Israeli scholar Itamar Even-Zohar(1939-)in the 1970 s.Even-Zohar considered all the semiotic phenomena to be heterogeneous and dynamic systems and each of them had its center and periphery.This theory freed translation studies from the linguistic level and put them in a macro historical as well as sociocultural context;it emphasized the positions of translated literature within the target literary polysystem and provided a wider scope for translation studies.Since Polysystem Theory was proposed,it had been applied to studies on plenty of English translations of Chinese classics.However,through literature retrieval of databases including CNKI,Wanfang Database,Vip Database and so on,it is found that when this thesis is written,there has temporarily no Chinese scholar conducting a comparative study of Henke's and Chan's English translations of Chuan Xi Lu from a polysystematic perspective.Based on Polysystem Theory,this thesis conducts a comparative study of Henke's and Chan's English translations of Chuan Xi Lu.This study is developed mainly with descriptive and contrastive methods,intending to find out historical and sociocultural motivations for these two translations and reasons for their differences in language features as well as translation strategies.Specifically,first,according to the concept of‘system',sociocultural motivations for Henke's and Chan's selection of the source texts are explored;second,the positions of English translated literature within Americanliterary polysystem respectively in the periods when these two translations came out,and in accordance with the positions of English translated literature,main translation strategies adopted by two translators are illustrated at lexical,syntactic and stylistic levels;third,based on the concept of ‘repertoire' and the historical and cultural analyses that have been done,the language features of two translations are discussed?It is proved in this thesis that translation is not only a linguistic activity but also a comprehensive product of various historical and sociocultural factors.Therefore,it is necessary to take both internal and external factors into consideration to make translation studies more comprehensive and objective.Besides,it is also evident that Polysystem Theory can be well applied to translation studies.