A Study On English Sinologist Lionel Giles’s The Sayings Of Lao Tzu

In 1842,French Sinologist Stanislas Julien published a translation of Tao Te Ching（Le livre de la voie et de la vertu）,which was later translated into English by British Sinologist John Chalmers.And thus the Tao Te Ching entered the English world.Meanwhile,the translation of the Tao Te Ching developed rapidly.The translation history of Tao Te Ching is generally divided into three stages in the academic circle.The Sayings of Lao Tzu is the last version of the first stage.Lionel Giles broke down the whole text and reclassified it according to his own understanding,reflecting a very bold translation strategy.This paper takes The Sayings ofL ao Tzu as the research object and places it in the translation history of Tao Te Ching to investigate the inheritance and development of the translation tendency in the first stage,highlighting the "Sinological coordinates" of The Sayings of Lao Tzu,and further revealing the characteristics of the development of the Tao Te Ching research in the English-speaking world at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.The paper is divided into four parts as follows:The first chapter is the introduction,mainly discusses the significance and motivation of this paper;To sort out the current research status of Lionel Giles and The Sayings of Lao Tzu,in order to advance the research on the basis of the predecessors.The second chapter introduces Lionel Giles and The Sayings of Lao Tzu.First of all,the paper combs the life of Lionel Giles.He began to learn Chinese after entering the British Museum and became a Sinologist following the footsteps of his father,Herbert Allen Giles.But he did not get due attention because of his personality.This paper will summarize the origin of choosing The Sayings of Lao Tzu as the research object through sorting out his life and sinology achievements.Then a brief introduction is given to The Sayings of Lao Tzu.This translation has been published 21 times and is still being published in 2021,fully reflecting its enduring academic value.Finally,this paper discusses the thought of Lionel Giles on Taoist philosophy,and expounds the new understanding and attitude of Sinologists,who is in the position of connecting the preceding and the following to "Tao".This chapter combines the concept and thought of"Tao" with Lionel Giles,and tries to present the reception of Tao Te Ching in the Englishspeaking world from the perspective of Sinologists in a specific period.The third chapter is the text research of The Sayings of Lao Tzu,which is the focus of this paper.There are two main parts.First of all,this paper reviews the translation history of the first climax of the translation of Tao Te Ching,focusing on several representative works of this stage:The translation of James Legge and the translation of Herbert Allen Giles,in order to show the main characteristics of the translation of Tao Te Ching at this stage,and to further analyze the inheritance of translation strategy of this stage in The Sayings of Lao Tzu.Secondly,this paper compares The Sayings of Lao Tzu with the translation of James Legge’s and Arthur Waley’s,and explores the development and breakthrough of Lionel Giles’ translation of words through a detailed analysis of the four culture-loaded words "道","德","无为" and "自然".The fourth chapter is the conclusion.Based on the previous research and comments about The Sayings ofL ao Tzu from book review websites,the objective position of this translation in academic history has established.This translation is a little immature in interpretation,but the translator,standing on the shoulders of his predecessors,has made all kinds of efforts and attempts to interpret and translate the text,showing the attitude of translation in the new social context.At the same time,it can be concluded that "translation changes with circumstances" in the process of translation of Chinese cultural classics,and the change of translation strategy can’t be accomplished in an action.